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Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) was established in June 1993 and incorporated with the Kano state Government as a community Development Association in 1995 and later registered with the corporate affairs commission in 2007 with its headquarters in Kano. WOFAN now functions in 7 states of Nigeria.
WOFAN partners and works with a mobilized, registered multipurpose cooperatives, CBOS, community service groups, private sectors, trade groups and research institutions towards achieving a holistic development of the general populace in the areas of agriculture, education, enterprise development, climate change adaptation, water and sanitation through building business models with communities to address their basic and strategic needs holistically.
In 2017 WOFAN’s application to graduate to “Women Empowerment Foundation” received the legal approval of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) of Nigeria. The new outfit supports WOFAN’s strides in making a difference in pushing a people and community-owned partnership and collaboration with all arms of governments, the private sector, NGOs, traditional and community structures as well as donor agencies to stimulate self reliance and sustainable growth and development of the populace.
This extra effort is expected to bring additional complementary strength and shared responsibilities in supporting the common goals of the less privileged, disadvantaged and the voiceless , thereby assisting them scale up their enterprise skills and become managers of their own development.
Presently, WOFAN has 4500 clusters of women, men and youth groups of 30 members per group across 7Northern States of Nigeria of which 75 % of its membership are women .
WOFAN aspires to scale up its outreach at a national level through partnership and collaboration with all relevant and interested stakeholders
Training its target groups across a wide range of matters, including leadership development, Advocacy, business management,
Building synergies across agriculture value chain, food processing, improved family nutrition, food preservation
Educating people on the importance of water and soil conservation, sustainable environment & climate change adaptation, improved agricultural technology & livelihood and health awareness.
WOFAN is participatory and responsive in its approach. It works at the community level, with self – selection groups. WOFAN using PRA/PLA exercise, assists rural groups to identify their needs and draw up action plans for intervention. Each group chooses its own leaders, including president, secretary, and treasurer, and it is responsible for implementing WOFAN-assisted projects. In each community, there are at least two committees as explained below under management and organizational structure.
Membership in WOFAN is open to individuals and groups who believe in the organization’s goal and objectives and are willing to work together for their own development.
WOFAN generally involves the household in its activities with the aim of improving gender relations by encouraging the involvement of men and women in project intervention at all levels.
Within WOFAN, groups form themselves into 25-30 members each.
The groups are mainly unisex with 75% -80% being women and choose to engage in similar socio-economic activities.
WOFAN started with 28 members in 1993 and grew up to 50 members in 1998,
In year 2000, the membership sprang to 150 groups working closely with CTA- The Netherlands and expanded to 250 groups in 2003.
Through the intervention of the USAID and Coca-Cola Africa Foundation in a funded water project, WOFAN’s membership strength became 500 groups.
The USAID Nigeria water project supported WOFAN in a Water and Sanitation project which expanded the network to an outreach to 1500 groups of 30 members per group in 2014.
Presently, WOFAN has over 4500 rural mobilized groups of which 75% are women groups and 25% are male and youth groups between the ages of 18years to 35 years who are registered with WOFAN and their various state cooperatives or community development units of their LGAs.
To benefit from the services of WOFAN, a community groups must learn to work and partner together for a minimum of 6months and demonstrate good sense of leadership and unity within themselves. During this period, group members would have undergone some training to build their capacity in group dynamics and Enterprise management.
WOFAN groups are mostly non-literate who are helped to attain literacy level during its projects with them. In recognition of this, WOFAN has designed a curriculum called the “community women curriculum” which focuses on functional literacy programs that is completed within two years span. Also included in the group training are issues around basic health , vocational/ skills acquisition, agriculture and food nutrition trainings, good governance, economic empowerment and information and communication management.
Presently 2020-201, WOFAN leads a Rice value chain expansion project implemented across 7 states, including the Food and Nutrition security project funded by UNDP-GEF-FGN that targets 42,000 beneficiaries of which 75% are women groups and 25% are male and youth groups.
(a) Equity: Being sensitive and committed to reduce all forms of unawareness, discrimination with focus on the poor family economic and nutrition security for the disadvantaged and less privileged.
(b) Participatory processes: Having faith in people’s capacities and their institutions and building on such capacities for their own development.
(c) Accountability: Accountability with transparency.
(d) Collaboration: Developing synergies through networking, Team work and striving for quality, innovation, diversity and striving for success and quality with all sectors of relevant stakeholders ranging from private sectors, public, community and agencies..
· Pro-poor growth strategy.
· Sustainable livelihoods that improve nutrition and income strategy.
· Rights and empowerment strategy
· Resources and redistribution strategy.
The organization’s values are focused on poverty reduction strategies in a responsive and participatory manner as well as functional literacy /capacity building process towards achieving enhanced livelihoods, health, and governance, with capacity development as a cross-cutting issue.
