Impact evaluation of coffee cooperative in the Dominican Republic

Location Sierra Neyba, Dominican Republic

Duration 2011

Client  Oxfam Italy

Funding European Union and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Context

Since 2003, in the Sierra Neyba, Oxfam Italia has implemented numerous rural development projects in order to promote the improvement of the economic conditions and the life quality of small coffee producers and the improvement of the quality of the cultivated products.

In particular, Oxfam Italia has favored the creation of a local cooperative of coffee producers. The COOPROCASINE cooperative was officially created in 2007 with the general objective of bringing together all the women and men producers of high quality coffee from the Sierra de Neyba, provide them with support services and promote their competitiveness and sustainability.

The birth of the cooperative was supported by the identification of the best associative form, training promoters and community leaders, conducting insights on gender awareness, strengthening their skills and supporting the elaboration of the statute, the vision and objectives of the cooperative.

General objective

ARCO researchers conducted the impact assessment of the projects that led to the creation of COOPROCASINE to understand the effects and consequences on an economic, relational and social level on the entrepreneurs gathered in the cooperative.

The assessment was conducted through the lens of the Capability Approach, which allowed them to build multidimensional indicators.

Our contribution

The evaluation was articulated in the following phases:

  1. Analysing the various elements and processes that affected and characterized the project, including the identification of all relevant stakeholders
  2. Interviewing stakeholders
  3. Presiding over focus groups that asked the beneficiaries of the coffee cooperative to discuss the impact of the project on several dimensions, and vote on the most relevant ones
  4. Designing and distributing questionnaires
  5. Data analysis

The impact assessment has allowed Researchers to suggest  Cooperative and to Oxfam Italia to improve activities to strengthen the capacity to produce other products, to introduce organic agriculture without the use of pesticides and to promote greater training opportunities to improve the skills of the producers. and expand their ties.


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