Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 
EVALUATION OF USAID/WEST 
AFRICAN COTTON IMPROVEMENT 
PROGRAM 
FINAL EVALUATION REPORT 
August 2010 
This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. 
It was prepared by Development & Training Services, Inc. (dTS). 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 2 
Prepared for the United States Agency for International Development, USAID Contract Order 
Number RAN-I-01-09-00015, Task Order No. 01, Evaluation of the West African Cotton 
Improvement Program. 
Implemented by: 
Development & Training Services, Inc. (dTS) 
4600 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 304 
Arlington, VA 22203 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 3 
WEST AFRICAN COTTON 
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM 
FINAL EVALUATION 
August 20, 2010 
DISCLAIMER 
The authors' views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the 
United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
This assignment was conducted in Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Ghana from 6 – 30 June, 2010 by 
Tom Pomeroy and Hadji Diakite, The work was supervised and reviewed by dTS home office 
staff including Malcolm Young and Nicole Lowery. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 4 
ACRONYMS 
AIC Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton (Benin) (Ginners, farmers, input 
suppliers) 
AICB Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton du Burkina Faso (Ginners, Farmers) 
ANB Agence Nationale de Biosécurité (Burkina Faso) 
ATA Aid-to-Artisans (United States) 
C-4 Cotton-four countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali 
CFA Communauté Financière Africaine – West African (& Central African) franc 
CILSS Comité Permanent Inter-Etats pour la Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel 
(Regional) 
CMDT Compagnie Malienne de Développement de Textile (Mali) 
COP Chief-of-Party 
COTIMES Coton et Industries du Monde, Benin (Ginnery management and training) 
CRA-CF Centre de Recherches Agricoles Coton et Fibres (Benin) 
CRRA Centre Régional de Recherche Agronomique (Benin) 
CTO Cognizant Technical Officer (USAID) 
CPV Conseiller en Production Vegetale 
GMO Genetically Modified Organism 
GPC Groupement des Producteurs de Coton 
GVC Groupement Villageois des Cotonculteurs 
GVPC Groupement Villageois de Producteur de Coton 
FY Fiscal Year (US government) 
ICAC International Cotton Advisory Committee 
IER Institut d’Economie Rurale (Mali) 
IFDC International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development 
INERA Institut National d’Etudes et de Recherche Agricoles (Burkina Faso) 
INRAB Institut de Recherche Agricole du Bénin 
INSAH Institut du Sahel (Regional) 
IPM Integrated Pest Management 
ISFM Integrated Soil Fertility Management 
ITRAD Institut Tchadien de Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Chad) 
LEC Lutte Etagée Ciblée: Targeted pesticide treatment method based on infestation 
instead of calendar application. 
M&E Monitoring and evaluation 
MSU Michigan State University 
NAC National Advisory Committee (WACIP) 
NARI National Agricultural Research Institute 
PMP Performance Monitoring Plan 
RFA Request for Applications (for USAID Plan) 
SIAO Salon Internationale de l’Artisanat de Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) 
SOCOMA Société Cotonnière de Fada N’Gourma (Burkina Faso) 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 5 
SOFITEX Société Burkinabé des Fibres Textiles (Burkina Faso) 
SONAPRA Société Nationale pour la Promotion Agricole (Benin) 
ToR Terms-of-Reference 
TU Tuskegee University 
TSPV Technicien Supérieur en Production Végétale 
UNPCB Union Nationale des Producteurs de Coton du Burkina Faso 
UNPCT Union Nationale des Producteurs du Coton du Tchad (Chad) 
UNSCPC Union Nationale des Sociétés Coopératives des Producteurs du Coton (Mali) 
URSCPC Union Régionale des Sociétés Coopératives des Producteurs du Coton (Mali) 
USAID United States Agency for International Development 
USAID/WA United States Agency for International Development West Africa Office (Ghana) 
USG United States Government 
WACIP West African Cotton Improvement Program (Regional) 
WTO World Trade Organization 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 6 
CONTENTS 
I. Executive Summary ..............................................................................................................................7
II. Origin and Objectives of WACIP ................................................................................................. 11
III. WACIP Main Activities .................................................................................................................... 16
IV. Policy Issues ........................................................................................................................................ 19
V. 2006 Cotonou recommended areas of intervention: WACIP Coverage ........................... 26
VI. Comments About WACIP (by Country) .................................................................................... 35
VII. Evaluation Findngs ............................................................................................................................. 43
VIII. General Conclusions on Value and Effectiveness of the Program ........................................ 57
IX. Recommendations for Future Programs ..................................................................................... 59
Annexes 
Annex I: C-4 Ministers July 2004 Request for Technical Assistance in Key Areas ................... 62
Annex II: Fifteen Intervention Areas Suggested by 2004 Interagency Fact Finding Team 
Recommendations, Published as part of USAID Report in January 2005 ................... 63
Annex III: Nine Areas of Intervention Recommended by 2006 Benin Conference .................... 64
Annex IV: Excerpt from 2006 WACIP Work Plan Identifying Overall Objectives and Nine 
Areas of Focus .......................................................................................................................... 66
Annex V: Excerpt from WACIP 2010 Work Plan Identifying Areas of Action ........................... 68
Annex VI: Brief Summary of WACIP Successes sent by WACIP Team (IFDC) to 
USDA May 2010 ....................................................................................................................... 71
Annex VII: WACIP Report on Sample Results on Changes in Yield, Costs, 
Income by Country and Crop ............................................................................................... 72
Annex VIII: Donor Programs ...................................................................................................................... 77
Annex IX: Cotton Farming Challenges ................................................................................................... 81
Annex X: Contacts Met During Evaluation Visit ................................................................................. 88
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 7 
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
The West African Cotton Improvement Program (WACIP) was designed to improve incomes in 
the cotton farming and processing sectors. The program was launched after representatives from 
the four target African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad, collectively referred to as 
the C-4) provided advice on desired areas of technical assistance to the cotton sector in a 
meeting in Cotonou in 2006. USAID launched the WACIP program initially with reference to 
those categories and IFDC/WACIP implemented the program through about 40 grants ranging 
from $5,000 to $1.5 million. While the program touched on all nine recommended areas of 
intervention, it focused much of its resources on improving farmer productivity and ginning 
industry efficiency, plus a few other modest programs such as aid to cotton product artisans and 
organic farming. Although WACIP was not active in institutional reform, it did prepare a few 
policy briefs on issues highlighted by national consultative committees or government Ministers. 
