Entrants's Name: Souadou Diabate

Country: Mali

Field: Economic Development

Innovation - idea: This system is put in place to increase the procurement operation and the financing of the local producers of shea products. The final result is the successful marketing of shea products (the nut, the butter and the products)and the shortening of the list of intermediaries between the women and the buyers.

Innovation - why it is pioneering: This intervention has permitted an increase for the revenue of the producers tied to shea production by 300%, permitting the fixing of wages and benefits for young girls (adolescent) who are at the heart of the group.

Strategy - how it achieves impact: This approach directly intersects on the interest of the women and adolescent girls in the rural area of Mali and Burkina Faso. The improvement of the quality is realistic and rests easily with the conviction of the women with regards to the enterprise. That is the girls (adolescents,) formerly known as the non- remunerated (volunteers) in the working groups are taken today by the heart of the production groups as a whole like the employees of the same job titles of their mothers.

Strategy - growth plans: The AMPJF endorses the groups of rural women as the fundamental unit of production, the popularization for the improvement in quality of the shea products in partnership with the ProKarite Project (CFC), the organization of peasant communities through organizing, structuralizing, informing and the formatting.

Impact to date: This innovation permits the increase of the sales price of shea butter at the village level by 50% KG and 300% at the level of the markets and the supermarkets (of 250 FCFA to 500FCFA at the level of the village; 2000F CFA at the city level and exposition fairs) It permits more than the advancement of the production and the productivity of the shea nuts and the quality of the butter. The implication of adolescent girls as salaried workers in the production circuits of shea butter is an innovation that allows for the decrease of: • rural exodus • trafficking of girls • contributing to the fight against HIV/AIDS and STDs • breaking prostitution of girls as a source of income.

Future impact: Our development plan is to but into place new units of production of shea products in all shea park zones of concentration just as we have placed the first stone of this project in Niagadina with a total cost of 122, 670, 735 CFA of which 15, 000,000 million was purchased with the support of the association MALIMUSO of (France) and the rest of the research. In 10 years, the producers of all of the zones of concentration of shea in Mali will be endowed with the techniques and applied technology for producing a shea butter at the quality to stimulate the benefactor’s price and the transformation in the of a sustainable human development in each location.

Sustainability - resource base: Our association is composed of community development and socio-cultural activity specialists that voluntarily support the activities of women and of children. The AMPJF actually employs 8 people in the heart of the organization. The AMPJF benefits from the financial support of the ProKarité project and the partners and associates from France. More then 2948 women are members. Each woman constitutes a household, thus 2948 households benefit directly. Each woman has on average 5 children to manage, thus 14740 children and 1474 husbands benefit indirectly.

Major challenge for the field: Due to the potential that shea butter represents in the national and international market, the principle role that the women play in the production process upstream and in the course of the production, it is necessary to make of them, with them, the producers of quality, and also the transforming and the manipulating of their proper products.

Contact Information:

Name: Souadou Diabate
Country: Mali