Jessica Peck Shea Butter Cooperatives in Rural Mali I.

Introduction In recent development work, one of the most prevalent ideas has been accompanying people, and especially women, in lesser-developed countries to become economically independent. In Mali, NGOs are carrying this out by supporting womens cooperatives that sell all kinds of products, from crops to textiles. One product that has especially benefitted from these cooperatives is Shea tree extracts (both nuts and Shea butter.)1 In this report, I discuss one particular Shea-producing cooperative, Uyl, operating in Koutiala, Mali and its demonstrated economic and social benefits. I then draw some larger conclusions about working with cooperatives in Mali. II. Uly The Uly cooperative was begun in 1978, was established as an association in 2004, and was formally registered as a cooperative in 2009. The cooperative consists of 157 married women of the Kaniko village that work together to produce Shea butter, cream, laundry soap, and toilet soap (Davies et al, 3). The operations of the women are in the group are supported by many outside organizations, most notably Inter-Coopration Suisse (through their project SHISUN) and the Coopration Canadienne (through their project PAFAProjet dAppui aux Filires Agricoles). A few recent inputs from these organizations have included a literacy course introduced through PAFA (which helped 10 members of the group attain a high level of literacy) and a mill financed by SHISUN (Demebele, 20).

Mali has the potential to provide over one third the worlds shea nuts, let along butter. The annual yearly production potential of shea nuts in Mali is around 250,000 tons while the yearly production for the year is between 610,000 and 650,000 tons (Demebele, 8).

III. The Study The multiple reports referenced in this report come from findings from a study conducted by Oxfam International. They are an in-depth look at both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the cooperative (and many others like it), as compared to women vendors that did not belong to cooperatives. They sought to determine whether there was a measurable advantage to belonging to a cooperative as opposed to selling products alone. For the quantitative side of the report, Oxfam used the method known as Propensity Score Matching, which enabled [them] to measure the specific effects of a treatment performed on individuals (in the specific, participation in a formal collective action group), by comparing individuals who have received this treatment to individuals with similar characteristics who have not received the treatment (Serra and Kaminski, 10). Three potential sources of bias were accounted for in the study: (1) differences in the characteristics of individuals and of communities were taken into account by controlling for socio-economic and demographic characteristics of women members and non-members, (2) differences between characteristics that determine whether or not a formal group exists in an area and whether or not women join was determined to not be a significant factor because the origin and catalysts for these groups seem to be exogenous, and (3) the external effects of the groups on the marketing capabilities of non-members was controlled for by choosing control groups from villages with no existing formal group (Serra and Kaminski, 10). Data was then collected through questionnaires and investigation (Serra and Kaminski, 13). To gather qualitative information, Oxfam simply did interviews of the different actors implicated in the process, pour collecter les informations et pour procder dans une certain

mesure lanalyse de ces informations2 (Demebele, 15). In this way, Oxfam attempted to garner a good understanding of not only the workings of the cooperatives, but also their social implications. IV. Results The quantitative results (which were averages of those calculated for all 54 villages that took part in the study) were striking. Five main factors were studied: the net price difference (the difference between the unit sales price of the butter and the non-labor input costs per piece), the proportion of products sold (out of those made), the quantity of Shea butter produced, the net value of sales (the difference between total sales of traditional Shea butter and the purchase cost of inputs), and finally the net total sales value from all non-labor costs. The net price difference for a woman non-member was -0.02, a loss of revenue, as opposed to 2.31 for members. The share of production marketed by non-members was 58%, while it was 68% for members. Cooperative members produced on average twice as many Shea products as non-members in a given time frame, the net market value for non-members was 7,713.67 as opposed to 13,969.34 for members, and finally, the net market value of all Shea products for non-members was 8,035.97 versus 16,952.1 for members. The proportion of products sold, the quantity produced, and the net market value of all Shea products are statistically significant at a level of p<0.01, meaning that we have a 99% confidence level that there is a factor that differentiates the two groups (Serra and Kaminski, 28). These measures almost indisputably prove the economic advantage gained by women in joining a cooperative. The qualitative reports also state that social conditions have improved for women in cooperatives. They report that womens opinions are now solicited at town meetings, their
2

in order to collect information and to proceed with a certain measure of analysis of this information. (My translation)

business decisions regarding the cooperatives are respected, even among the men of the village, the additional funds they bring home gain them respect in the home, marriage dates are no longer fixed without the input of the mother, husbands solicit the opinion of their wives more in general, and women feel more autonomous in daily life (Davies et al, 22). As wonderful as all of these things sound, they are not supported by specific data or even quotes in the reports. This is one area these highly detailed reports generally glossed over, and a more in depth discussion of how they came to these conclusions would be necessary to take very seriously the successes they herald. V. Conclusions and Recommendations It is fairly obvious from the information presented that Shea butter cooperatives in Mali are effective at helping women to earn more money selling the things that they would be selling anyway. They also may have very important implications for gender equality issues, though these would need to be further researched, or at least more adequately corroborated, to state for sure. The next question is how an NGO would go about helping them to succeed. Several of the reports produced understandings of the most serious challenges facing Uly. Some of these include: a lack of working capital, difficulty in acquiring raw material (especially for women), limited processing equipment, far away markets, lack of customers, lack of training (Vigneri, 27), insufficient marketing strategies (Demebele, 7), insufficient demand for new products, need for more appropriate wrapping, and insufficient transportation (Demebele, 25). They also supplied many, many suggestions to governments and NGOs in order to ameliorate the situation for the cooperatives, among which the most helpful seemd to be the following: increase infrastructure (Serra and Kaminski, 31), provide funds for new supplies, and supply funds to aid in advertising new products on the radio (Demebele, 25.) While these

suggestions were made in the context of Shea butter production, I think that they are highly relevant to the work that Rubia is looking to accomplish as well. Rubia should keep in mind the above challenges as it seeks to support women working in textiles cooperatives.

Works Cited Demebele, Koulougnna. "Recherche sur laction collective des femmes au Mali, Phase III: Etudes de cas." Oxfam International (2012): n. pag. Oct. 2012. Web. Nov. 11. (2) Davies, Imogen, Sally Baden, Dr, Edmond Dembele, Malga Lalla Mariam Haidara, and Dr. Carine Pionetti. Transformational change for women and their communities. Oxfam International (2013): n. pag. Feb. 2013. Web. Nov. 11. (1) Vigneri, Marcella. Researching Womens Collective Action Project, Phase III: Quantitative Design and Methodology. Oxfam International (2012): n. pag. Oct. 2012. Web. Nov. 11. (3) Serra, Renata and Jonathan Kaminski. Womens Collective Action Research Project, Phase III: Mali Country Report. Oxfam International (2012): n. pag. Oct. 2012. Web. Nov. 11. (4)