RESULTS 
In the farming productivity areas, WACIP worked with local organizations and local resources, 
providing grants to partners, but participating actively in program planning and monitoring with 
most of the grantees. The active involvement of WACIP staff re-invigorated cotton research and 
extension, helping local experts to revise extension training modules and reach out to over 
900,000 trainees and family members working on their farms. 
WACIP training helped local cooperative committee members improve control of input credit 
systems, very important since a dysfunctional input credit system has been the main source of 
cotton problems in recent years in the three countries visited by the evaluation team (Benin, 
Burkina Faso and Mali). 
WACIP set up a very detailed monitoring and evaluation system that sought to quantify the 
effect of training on costs, yields, and incomes of farmers and their families. Although WACIP 
provided substantial direction to partners on data collection methods, data collection of 
necessity relied on collection efforts and records of participating organizations. The evaluation 
team found some questionable data on claims of reduced input costs in Mali, but conversations 
with farmers, researchers, extension agents and others seemed to verify that WACIP’s report of 
a 43 percent increase in farmer profits from each hectare of cotton was very plausible for those 
farmers following the recommended procedures. 
WACIP began its programs by interactive planning with local experts, including regional 
brainstorming and training workshops to help devise appropriate outreach programs for farmers 
and areas of research, addressing major challenges such as soil fertility and pests. Researchers 
and extension agents generally have their salaries covered by government or cotton industry 
programs but during the financial crisis of the last several years, lacked funds for programs of 
outreach to farmers. Thanks to the WACIP program, farmers who had become convinced that 
their cotton seeds were no longer productive learned through over 1,000 WACIP financed 
demonstration plots (used as part of a training program for farmers) that they could substantially 
increase their yields and incomes if they used recommended inputs and cultivation practices. 
WACIP programs also helped to train cooperative committees to better manage credits for 
cotton inputs – fertilizer and pesticide. Unpaid credits for inputs and resulting problems with the 
availability of inputs was one of the main constraints to cotton production in recent years. Other 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 8 
activities on soil fertilizer and integrated pest management were pursued with farmers and with 
researchers, the latter to develop and test new tools to address and reverse declining cotton 
production and cotton yields. In general WACIP not only funded but energized its counterparts 
in the farmer outreach programs. Most of those programs seem to have been very effective and 
in most cases highly appreciated. All partners expressed the wish to have the program continued 
for several more years, a process that could build on initial successes and lead to sustainable 
gains. 
While the program concentrated mainly on farm productivity issues and on lowering costs for 
ginners, there were small programs for organic cotton farmers and for artisans. WACIP’s US 
partners did several investigations and policy briefs on issues including whether farmers were 
compensated for the value of their cottonseed, on the cottonseed crushing industry, and on the 
competitiveness of the textile and garment industries. WACIP was active in helping the biosafety 
office in Burkina Faso to launch a highly successful education campaign to explain the benefits of 
biotech (BT) cotton and the types of biosafety control systems needed, as Monsanto helped 
Burkina Faso switch to BT cotton. Other C-4 countries (Chad, Mali, Benin) also benefited from 
training in biosafety systems as they considered adoption of BT cotton. 
The WACIP program was at first derided as being too small and too short in duration. But as 
WACIP’s energetic staff, monitored and advised by USAID, developed a program of interactive 
planning and monitoring of its grant programs, benefits began to reach farmers, ginners and 
artisans and the program gained respect. 
DIFFICULTIES 
There were challenges. WACIP inadvertently found itself in a struggle for power and resources 
between the cotton ginning companies and the farmers union in Burkina Faso (the largest 
producer and most technologically advanced). There were problems of submitting required 
monitoring and evaluation and financial reports. Nonetheless, the Burkina industry expressed a 
hope that the program could be renewed and introduced with a slightly different operational 
focus. In other challenges, all research groups met in the six cities visited complained about slow 
procurement through the Institute of the Sahel of equipment purchases for research institutes. 
This problem might have been resolved with better communication. WACIP also had problems in 
Chad because of the collapse of the cotton sector there and failure of Chadian authorities to 
import essential cotton crop inputs for two years in a row, but managed to do some limited 
work there in biosafety education and train the trainer programs. 
UNFINISHED WORK 
If a new WACIP program were funded, there is much left to do – such as reaching out to 
additional farmers and helping the new cotton company/farming organization “interprofessional 
groups” in all three countries to develop the expertise to help manage input supplies and other 
important tasks. 
In spite of a few difficulties, most of the grantees implementing the WACIP program in Mali, 
Benin and even Burkina Faso had glowing reports of the WACIP programs – in biotechnology 
and organic cotton farming in Burkina Faso, and in the farmer outreach programs and input 
credit programs in Mali and Benin. The artisans that WACIP helped to develop and market 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 9 
artisanal cotton fabrics and garments were also highly complementary of the program and hoped 
it could be continued and expanded. 
SUSTAINABILITY 
Because the WACIP program came at a time when the cotton sector was in crisis, and because it 
worked interactively with and through existing research, extension and other structures, the 
program had impressive successes during its short life span. 
The successes of WACIP are potentially sustainable, given the durable structures (extension and 
research services, ginners) through which WACIP implemented its programs. But it would be 
highly desirable, as many partners requested, to continue the WACIP program for several more 
years. If it is ended now, after implementation for one or two seasons, its influence will dissipate 
and it may be seen locally as having been a purely political and somewhat ineffective gesture. 
The cotton sector is not yet stable and new structures are being put in place, particularly the 
increasingly important “interprofessional” groups of cotton ginning companies and farmer 
organizations. These new organizations are involved in setting cotton purchase prices, in some 
cases arranging for imported agrochemicals for fertilizer and pests, and these new management 
groups are in need of capacity building in all three countries. Due to the ending of funding for 
WACIP (originally scheduled for November 2009, but extended to September 30, 2010) there 
was no crop season outreach program for the 2010/11 cropping season. But a 2011/12 program 
could resume the momentum. 
