Clarmondial recently completed the first Technical Assistance (TA) project with gebana Burkina Faso, in collaboration with the SSNUP program. The project contributed to the Food Securities Fund (FSF) investment and impact objectives by achieving its targets across three interlinked priorities:
- Promoting women’s economic empowerment in Burkinabé farmers cooperatives: 110 female smallholder farmers from 5 cooperatives benefitted from training in leadership, management and decision-making.
- Ensuring smallholder farmers’ access to organic markets: internal controls and audits enabled 3’940 smallholder farmers across 3 farmer cooperatives to obtain organic certification.
- Promoting climate resilience through trainings: 2’420 smallholder farmers were trained on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
In May 2025, Clarmondial’s Elisa Cifiello and Soumaila Diakite visited gebana Burkina Faso to meet the project beneficiaries and assess the project results.
gebana Burkina Faso originates and processes mango and cashew for the European markets under organic and Fairtrade certifications. Working capital loans provided by the FSF help to ensure that gebana Burkina Faso has capital available at the right time, safeguarding the livelihoods of over 5’500 smallholder farming families from the Hauts-Bassins, Cascades, and Sud-Ouest regions. It also supports local value addition and jobs, as gebana Burkina Faso employs around 850 people (80% are women) to process cashews and mangoes.
Creating economic opportunities in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is a Least Developed Country (LDC) located in the Sahel with limited natural resources. Its economy is primarily based on agriculture and mining, where agriculture employs approximately 80% of the workforce. More than 40% of the population live below the national poverty line. According to the 2023-2024 Human Development Index (HDI) report by the United Nations Development Programme UNDP), Burkina Faso ranks 185th out of 193 countries.
In addition to creating social impact, the TA project has business relevance for gebana Burkina Faso and the FSF:
- There are proven economic benefits of women’s empowerment programs in agriculture. In Burkina Faso, female farmers produce on average 61% less harvest value than men, largely due to unequal access to resources, limited participation in leadership, and social norms. Evidence shows that training women in leadership and decision-making can increase economic outcomes and enhance farm productivity.
- The new EU organic regulation (Regulation (EU) 2018/848) means that gebana Burkina Faso’s supply chain was at risk of losing access to premium EU organic markets due to the cooperatives needing their own organic certificates.
- Supporting farmers to implement tested organic and resilient agricultural practices helps to ensure the continued supply of high-quality agricultural products.
This SSNUP TA program supports yield improvements in cashew and mango production, strengthens the resilience and productivity of gebana’s farmer network, and ultimately enhances gebana’s position as an FSF borrower.
gebana Burkina Faso sources from farmers based in the regions of Hauts-Bassins, Cascades, and Sud-Ouest.
1. Promoting women’s leadership in agricultural cooperatives
Strengthening women’s participation and leadership in agricultural cooperatives was a core component of the project. Burkinabé experts, native speakers in the local languages, trained 110 women from five cooperatives and networks in organizational management, gender equality, and leadership development.
The trainings enabled women to implement inclusive and participatory decision-making processes, as well as to manage the administrative aspects of cooperatives. The trainings also raised awareness and understanding on the importance of women’s leadership and participation in decision-making. They learned about how cooperatives are structured, including different roles and responsibilities of cooperative management, and practiced communication and conflict resolution techniques. Each session featured a female cooperative leader who shared her experiences serving in a leadership role, inspiring participants and demonstrating the feasibility of women assuming cooperative leadership roles.
When Clarmondial visited gebana in May 2025 and met with women who participated in the trainings, one woman said that, before the training, she hadn’t realized that women could even aspire to be on a cooperative’s management team. The experience gave her and other women the confidence to see leadership as attainable, and as a result, they plan to apply for cooperative management positions when they next open.
Several women said that they now feel more confident sharing their opinions in cooperative meetings and had shared the training content with other women in their network. Some said that they are considering founding female-led cooperatives. Various women interviewed mentioned that they felt more empowered at home and in their communities, including in the cooperatives. The desire for continued training is strong, where many women asked for longer and more frequent sessions, and there was shared interest from men and women alike to include men in future rounds.
Women participating in the women’s economic empowerment training program.
