Rwanda: How Land O’Lakes CD4 USAID-Funded Project Streamlined Cooperatives’ Management, Competitiveness

By Elias HAKIZIMANA.

Cooperative organizations have a key role to play in facilitating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation at the global, national, and local levels.

To further the progress of such interventions, Land O’Lakes Venture37 has implemented the USAID-funded Cooperative Development Activity 4 (CD4) to strengthen the enabling environment for cooperative organizations in Rwanda and Malawi, which has tailored support to apex organizations to strengthen their business performance and self-reliance, enabling them to become a more powerful force for long-term sustainable development according to testimonies.

As this project comes to an end, a workshop to review the achievements has taken place in Kigali on October 24, 2023.

According to Jean Damascene Nyamwaya, the USAID Representative in Rwanda in this workshop, the project has had a bigger impact that is based on the institutionalization of cooperatives’ management.

He suggested the establishment of Cooperative Development Activity 5 (CD5) to continue streamlining the functionality and management of cooperatives in Rwanda. 

“Land O’Lakes showed us a good example in regard to what Rwandans want,” says one of the development partners.

Dr. Patrice Mugenzi, Director General of Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) commends the efforts of different partners who contributed towards cooperatives’ development.

“I can testify many things showing that a cooperative is a way to sustainable development, I can encourage everyone to use CD4 teachers’ methodology to respond to the problems of cooperative management and profitability,” Dr. Mugenzi told cooperative leaders, urging them to strive for home-grown solutions.

“Let us all help our cooperative member to thrive, when s/he thrives, it will contribute to the entire nation’s development,” he added.

Dr. Mugenzi said that the project has proved a tremendous achievement due to the efforts invested by different partners.

“I can also recommend other projects to learn from Land O’Lakes’ achievements, I request presidents and leaders of cooperatives to enforce responsibilities that put forward the interests of the members, good governance indeed, ensures responsibilities to leaders to work for the interests of members, ensuring better property management by hiring a competitive staff,” Dr. Mugenzi added.

He urged presidents of the cooperatives to stop conflicts with finance managers.

About Land O’Lakes

“Land O’Lakes is a USAID-funded project headquartered in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa. It works internationally and we appreciate that we have a representative in Rwanda who is a Rwandan working in the interests of Rwandans. However, its work at the local level is not copy-paste, Rwanda has its specialty, we have our own journey, and we still need to build development,” Dr. Mugenzi explained.

Willy Nyirigira, Deputy Chief of Party, CD4-Land O’Lakes, said that members of the cooperatives used to be the victims of bad management and internal conflicts caused by bad leaders in the past.

“We decided to train presidents, members, and workers to improve the management. We can see a lot of positive outcomes, the first one is benefits, which is the first target of all cooperatives. During the 4 years of cooperation, all the cooperatives under this initiative got benefits, some pay health insurance for their members, and they can give loans to members to pay children’s school fees,” Nyirigira said.

Cyprien Gahutu, President of Board of Directors of Gicumbi Livestock Cooperative Union (GILICU) shares the benefits of the training by the project.

“We got training in good governance of cooperative, finance management and trade. Before, we used to work in chaos, with the interventions of Land O’Lakes, we trained our members, and managed to establish a vet pharmacy that helps our members to improve dairy cows’ health; besides, we invested in a grazing farm project as a field school for our members to learn how to grow, store and feed quality feeds for dairy cows to increase farm productivity,”  Gahutu said.

CD4 project reached 77 organizations that developed tools and resources, and it has generally reached 7,912 cooperative members over the last years, with a 471 percent increase in the dollar value of income/services to members.

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