RECOMMENDATIONS 
The evaluation team proposes the following: 
Proposal (1). One year extension for current program: The evaluation team proposes an 
extension of the WACIP program at least through September 2011 to regain the momentum of 
farmer outreach and to use the framework of previous plans with partner organizations to 
launch a program for the 2011/2012 cropping season. An extension with $7 million would permit 
follow up and repetition of successful programs and targeting of new cotton/corn farmers who 
did not benefit from the previous efforts. If the program is to be continued, It is urgent to 
provide funding for this before the September 30 expiration date for the program to avoid losing 
the experienced staff. Later startup could lead to loss of current painstakingly developed 
understandings with counterpart organizations for jointly supplied resources for farmer 
outreach. 
Proposal (2). Three to five year follow on program: The evaluation team also proposes a longer 
term program of at least 3 or preferably 5 years ($20 million for 3 years or $30 million for 5 
years) to follow up on successes and to address issues not fully addressed by the first project – 
such as: 
1. Promoting use of cotton credit for corn. 
2. Regional work on cataloguing and perhaps exchanging , preserving, or developing West 
African seed varieties, and expanded interaction with international cottonseed 
researchers in the US and in Montpellier, France on varieties and pest control. 
3. Programs to address delinting of seed, seed storage and distribution. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 10 
4. Quality programs to address issues of polypropylene sack and cover contamination. 
5. Building the capacity of cotton company/farmer organization “interprofessional” groups 
to take an increasing role in input credit management and imported input supplies. 
6. Use of HVI machine classing to improve quality. 
7. Continued work on soil fertility and pests. 
8. Expanded training for cooperative committees in input credit control and related 
activities, including computerized credit records at the national level. 
9. Reaching farmers not reached in the initial program for programs for productivity and 
input credit control. 
Expanded activities, with an additional staff position in each country office, should be 
incorporated for reaching out to partners to help them with the monitoring, control and 
financial reporting requirements of the grant programs and to reduce some of the 
communications problems experienced in the last three years. 
Such a follow-on project (WACIP III) should overlap if possible with an IFDC program extended 
for one year (WACIP II) and be awarded by July 2011, so to permit an August/September overlap 
between WACIP II and WACIP III. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 11 
II. ORIGIN AND OBJECTIVES OF WACIP 
The WACIP program had its origins following discussions of the World Trade Organization issues 
on cotton. The cotton issue had led to a walkout of African Ministers of the Cotton-4 countries 
(Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad) in the Cancun WTO negotiations and a collapse of those 
negotiations in 2003. They demanded 400 million dollars in compensation for the alleged effects 
of US cotton subsidies on world prices and African farmer incomes. In 2004, African Ministers of 
Agriculture and Trade from the C-4 visited the US cotton industry and producing areas in North 
Carolina, Tennessee and Texas and subsequently came to Washington and met with the U.S. Trade 
Representative and with the Secretary of Agriculture, as well as other officials. 
It was suggested during those discussions that concurrently with negotiations on cotton 
subsidies and related issues in the WTO negotiations, the US would investigate opportunities to 
provide advice on improvement of the efficiency of the cotton sector in the C-4 countries, later 
expanded to include Senegal as well (the C-5). The ministers left a communiqué asking for the 
US to consider nine areas of intervention to help the cotton sectors in their region (see Annex 
I). 
In September/October 2004, the US sent an interagency fact finding team to West Africa 
including USAID, the Department of Agriculture, a ginning expert from the US National Cotton 
Council, and two professors from Tuskegee University. 
In January 2005, the fact finding team’s recommendations for 15 possible areas of intervention 
were presented to the Ministers from the C-5 in Bamako Mali. Subsequently there were some 
short term training programs for entomology, soil degradation and cotton classing in the United 
States, financed by USAID and USDA, the with entomology and soil programs held at Tuskegee 
University. (See Annex II for the fifteen areas of focus from the fact finding team). 
In January 2006, West African experts gathered in Cotonou and recommended nine areas of 
intervention, broadly covering all but one of the 15 areas of intervention recommended by the 
fact finding team but subsuming some ideas such as “contamination” under a more general and 
less pejorative term (quality). (See Annexes II and III for more details.)
Based on the Cotonou recommendations, USAID issued a Request for Applications (RFA) for a 
technical assistance program - the West African Cotton Improvement Program (WACIP) in 2006. 
It was awarded to IFDC on November 30, 2006 and technically became effective on December 
1, 2006. 
WACIP focuses primarily focus on four countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, with a 
19.6 million budget, including original ceiling of $18,987,800, increased to $19,592,494 near the 
end of the program as the program was extended to September 30, 2010. Senegal had a separate 
budget for cotton program, but some WACIP programs, included Senegal as well, including a pilot 
program to improve the equipment and management of a cotton gin. 
WACIP STARTUP 
WACIP Chief of Party, Sarah Gavian, arrived in January 2007, and along with USAID, visited 
Ministers of Agriculture and Trade in the C-4 countries to get their advice. Staff was hired, a 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 12 
grants manual was developed and national consultative committees were established and some 
activities were started. 
Some initial modifications were made to original plans. It was decided to have only national 
consultative committees and not a regional consultative committee and that immediate drafting 
of an annual plan rather than a full project plan would be required. In May 2008 a full project plan 
was proposed by the WACIP project team. 
After a review, USAID pointed out that the plan proposed training only 40,000 farmers, whereas 
the IFDC proposal had mentioned in “illustrative activities” the possibility of reaching 1 million 
farmers and raising their income 20 percent. USAID suggested a revision of the project to be 
realistic, but more ambitious and cover more farmers, though permitting some modification to 
the original “illustrative activities” proposed. After some back and forth, WACIP presented a 
project proposal in September 2008 that refocused particularly on increasing farmer yields and 
farmer input credit and targeted 700,000 farmers, proposing to raise their incomes by 15 
percent. The program was finally approved in January, 2009. In the interim, major individual grant 
activities were proposed and approved to keep the program going. While a full environmental 
program was never approved, a list of do’s and don’ts was developed (e.g. prohibition of use of 
the pesticide endosulfan) and individual activities were quickly approved by USAID/Accra. Most 
crop related activities were launched in 2008 and 2009, with reports on results the following 
year. 
