work area 02: Financial management
This work area comprises the organization of FinBase seminars and similar initiatives to enhance the financial management of farmers organizations. Financial autonomy is a subject that came on the agenda within IFAP in 1992 (check Towards Self-supporting Farmers’ Organizations, IFAP, Paris, 1992). Most agri-agencies have activities geared to this in support of farmers organizations. There is a general belief that deficient financial management has prevented farmers’ organizations from assuming their role in development cooperation that would be rightfully theirs on the grounds of their importance and influence as a development-relevant target group. And for the ones chosen by donors, the danger of being cuddled to death lurks around the corner. Financial management has therefore been targeted as a an important subject in is dealt with in so-called FinBase seminars and deliberate follow-up activities to improve the farmers organizations on the usual financial indicators (solvability, liquidity, profitability). The activities in this area aim to improve the financial management up to the point that farmers organizations could SomPlan their budgets. SomPlan was launched in 1999 at the IFAP-World Bank seminar ‘Strengthening Producer Organizations’ and has since become a part of Agriterra’s approach. SomPlan is a method for organizations with excellent financial management, and as such, more of a target standard than a rule. We believe we can let approximately 50 organizations take part every year over the 2007-2010 period. In addition to seminars, there are also customized programmes for selected organizations. In 90% of the cases, we can measure progress in financial management via participation in FinBase.