The main sustainability strategy of WOFAN is encouraging ownership of both the soft and hardware components of the project by benefiting communities through the introduction of community self-help concepts, scaling up agriculture into profitable ventures through water and agricultural management, linkages to markets and financial benefits and giving women and youths a voice and opportunity to self-reliance.
Community members are mobilized and trained to participate in all planning activities for project implementation and clear understanding of project tracking and evaluation.
Trained cooperative groups and peer leaders are trained to step-down training where applicable and become mentors and peer models to other community members, thereby scaling up and revolving the project initiative.
Community based group trained are supported to form a sustainable monitoring structure at community level. These groups (mainly women), will gradually take over the monitoring and management of their project facilities and services, thereby ensuring that the facilities and services continue beyond the lifespan of the project, on a sustainable, long term basis.
Presently 2020-2021, WOFAN leads a Rice value chain expansion project implemented across 7 states, including the Food and Nutrition security project funded by UNDP-GEF-FGN that targets 42,000 beneficiaries of which 75% are women groups and 25% are male and youth groups.
Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) was established in June 1993 and incorporated with the Kano state Government as a community Development Association in 1995 and later and later registered with the corporate affairs commission in 2007 with its headquarters in Kano.
WOFAN partners and works with a mobilized, registered multipurpose cooperatives, CBOS, community service groups, private sectors and research institutions towards achieving a holistic development of the people.
In 2017 WOFAN’s application to graduate to “Women Empowerment Foundation” received the legal approval of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) of Nigeria. The new outfit supports WOFAN’s strides in making a difference in pushing a people and community owned partnership and collaboration with all arms of governments, the private sector, NGOs, traditional and community structures as well as donor agencies. This extra effort is expected to bring additional complementary strength and shared responsibilities in supporting the common goals of the less privileged, disadvantaged and the voiceless thereby assisting them scale up their enterprise skills and become managers of their own development.
Presently, WOFAN has 4,500 clusters of women, men and youth groups of 30 members per group across 7Northern States of Nigeria.
As part of its efforts to commence awareness on sustainable Development Goals 2 (SDG 2-) to “End hunger, achieve food security , improve family nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture”,
WOFAN has commenced a Nutrition awareness campaign to the rural communities of Kano state as an “add on”, to its ongoing increased agricultural activities that is targeting 7011 rural farmers and processors who are scaling up rice and groundnut production to increase income and family nutrition.
WOFAN in partnership with SONVISAGE Nigeria Ltd, a Health and Nutrition focused private sector in collaboration with LGA primary Health care kick started the exercise by setting up a mobile NUTRITION clinic in Dawakin Kudu LGA in January 2017 to screen the nutritional status of children under 5 years old.
The nutritional status of 20 children, consisting of 10 boys and 10 girls, was screened using the newly introduced GROWTH SCREENING WHEEL (GSW) developed by SONVISAGE Nigeria Limited with the support of WOFAN, which is a simple device that conveniently screens under 5 years boys and girls simultaneously that can classify their malnutrition levels into mild, moderate or severe malnutrition (Wasting/Stunting/Obesity) as the case may be; in a fun, easy to understand and interactive manner.
In addition to the GSW, the nutrition monitoring team also used an infantometer, a stantiometer and the weighing scale for the comparative analysis.
The weights and heights of older children(above 5years), were also taken and then measured on the GSW against WHO standards for each child’s age-group so as to conveniently present the standard z-scores of the weight-for-age, height-for-age, weight-for-height and other growth indices of the child.
Speaking during the exercise, WOFAN’s Health and Nutrition Team Leader, Dr. Nathaniel G. George explained that under-5 malnutrition is a serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest prevalence of hunger in the world.
He said, “In Nigeria, the North has the highest prevalence of malnutrition, with the insurgency in the North-East further worsening the situation.”
He further explained that the Growth Screening Wheel was developed as part of WOFAN’s efforts to stem the raging malnutrition in the country and contribute to the attainment of SDG 2 (Zero hunger) through effective and efficient monitoring of the growth of under risk children.
At the end of the exercise, the screening revealed that 5% of the target groups were severely wasted and 25% were severely stunted. It was also established that 75% of those in wasted and stunted categories were girls.
Mothers of the at-risk groups were immediately given nutrition advice and nutritional rehabilitation, using some of the highly nutritional foods produced by the WOFAN women groups such as the Babylac,( a highly nutritious , protein and nutrient rich baby formula) made from home grown grops that includes rice and groundnut. In addition, the health and nutrition team will continue to monitor these at-risk groups for another six months to track their progress.
The GSW was tested for the first time on the field at this event. And, its efficiency, user friendliness and interactive characteristics were established. The exercise also demonstrated the undeniable place of the GSW as a valuable tool for screening under-five years for malnutrition.