EMPPA

Smart strategic plan for the national dairy sector association  

About EMPPA

EMPPA (2006) wants to become the national dairy sector association, like the Dutch ‘produktschap'. It has 16 cooperative members, including 1 private and 1 cooperative processing plant.  EMPPA's objectives are to upgrade the dairy production and sector, to build trust between producers and processors, to promote dairy chains and finally to become active in 30 regions. EMPPA has a committee of 5 volunteers, chairman Mr. Kassahun and a combination of producers & processors. There are no funds yet and no office. The Dutch NGO SNV is a facilitating partner of EMPPA. The social impact of EMPPA is:

• local employment and/or income generation for thousands of farmers
• transfer of knowledge and skills

Business case

A strategic plan have been developed. However, there's no clear vision of what members can expect from EMPPA and how EMPPA can develop its services. EMPPA asked SharePeople to find a team of experts in management and service development. Mahalet Yohannes from SNV and Chairman Colonel Kassahun were matched with Eef Gorter (Accenture), Pieter Gremmen (Twynstra Gudde), Klaartje Visser (KPMG Sustainability) and Chantal Verhoeven (Primum Mobile). The outcome of the exchange will be a shared vision by EMPPA members of what EMPPA's objectives and services will be and a fine-tuning of the existing strategic plan. 

Results

Analysis

The team of Dutch experts held many stakeholders interviews and ended up with an advice for a complete new structure. The situation seemed to be chicken and egg: a manager for EMPPA is needed to start services to earn its member's contribution or EMPPA needs to develop services, sell them and with that income a manager can be hired.

Advice

The team of experts has given SNV the advice to reorganise the whole of EMPPA and to copy the model of the dairy sector as used in Kenya and Tanzania but also in the Netherlands. The model for the dairy sector splits up the milk producers and milk processors in two separate associations to strengthen their members. Cooperation is done in the Dairy Board, where the national government is also a stakeholder. However, this reorganisation of EMPPA will take some time and in the meantime, EMPPA and SNV will appoint a new leader who will develop this model with its members.

Impact on the overseas partner

The team presented their advice to SNV, the EMPPA members and the Dutch Embassy (important stakeholder) and a concrete path to reorganization has been developed. SharePeople will monitor further impact and implementation of the advice in 2009.

Impact on the European professionals

The business case was a true ‘stakeholders' case and very complicated but therefore, also very interesting.

‘It was very successful to work in a pressure cooker: 2 weeks of in depths analysis and getting the job done. I plan to do this at my organization too, in order to be more effective.' (Pieter Gremmen, Twynstra Gudde)

A Major learning for the Dutch NGO SNV has been:

‘To get an outsider look of the situation. A chance to see what we have not seen, what we thought was not important, and what we were not able to change. Also I have improved my inquiry techniques to get to the bottom of things at important stakeholders.' (Mahalet Yohannes, SNV)

Follow up

EMPPA is invited by SharePeople to participate in the SharePeople Experience Week in June-July 2009: a learning and matchmaking programme in the Netherlands.

Click here for the weblog 'DCDL Ethiopia 2008'

Related business cases

• Dorze Lodge, 2008, SharePeople Group Program, Ethiopia
• Facilitators for Change Ethiopia (FCE), 2008, SharePeople Group Program, Ethiopia
• Facilitating Farmers' Access to Remunerative Markets (FFARM), 2008, SharePeople Group Program, Ethiopia