Financing of Draft Animal Power in the Context of State Disengagement: Learning from the Cases of North- Cameroon, Eastern Burkina Faso and the Groundnut Basin of Senegal

Abstract

Accessing draft animal power with capital resources is difficult for the most vulnerable farm households because of the level of investment needed. They must then depend on loans. In West and Central Africa, public financing of draft animal power helped equip large areas where cash crop production is practiced. However, these set-ups did not prove to be sustainable and are today continuously regressing. In the vacuum left by the State, institutional innovations are developing, boosted by peasant organizations and microfinance. These two sectors are experimenting today on a very small scale with animal traction financing, but they also face major difficulties: adequate financial resources are hard to mobilize, mid-term credit is difficult to secure, and the financing supply is considerably insufficient compared to the amplitude of the demand. A few institutions, such as the CECAM network in Madagascar, for example, are experimenting innovative and promising financing modes.