The project funding period extended beyond the original three year program (November 2009) 
to end on June 30, 2010. A few weeks before the June 30 expiration, another no cost extension 
extended the project until September 30, 2010. While no crop season activities were possible for 
2010 due to lack of funding, a few new activities were pursued using part of the remaining 
project funds in June and attempts were made to get final reports and results from the various 
activities. 
WACIP’s primary activities centered around 40 grants ranging from $5,000 to $ 1.5 million – 
intensively planned and monitored with partners. Developing acceptable grant proposals, meeting 
USAID requirements on environmental controls and on public tender requirements, and on 
financial and results reporting proved to be a challenge in some cases, but generally the program 
was well monitored and produced impressive results. WACIP kept detailed records on 127 
monitoring and evaluation categories and surpassed targets for some key indicators (e.g. farmer 
training affected over 900,000 trainees (instead of 700,000 targeted - at a cost to WACIP of 
about $3 each) and the sample survey of results showed a 17 percent increase in cotton yields 
over the baseline with an estimated 43 percent in gross margin (substantially exceeding the 15 
percent targets for yields and income). 
WACIP launched several other efforts including: 
 biotechnology/biosafety systems – education and policy, 
 aid to artisans producing and selling cotton products, 
 assistance to organic farmers in Burkina Faso, 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 13 
 some policy work based on key issues of local interest – farm gate price setting, 
consideration of by products (cottonseed) in setting farm gate prices, 
 biosafety issues in developing BT cotton, 
 a study on the competitiveness of the textile industry, particularly in Benin, and 
 ginning efficiency improvement program – very successful pilot projects to improve 
efficiency in gins in Benin and Senegal, selected on a competitive basis and used to train 
ginners throughout the C-4. 
While all nine areas proposed in the 2007 Benin meeting were touched upon, the main focus of 
WACIP and its most impressive successes were in reaching out through existing research and 
extension services to farmers and helping them raise their incomes through improved practices. 
WACIP pursued a number of programs, but the two major programs with substantial economic 
impact included a set of programs affecting farm income training heads of farms including visits 
to demonstration plots of ½ or ¼ hectares and reviewing the concrete results from the 
methods discussed. Those farm heads subsequently trained their family members working on 
their farms. Improving incomes of farmers focused on several main challenges: 
1. Use of recommended inputs and practices (fertilizer, pesticide, crop calendars). 
2. Improvement of the use of credit in inputs by training cooperative secretaries. 
3. Longer run programs to improve soil fertility. 
4. Assistance to cotton research facilities to help them address cotton pest issues (and 
insect resistance), and improve their capabilities, communications and assistance to 
cotton extension services. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 14 
The above graph, prepared by WACIP, shows goals, objectives, outcomes expected, and 
intervention areas of the WACIP project. 
WACIP’s main focus: Outreach to farmers through existing extension services. 
WACIP performed a number of activities – but over half the budget and the largest focus was on 
improving farmers’ productivity and on improving farmer control of input credit, closely linked to 
the issue of productivity. Programs of soil fertility, integrated pest management, and instruction in 
proper use of fertilizers and pesticides were very active in Mali and Benin for two years and in 
Burkina Faso for one year, with substantial monitoring by WACIP staff in all three countries. The 
program was developed using existing research and extension mechanisms which had recently 
undergone funding cuts in all three countries of focus. Program personnel were very happy to 
have farmer outreach resources from WACIP. Chad’s cotton sector largely collapsed and no 
inputs were imported for the last two years. But the project undertook more modest activities 
in Chad to train extension agents and to educate Chadians on biosafety systems. Some Chadian 
researchers, extension agents and others participated in regional programs. 
With a limited budget and limited time frame, WACIP made the decision to work largely with 
existing institutions and existing technology, tweaking it, upgrading it, funding some activities and 
energizing the researchers, extension agents, and farmers through active involvement in training 
trainers, developing revised training modules, and implementing and monitoring programs. 
Local more than US expertise. While WACIP used some US expertise, such as scientists 
from Tuskegee University to help develop and review training modules, and sent a few trainees to 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 15 
the United States, the greater effort was in using local expertise. Even in the ginning programs, 
including some high tech equipment and business models, a local firm in Benin (COTIMES) was 
found to be highly effective. The need to use the French language instead of English constrained 
the ability to use US expertise from the ginning industry. WACIP program managers included 
two former high level advisers to the Ministers of Agriculture (Burkina Faso and Benin) and one 
former head of cotton research from Mali, leading to quick understanding of how to implement 
programs effectively through local organizations. 
Aid to artisans and organic farmers – women participants. One small program, working 
with Aid to Artisans, did rely heavily on American expertise – in helping local artisans reinvent 
their designs to appeal to the European and US markets. But in most of the programs, the 
WACIP program was successful in the mandate to do something quick and effective, improving 
incomes on a large scale with limited time and money. Most dramatically the program reached 
well over 900,000 trainees, mostly farmers, expanded their yields and income significantly, with a 
rapidly introduced program that cost less than $3/trainee. 
One issue was the desire to focus on women. Almost all farm heads, who were the main focus of 
training efforts, were men. WACIP introduced some small programs, with photogenic results that 
provided help to organic cotton farmers and to artisans, both with substantial numbers of 
women heading the farming units (39 percent women in the Burkina Faso organic cotton 
program). 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 16 
III. WACIP MAIN ACTIVITIES 
The above chart shows the budget allocation by country of the 19,600 WACIP budget. 
As can be seen in the bar graph there were a number of areas of focus, with the largest being 
extension and research – both geared to increasing farmers’ yields and farmer income. Looking 
at the other categories mentioned in the list to the right of the bar chart, activities were more 
limited. 
Most of the programs were regional and the results and lessons learned were similar. The main 
program goals were to increase farmer income and increase income in the processing sector. 
