KAFO
Who we are
The KAFO Federation is a rural non-profit organization with a significant focus on peasants' empowerment in defending their historical and immediate rights and interests. Founded more than two decades (20 years), KAFO is one of the largest peasant organizations in Guinea-Bissau and sub-Saharan Africa. KAFO is the result of the genuine will of more than 25,000 peasants (women, young people and men) to actively define and implement their options for socio-economic, cultural and environmental development. Having a high focus on a community participatory, inclusive and integral approach. KAFO aims to contribute to eradicating poverty and ignorance, strengthening solidarity and social justice, watering and valuing rural cultural heritage, and preserving agrobiodiversity. These are the central axes of the noble mission attributed to the organization in the context of the commitment made to the peasant community of Guinea-Bissau.
The deep rooting of the KAFO Peasant Federation in rural communities in the North and East of the country (Oio, Cacheu and Bafata) provided the emergence of a distinct and well-established participatory peasant leadership at the service of agricultural and rural development. The popular base conquered over the years has given an extraordinary capacity for mobilization and congregation of peasants, in favour of local philanthropic and rural initiatives, integrated and sustainable. One of the peculiarities of KAFO is to be constituted of an Associative part directed by the peasants, considered the support "Firkidja" of the organization, and another Operational directed by professional technical staff, hired for technical assistance, management and administration, follow-up and evaluation of projects and programs implemented in the communities. KAFO constantly seeks to develop and diversify partnerships with peasant organizations and social movements, NGOs, Networks and Platforms of Civil Society, University Institutions, Studies and Scientific Research, Foundations, Institutions of United Nations Systems, Government, Private Sector etc., It is about weaving synergies indispensable to the pursuit of the strategic objectives that led to the creation of the KAFO Peasant Federation. These partnerships are crucial elements for the effective incorporation of KAFO into national, sub-regional and international dynamics.
Our vision and mission
An autonomous peasant community, active and undeniable leader of an endogenous, sustainable and self-managed development process. "KAFO shares the vision of a rural world where peasant communities are autonomous and are a driving force for sustainable agricultural and rural development." The mission is to empower peasants for active participation in defining and managing their options for integral development. "It is the conviction of the KAFO Federation that peasants are the only ones empowered to define their options and priorities for socioeconomically viable and sustainable development." KAFO collaborates with spheres of power for greater involvement of peasants in the elaboration and monitoring of public policies to solve the historical and structural problems of the precarity of living conditions in rural communities
Our field of action
Five main axes characterize the field of action of the KAFO Federation: Technical and professional empowerment of peasants; Food security and the growth of the rural economy; Sustainable management of agro-biodiversity, community forests, and environmental preservation; Valuing cultural diversity; Education for development, defence of the rights and interests of peasants.
Rural extension
The Peasant Center of Djalicunda and its rural extension services is the biggest bet for training and technical assistance programs, strengthening operational, organizational and self-management skills, etc. The Center is essential to provide peasants with the skills necessary for implementing local development projects. In the long run, KAFO's dream is to transform the Peasant Center of Djalicunda into a Peasant Popular University, whose fundamental objective will be to value the African peasant's historicity, memory, and endogenous knowledge.
Agricultural and rural development
KAFO's agricultural and rural development strategy to improve the socio-economic well-being of the peasant class is primarily to reduce food dependency and affirm the right to food sovereignty, thanks to the construction of fairer and more resilient food systems, fundamental conditions for ensuring vulnerable entire local communities, safe, nutritious and sufficient food throughout the year. The main objective of this process of profound transformation of production systems is to achieve sustainable agriculture (agroecology) in response to food security challenges.
The system offers better production conditions that attract farmers and is the source of income for local people, confident in the opportunity for green jobs in a context of climate change: climate-smart agriculture (CBI). Annually, there are more than 23,000 peasants (62% of Women, 25% of Young People and 13% of Men), mobilized around 58,000 Ha of food crops, committed to an arduous permanent struggle against the food and nutritional deficit, thanks to increased agricultural production, improved productivity, rescue and vulgarization of local varieties of seeds necessary for agricultural diversification.
Rural Women
In Guinea-Bissau, Rural Women play a crucial role in managing and maintaining the family unit. To overcome the social barriers that hinder the socio-economic empowerment of Rural Women, equitable access to decent work and social protection, autonomy and accountability, etc., the KAFO federation's commitment to about 15,000 Rural Women, whose 10% are leaders in the communities, involves training, technical and professional training activities. It is about strengthening women's leadership, creating the material and financial conditions necessary for developing entrepreneurship in the fields of production, processing, marketing and marketing of local products (land products).
Rural Youth
Rural youth is the right arm and driving force of local development initiatives, poverty eradication, and the construction of new prospects for transforming rural areas into attractive spaces full of opportunities for social well-being and prosperity. For KAFO, the mobilization of youth tremendous generational poverty well-rooted in the rural world, and attracted by rural exodus and illegal emigration, etc., inevitably involves opportunities for professional reintegration and the creation of paying jobs through entrepreneurship and various initiatives that promote the rural economy. The future of rural areas is linked to the future of the youth that lives there. There are more than 6,000 Rural Youth, godchildren of KAFO.
Sustainable management of natural resources (agrobiodiversity), forests, and the environment
Agrobiodiversity is the basis of subsistence in Guinea-Bissau. In the country's rural communities, it contributes to the sustainability of food systems, the strengthening of functional agroecosystems and vast chains of ecological services, the protection of the landscape and soils, the health of ecosystems, the cycle and quality of water and air etc.
For the strengthening of this natural phenomenon, one of KAFO's bets is on the promotion and development of Community Forests (CF). More than a hundred CF (1.35% of the national forest heritage) contributes to preserving the environmental and territorial balance. Managed by local authorities, CF are fundamental to strengthening food security in the rural communities of Oio, Cacheu and Bafata, thanks to permanent access to biological resources (extraction of PFNL) in more than 520 villages for the benefit of more than 160,000 people, food and agriculture.
Information and Advocacy for the defence of the rights and interests of peasants
No doubt it's the peasants who feed the world. However, their immediate rights and interests are systematically violated, and they suffer from multiple discrimination. Peasants are regularly expelled from their lands or homily for claiming their rights. For the KAFO Federation, the defence of the interests of the peasant class involves the effective exercise of identity rights, fair access to land and various productive and financial resources, indispensable to ensure a decent subsistence in a challenging context characterized by extreme poverty
Partners
SWISSAID, EU, AFD, CFSI, AECID, New-Field, PAM, FAO, PRSPDA-BM