2. Ensuring continued access to markets through organic certification
The farmers supplying gebana benefit from access to the high-value EU organic market. The project supported farmer cooperatives in taking the next step in their development to retain market access by complying with the new EU organic regulation (Regulation (EU) 2018/848), which stipulates that organic certification must be held directly by farmers’ cooperatives as of 01 January 2025. The project enabled farmers across three cooperatives and three mango drying units to maintain organic certification in compliance with the regulation. In addition, gebana Burkina Faso took internal controls with 5’571 farming families to ensure that they are complying with the EU’s organic regulations, where the SSNUP project itself enabled 3’940 smallholder farming families to have continued access to the EU organic market. The successful certification of this supply chain not only ensures compliance but also marks an important step towards promoting local ownership of supply chains, supporting improved rural livelihoods.
This is particularly significant in the context of Burkina Faso, where few aggregators are actively supporting cooperatives and small processors in obtaining their own EU organic certifications. By setting a precedent, this project lays the groundwork for other businesses to follow suit.
Elisa Cifiello, fourth from the top right in a white shirt, and Soumaila Diakite, third from the top right in a dark blue t-shirt with members of mango and cashew cooperatives that benefitted from the SSNUP program.
Organic-certified mango drying unit supported by the SSNUP program.
3. Training in organic and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)
The third pillar of the project was training smallholder farmers in organic and GAP to increase productivity, quality, and sustainability of mango and cashew production.
2’420 farmers participated in trainings that included regenerative agriculture techniques such as orchard maintenance, soil fertility techniques such as green manure, mulching and intercropping, composting, and the production and use of biofertilizers and organic pesticides. In addition to core organic practices, the trainings also focused on good harvest and post-harvest handling, tree care, and cooperative management. Climate change adaptation was a central theme of the trainings, where the organic and GAP trainings were also designed to support farmers to build resilience.
During Clarmondial’s visit, farmers who had participated in the trainings stated that they were already seeing improvements in crop resilience and productivity, suggesting that even in the short term, the training is beginning to yield tangible benefits.
A cashew tree growing in a small organic farm that gebana works with situated in an agroforestry system.
Ousseni Porgo, CEO of gebana Burkina Faso, left, Elisa Cifiello, center, and Soumaila Diakite, right, visiting a mango and cashew producer’s farm in Burkina Faso.
Looking ahead
The outcomes of this first FSF TA project have been encouraging and instructive for both Clarmondial and gebana.
Building on this TA project, gebana will expand the gender training program as they aim to ensure that women are not just present as cooperative members but are actively considered for leadership positions. With support from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the women’s economic empowerment program will continue, and include male cooperative members. gebana is also exploring a new financial literacy training program targeted to women cooperative members. These trainings were requested by women farmers, contributing to greater financial literacy and promoting inclusive governance by increasing opportunities for women to join cooperative management teams.
Further regenerative agriculture and resilience programs are being developed, including on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and bio-pesticide access and use (in collaboration with the national Mango Council). Agroforestry programs are also planned in the sourcing areas.
Discussions are also underway to include women in financial management trainings, as these trainings are currently provided to cooperative management team members only.
SSNUP and what comes next
This project contributes directly to the FSF’s objectives by supporting sustainable land management, climate adaptation, and women’s economic empowerment, which are core elements of the Fund’s ESG Policy and Global Environmental Benefits targets.
It has also shaped Clarmondial’s design of a planned FSF Fund Technical Assistance Facility, which will focus on three primary areas:
- Local communities, women, and youth;
- Environment, through action on climate, biodiversity, and soils; and
- Sustainable economic development.
Clarmondial is also pleased to announce two new technical assistance projects under the SSNUP program: one in Nigeria on sustainable farming practices and increased market access for smallholder sesame farmers, and one in Honduras on regenerative agriculture through improving soil conservation practices for smallholder coffee farmers. These projects will continue to promote sustainable value chains, resilience, and inclusive growth across diverse agricultural landscapes.
SSNUP is a program funded by the Luxembourg Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the Liechtensteinischer Entwicklungsdienst. ADA ensures the coordination as well as the knowledge management component of the SSNUP program.