The RFA was written based on the main areas of intervention established by target 
countries in Cotonou in January 2006. This work benefitted from the earlier USG fact finding 
mission of 2004, which identified 15 areas of intervention shown in Annex II. The 2006 
intervention areas were similar to the 15 areas identified in 2004 (see annexes II and III) 
except that: 
1. The 2006 intervention categories did not include risk management. 
2. The 2006 categories did not mention intervention areas that might have implied 
criticism of the existing system such as contamination, reduction of post harvest losses 
through better practices, improving competitiveness of textile and apparel enterprises, 
expansion of rural credit and alternatives for technology transfer. But all of these 
intervention areas were effectively covered under more general descriptions in the nine 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 17 
intervention areas of 2006 such as improving value added and supporting policy and 
institutional reform. 
Following are the 9 intervention areas identified in 2006 by the African counterparts. 
1. Expanding the use of good agricultural practices in cotton producing areas, including 
addressing soil degradation and fertility problems and improving pest management 
practices. 
2. Improving access, quality and reduce cost of inputs (seeds, fertilizer and chemicals). 
3. Improving linkages between the U.S. and West African agricultural research organizations 
involved with cotton. 
4. Improving the technical, bio-safety, and regulatory capacity for biotechnology-Bt Cotton. 
5. Improving the quality of C-4 cotton through better classification of seed cotton and lint. 
6. Establishing a West African regional training program for ginners. 
7. Improving value added from the cotton sector. 
8. Supporting policy and institutional reform for private management of the sector. 
9. Strengthening private cotton producer organizations in business management practices 
in the C-4 countries. 
One WACIP employee referred to the above 2006 recommended interventions as a “laundry 
list” of activities that was impossible to fully address in a three year $20 million program 
covering four or five countries. WACIP addressed each of the nine intervention areas to some 
degree, but focused most of its attention on reaching out to farmers through existing research 
and extension services to improve productivity, improve the control of rural credit and also 
worked with cotton companies on reducing ginning costs and improving revenues. 
Most of WACIP’s budget was dedicated to Cotonou intervention areas 1, 4 and 6. 
Key – Research and 
extension. In its farmer 
outreach programs, 
WACIP worked through 
existing extension services, 
some controlled by 
government, cotton 
companies or by farm 
organizations. It did field 
demonstrations and 
training on corn and 
cowpeas as well as cotton 
and trained farmer 
cooperative committees 
on input credit control. 
But it did not have a main 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 18 
objective of helping to reinforce new farmers organizations at the regional or national level, or 
to deal with some of the issues other larger and longer-term donor programs have addressed – 
such as rural roads, or crop and livestock business planning at the 
farm level. 
Areas lightly covered. Although WACIP touched on a wide diversity of issues, It did 
relatively little on contamination issues, cotton classing, policy advocacy (other than 
biotechnology), or helping the textile and garment industries. Reinforcing the role of women was 
achieved through help to artisans and small organic farmers, and WACIP did insist on 
environmental issues in implementing its programs. But in its main programs, WACIP focused 
more on working through existing structures rather than trying to create new business, social or 
political relationships. It reached out to some degree to US institutions for policy analysis and 
review of programs and some training, but relied more on African resources and existing 
institutions in most of its main farmer outreach programs. 
Sustainability. The heavy reliance on local structures and local partners (research, extension, 
ginners,) was a strength of the short term, lightly funded program, making buy-in and 
contributions much easier for the local implementers and for the farmers. Also, the local 
institutions (research, extension, ginners) with their salaries covered locally and at local rates, 
have a better chance of sustainability than some other assistance programs that lure talented 
locals away from their local institutions with much higher salaries and are not sustainable 
without that high-priced assistance. One can imagine the WACIP type programs continuing in the 
longer term without donor aid, with current funding systems for salaries for researchers and 
extension agents and with research/extension activities funded by a fee on cotton marketing, 
such as the 20 cfa fee being introduced in Benin for just such a purpose of essential support 
measures for the cotton sector. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 19 
IV. POLICY ISSUES 
WACIP has not concentrated much on policy issues, though C-4 government policies, sometimes 
supplemented by donor programs, influence many aspects of cotton production and marketing. 
Areas influenced by policy include input supply, quality control, credit, input subsidies and unified 
countrywide pricing for farmers for production inputs and sale of their cotton. By one measure, 
WACIP estimated it spent $927,468 on policy issues (less than 5 percent of the 19.6 million total 
budget – mostly covering policy briefs done with WACIP funding by MSU and Abt Associates). 
But counting all marketing activities with policy linkages, WACIP indicated that it could also be 
said that it spent $5 million on policy-related issues. WACIP had a limited budget and short time 
frame, so it could not fully address every policy issue, preferring to focus many of its limited 
resources on farmer productivity. 
USTR and USAID representatives, contacted in Washington by the evaluation team before the 
trip, suggested that policy reform of the cotton sector was a key issue to be addressed in the 
evaluation of the WACIP program. Looking at the 15 possible intervention areas in the 1994 
interagency fact finding team recommendations (see Annex II), most of the issues involve aspects 
of policy – for instance on credit, control of contamination, input supply procedures, and 
strengthening the role of agricultural producer organizations. 
The C-4 countries in international trade negotiations focused on the issue of low international 
prices for cotton, which are determined by the many factors influencing international supply and 
demand for cotton and synthetic fabrics. Blaming the poverty of West African farmers on US 
cotton subsidies was convenient for West African politicians and also provided an opportunity to 
ask for compensation in WTO negotiations. 
During the evaluation, a couple of key players in Mali and Burkina Faso started discussions with a 
ritualistic complaint to the team about American subsidies and indicated that the WACIP 
program was grossly insufficient if considered as compensation for the alleged effects of US 
cotton subsidies. The issue was quickly dropped as discussions moved on to more practical 
matters about WACIP technical assistance programs. 
It could be argued that the production and marketing changes stimulated by the WACIP 
program, (e.g. a 43 percent increase in cotton profits for farmers who received training), coupled 
with other improvements in the farmer input credit and ginning systems, could be substantially 
more important for farmer incomes than the prospect of elimination of American cotton 
subsidies. But this is a debate that WACIP was wise not to enter. WACIP is more appropriately 
viewed as a development effort to lower costs and improve profitability of the sector, rather 
than as a debating tool to criticize African policies in the WTO. 
