The Development of a Strategy Marie-Claire St-Jacques African Programs Staff, Rural Agricultural Entrepreneurship, Burkina Faso Engineers Without Borders Canada marieclairestjacques@ewb.ca
In 2008, following the recommendation of its partners, the Rural Agricultural Entrepreneurship team (Entrepreneuriat rural agricole - ERA) began working on building the capacity of Farmers’ Organizations (organisations paysannes - OPs) by implementing the Family Farm Support Service (Conseil à l’exploitation familiale - CEF). By 2010, the team faced major obstacles in the implementation of this strategy, leading several members to devote more of
the team decided to refocus its strategy on marketing. This decision prompted us to rearticulate our strategy and the assumptions behind it. As we reviewed our assumptions regarding marketing, it became obvious that we had based both our marketing activities, and now this change of strategy, on a set of assumptions that had not been rigorously tested. As our marketing investments grew to the point of eventually exceeding our CEF investments, the team validated certain assumptions at the level of the OP, but never verified the value of investing in this service for the producer, independently of the CEF. We had seen an opportunity in the area of marketing, and were pursuing it, but we had left several important questions unanswered: • What are the producer’s reasons for marketing with an OP? What are the advantages? • For the producer, what would constitute a desirable marketing system? • Is the OP the entity best positioned for procuring this type of service?
We had seen an opportunity in the area of marketing, and were pursuing it, but we had left several important questions unanswered.
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their time to strengthening a group marketing service for their partner OP. We saw an investment in marketing as a new means to eventually achieving CEF objectives, and by 2011, the team investments directly related to the CEF, as opposed to marketing, were less than 20% of total investments. Finally, in September 2011,
This error had three major implications for the ERA team: • A weak synergy between the activities of each team member and the strategy • Difficulty creating a network of partners, or positioning ourselves relative to the myriad of organizations