POLICY QUESTIONS 
Some of the main policy questions in making the sector more efficient include: 
1. Who has the knowledge, resources and incentives to promote quality control 
and long term viability of the sector? These questions relate to ownership, 
management, government regulation, donor programs, the role of farmer organizations, 
and policy questions on pricing, subsidies, and credit. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 20 
2. What are opportunities for reducing costs and/or increasing quality/returns 
in cotton production and export channels? For instance, all three countries 
decided to subsidize fertilizer prices (by roughly 30 percent) to maintain farm gate prices 
after international prices skyrocketed in 2008. Also, the same seeds, fertilizer, pesticides 
and treatment recommendations are used countrywide in spite of different climate and 
soil characteristics. Varied input recommendations for areas with different soil and 
climate characteristics might produce better yields if the logistical and educational 
challenges could be overcome (a big if). 
3. Equity. What is fair (or politically desirable) treatment of farmers and equitable 
distribution of profits and fixing of pricing on inputs (fertilizer and pesticide) and outputs 
(fiber and cottonseed)? Should remote farmers be served regardless of cost/benefit to 
the ginning/export companies and continue to be given the same prices as other 
farmers? 
4. Environmental issues. How to develop policies to address problems of soil fertility, 
pesticides, health risks, etc.? Compost recommendations of the program were designed 
to improve soil structure and address long term sustainability, but were sometimes a 
hard sell. Pesticides are a major cost and environmental and health risk. Pesticides are 
supposed to degrade within a few weeks to avoid public health risks. Safer pesticides 
may be less effective and have a shorter shelf life. 
5. Value Added. How to promote processing of cotton fiber and value added? This is a 
difficult question in the light of strong competition from Asian fabrics and garments (half 
the price of locally produced cotton products) and used clothing imports (a third or less 
the price of local products). In this case equity considerations include the desire for local 
industries and employment, versus the desire of people with very low incomes for 
affordable clothes. It appears that expansion of local processing would require substantial 
subsidies. Weak enforcement of customs duties on imports of garments represents 
another related set of policy issues. 
6. More efficient input supplies for fertilizer and pesticides imported from 
Europe. An IFDC study of 2009 calculated that in 2006 Malian farmers were paying the 
equivalent of over $500/MT for fertilizer that cost under $300/MT for farmers in 
Thailand. Distribution costs are high in West Africa. Competition among input suppliers 
is limited due to delayed payments to importers and the need for and risk of input credit 
for farmers. 
7. Privatization. Privatization, insisted upon by the IMF and World Bank, was pursued for 
cottonseed crushers and for some of the ginners but privatized companies experienced 
some severe problems at the outset. The privatization of gins in Benin initially resulted in 
disruption of input credit and purchase systems and a sharp fall in cotton production. A 
single private entrepreneur now dominates almost all of the ginning industry and also 
has a dominant role in supplying the country with imported fertilizer and pesticide, so 
some people say a public monopoly was replaced with a private monopoly. Also, in spite 
of privatization, centralized control remains on imports of fertilizer and pesticides and 
purchases of cotton. Full privatization of input supplies would be difficult because: 
a. Farmers need credit. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 21 
b. Private networks of input suppliers exist but they generally don’t provide credit 
and there is also a problem of fraudulent products in the private networks. 
Monopolistic ginning companies or related structures have imported, tested and 
provided reliable quality fertilizer and pesticides and generally made sure they 
were delivered to farmers on time and on credit. Ginner related integrated 
systems can sell inputs on credit and be relatively sure of repayment when the 
farmer sells cotton to the gin. 
It appears that cotton ginning companies, privatized or not, will face similar 
constraints in sourcing from small private farmers that need seeds, credit for 
inputs. Currently farmer groupings, organized in cooperation with the ginning 
industry, jointly guarantee credit repayment, help to distribute inputs and group 
together adequate quantities of cotton to make it worthwhile to send a truck to 
pick up the cotton of a group of farmers. A Malian Ministry of Agriculture official 
said that when Malian ginners are privatized later this year, he expects that they 
will continue to provide extension services to farmers (rather than having the 
government do it – unlike the situation in Benin where these are government 
services). He also said that while the price of cotton and inputs will continue to 
have a single price for each product countrywide, he doubted that a private 
company would be forced to source from small remote farmers if it did not find 
it to be profitable. 
A French (AFD) cotton expert told the evaluation team that the difference 
between public and private sector ginners would not be substantial, but that the 
key would be the competence of management. A private company might be 
more careful about spending on non-profit making activities (including politically 
motivated activities) and might possibly be better managed than a public 
company managed by someone chosen by the political process. 
8. Food security and related issues. Feeder roads improved to transport cotton are 
also used for transport of food crops. Fertilizer purchased with cotton credit is also 
used on corn and other food crops. 
9. Biotechnology and biosafety systems. (Discussed below) 
10. Pricing. The most controversial domestic policy issue is the level of prices set for 
cotton, which is crucial for farmer income and for the viability of local ginning and other 
processing industries. 
The national advisory committees and African cotton associations in several meetings of 2007 
identified the following top priority policy issues: 
 Cotton price setting mechanisms, 
 Funding for cotton research and extension, 
 Developing and enforcing the bio-security regulatory framework, 
 Obtaining quality agricultural inputs at the best possible prices, and 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 22 
 Establishment and management of a cotton commodity support fund to reduce price 
and exchange rate risks. (e.g. the fond de lissage – stabilization fund – in Burkina Faso). 
WACIP programs addressed research, extension, biosecurity and MSU did some work on cotton 
pricing, with a focus on whether farmers were adequately reimbursed for the value of 
cottonseed sold to crushers. 
WACIP POLICY ACTIONS 
The main focus of WACIP has been to improve efficiency and profitability of the sector, 
improving farmer yields and lowering the costs of ginning. According to the WACIP Chief of 
Party, the MSU and Abt Associates policy briefs financed by WACIP were used most of all to help 
WACIP determine the best areas for the WACIP program to focus, more than trying to convince 
governments to change their policies. The short duration of the project also played a part. While 
WACIP-financed MSU policy briefs supported the development of producer organizations to 
ensure long-term equity in domestic pricing and related issues, WACIP decided to concentrate 
more on delivering advice to farmers, ginners and artisans than on strengthening producer 
organizations. The main area of WACIP action in strengthening producer organizations was a 
valuable program to train secretaries in local cooperative committees to better handle input 
credit. Other main WACIP policy activities were as follows: 
Biosafety. Probably the biggest impact on policy from WACIP was with respect to biotech (BT) 
cotton, being introduced in Burkina Faso in cooperation with Monsanto. WACIP supported the 
biotechnology sector in Burkina Faso in educating the public not only in Burkina but in the other 
countries as well – Chad, Mali, Benin, in the face of attacks on biotech cotton and erroneous 
information spread by some Non Governmental Organizations. Most notable was work in Benin, 
bringing in experts from Burkina (which is producing biotech cotton) and Mali (which hasn’t 
started commercial production yet, but is developing implementing regulations for biotech 
cotton) to talk about their work on biosafety systems. The seminar in Benin stimulated a debate 
on the previously largely taboo issue and led the government to make moves toward permitting 
research on biotech cotton and beginning of preparation of the necessary biosafety control 
framework that will be needed if Benin decides to remove its ban on biotech crops and permit 
farmers to use biotech cotton in the future. 
Policy Briefs. WACIP partners (MSU and Abt Associates) used WACIP grants to do policy 
briefs on some key issues, some of which were made available to the public and some of which 
are still being reviewed by WACIP or were not issued for other reasons. For instance the COP 
said that a textile industry brief done early in the program was not released because it was felt 
to be excessively critical. A WACIP-financed MSU brief on producer organizations helped WACIP 
determine that except for the program to train cooperative secretaries on input credits, WACIP 
didn’t have the time/resources to provide substantial and effective support to producer 
organizations. WACIP left more general assistance to strengthen farmer organizations to other 
longer-term development programs such as of those of the Dutch and the French. 
MSU policy briefs prepared under WACIP and issued in November 2008 compared different 
cotton marketing organizations in nine countries but did not come to a firm conclusion on 
which was best. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 23 
One of the MSU briefs (only in French on the WACIP Website: “Le Coton en Afrique de l’Ouest 
et du Centre: Adaptation d’un Modèle réussi à de nouvelles réalités” by Valerie Kelly and David 
Tschirley*) mentioned that in the past some government people siphoned off money from 
parastatal cotton companies in times of high prices for uses unrelated to the cotton sector. But 
it also said that new “privatized” structures in Burkina and Benin adopted practices that 
eliminated competition in purchases from farmers (similar to the former parastatal companies). 
It mentioned sentiments among some cotton sector actors, that the calls for radical re￾organization of the filiere structure (presumably referring to IMF/World Bank calls to privatize 
the ginning industries) might be based more on theory than economic reality. On the argument 
that West African farmers get a low share of the export price, MSU said that this calculation 
ignored the many services and benefits for farmers financed by the cotton sector including 
announcement of farm gate prices in advance of the season, credit and guaranteed supplies of 
reliable seed, fertilizer and pesticides, subsidies for inputs, increasing the role of farmers in 
farmgate cotton price fixing, training of farmer representatives in credit control and producer 
organization management, and use of cotton revenues to develop infrastructure such as roads, 
schools and health services for the rural population. 
Abt Associates did some work on the question of support to textile/garment industries based a 
request from a Beninese (former) Minister of Commerce/Industries. That evaluation has been 
drafted and is being reviewed by WACIP prior to public release. 
MSU reportedly did a study on pricing of cottonseed for crushing (not yet released), to 
determine whether the value of cottonseed for crushing was accounted for in the farm gate 
purchase price, a widely discussed question in 2007/2008 when world prices of cottonseed and 
other oilseeds increased dramatically. MSU discussed this pricing issue in a seminar in Benin and 
reportedly determined that the value of the seed for crushing was accounted for in the price for 
farmers. MSU evaluated past work of Europeans and others to develop farm and industry pricing 
formulas and found that although there was a formula to set prices, in fact the prices in Chad, 
Benin and Mali were established by negotiation and that that prices for farmers (set prior to 
planting) plus the end of season payment (ristourne) were often higher than would have been 
justified by cotton export prices. When the evaluation team asked if this meant that farm gate 
prices were too high, MSU (Prof. Valerie Kelly) commented that analyses of farm-level cotton 
income also suggest that farmers’ net incomes per hectare of cotton have declined dramatically. 
(Thus, it would be a politically charged statement to say they are being paid too much.) 
MSU and WACIP were not asked to evaluate the price fixing mechanism for cotton fiber, in 
principle based on a formula, but generally an exercise of negotiation for the cotton ginning 
companies, in cooperation with the government and the farm sector national representatives. 
Burkina Faso declined to let MSU have a public discussion to answer the widely publicized 
question of whether farmers were being adequately compensated for the cottonseed. But MSU’s 
conclusion was that Mali and Benin’s farm gate cotton prices were high enough to cover the 
value of both lint and seed. In 2010 Burkina Faso added a special supplement to the cotton price 
to account for the value of the seed sold by ginning companies to cottonseed crushing 
industries. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 24 
POLICY AREAS NOT COVERED BY WACIP 
The following are some important areas of policy that influence farmer incomes and arguably 
might have been covered by WACIP, but were not, in part due to focusing the limited budget 
resources in other areas: 
Imported fertilizer and pesticide prices. Aside from some discussion of research institutes 
of the possibility of finding some local components for fertilizer instead of importing from 
Europe, there was no focus on lowering the cost of imported fertilizer and pesticide. Work on 
farmer credit was pertinent to supplies of inputs, but import prices/competition and quality 
control were not addressed to any significant degree. Expanding competition for input suppliers 
could be quite a difficult task, might challenge some powerful entrenched interests, and is related 
to the need for extended financing for the input suppliers under the current systems. There is a 
question of whether WACIP had the funding, duration or credibility to address this issue. 
Strengthening Producer Organizations. WACIP did some work with producer associations, 
such as training cooperative secretaries to better control input credit and working with the 
national farmers union in Burkina Faso on promotion of organic cotton farming. Work to 
promote sales of artisanal cotton products was generally through producer organizations. But 
WACIP did not focus as much as French or Dutch programs on strengthening producer 
organizations for cotton farmers (e.g. training accountants, etc). This is something that might be 
done in a future WACIP, particularly with respect to the producer organization work to improve 
the input credit system and work in the “interprofessional” organizations grouping cotton 
companies and national producer organizations to set cotton prices and in some cases control 
imports and distribution of fertilizer and pesticide on credit. 
Contamination. Use of polypropylene bags in cotton production has led to small bits of 
polypropylene from pieces of bags or covers ground up and discovered when the cloth is dyed 
and there are specks of polypropylene that don’t absorb the dye. WACIP provided cotton 
harvesting bags to organic producers in Burkina Faso but otherwise did not address this issue to 
any substantial degree. It may be difficult to resolve this problem because the farmers can use 
the polypropylene sacks they get with fertilizer and pesticides without paying any extra money, 
while they might have to buy a cotton sack. 
Cotton classing. WACIP work on ginning humidification reduced breakage of the fiber and 
improved the staple (length) of exported cotton. But while there were some pre-WACIP visits 
to the United States under the Cochran program to discuss cotton classing, the WACIP program 
generally did not deal with the issue of improving cotton classing in order to get higher prices in 
export markets. The head of USDA’s cotton classing group visited Burkina Faso in 2006 and 
determined that reliable machine classing would require a lot more than just buying the $2 
million HVI machines and would likely be difficult to implement in West African conditions. 
Nevertheless, an area of possible future work would be in machine classing of cotton to improve 
reliability, reportedly being expanded this year by Burkina Faso. 
Stabilization Fund. Burkina Faso reportedly asked for US support for its fond de lissage 
(stabilization fund) through the Millennium Challenge program but the US declined. The French 
provided some modest help, quickly used up to support farm gate prices. It would seem of 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 25 
doubtful wisdom to support a stabilization fund if it is to be just a system to subsidize continuing 
losses as opposed to a self-sustaining fund to smooth out year to year price fluctuations. 
Cotton Pricing. The key policy question that remains for future viability of the cotton sector is 
whether political pressures will lead to farm gate prices too high to be justified by world market 
prices, not the case in 2010, but a potential problem for the future. WACIP staff indicated to the 
team that politically, they would not have been welcome to propose new pricing mechanisms for 
farm gate prices of cotton. 
Evaluator Comment on pricing. If farm gate prices are set too high relative to world prices, 
continuing subsidies would be needed to support the sector. The stabilization fund and end of 
season “ristourne” payment isn’t a bad idea, but would work best if there were a reduction in 
the first payment to farmers to perhaps 75 percent of the expected value of the cotton (30 or 
40 percent might be needed for credit reimbursement) and if a substantial post-season payment 
is made after export pricing and profitability is clear. That would take some of the risk of 
fluctuating world prices from ginners and put it on farmers, making the sector more sustainable. 
A stabilization fund, if properly managed, could be sustainable and help smooth farmer prices in 
years of unusually low world prices, building up reserves in years of high prices. The delayed 
second payment might actually be helpful to some farmers, since they find it hard to save cash. 
But this controversial proposal (eliminating fixed prices for farmers and cutting the initial 
payment) is not an area where WACIP’s small and short term program would have been 
welcome to give advice. End comment 
POLICY BUY-IN IS ESSENTIAL 
WACIP successes were based on getting local buy-in and substantial counterpart contributions 
and enthusiasm, contributing to successful and sustainable implementation. The US has to 
propose policies that have a realistic chance of being accepted. As in the case of biotech cotton, 
there may be different degrees of receptiveness among C 4 countries and their industries to 
specific policy changes and timetables for implementation. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 26 
V. 2006 COTONOU RECOMMENDED AREAS OF 
INTERVENTION: WACIP COVERAGE 
The following is a more detailed discussion of the degree to which WACIP addressed each of the 
nine intervention areas specified by C-4 representatives in 2006. 
INTERVENTION 1 
Expanding the use of good agricultural practices in cotton producing areas, including addressing 
soil degradation and fertility problems and improving pest management practices. 
Comment: This was a 
major focus of WACIP 
activities, used over half 
of the budget and was 
very effectively pursued, 
with impressive gains in 
yields and farm income. 
WACIP programs 
trained over 900,000 
farmers. Surveying 
records on thousands of 
farmers who benefited 
from training, WACIP 
estimated that it 
substantially raised the 
crop yields per hectare 
and the incomes of 
farmers. It reported average yield increases of 17 percent from the previous 2 or 3 year base 
period and average profit increases of 43 percent for net money returns from cotton (counting 
all money costs, not including the value of family labor). 
Much of the pest management and soil fertility work was done through research institutes 
including the following activities: 
1. Testing new fertilizer formulas that would address micronutrient and other deficits 
in soil in using new fertilizer formulas. 
2. Testing insects for resistance to pesticides – a big problem since the 1990’s and 
requiring continual multi-year (normally 7 year) testing of alternative pesticides and 
resistant bugs to be ready when resistant bugs become widespread and a pesticide must 
be changed. This work will also be important for insect resistance for the new BT cotton 
being introduced in Burkina Faso. 
The WACIP program included purchase of some modest equipment to make labs more 
functional and to permit exchange of information among researchers, including modern 
computerized information systems for internet and intranet, generators to keep insects 
being tested alive when the power fails, a virtual library of shared research results across 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 27 
the region and internationally, regional meetings to share information and to brainstorm 
on recommended outreach tools for farmers. 
3. Testing “trapping plants” that might attract insects away from cotton plants. This can 
be important for traditional cotton pest control and also be an alternative to current 
plans to convince farmers in Burkina Faso to plant 20 percent of their fields in non-BT 
cotton to slow the development of BT-resistant insects. 
4. Research institutes and farmer extension programs also worked on “threshold” 
application of fertilizer – which would teach farmers to identify insects, count 
infestations and apply pesticides only when thresholds were surpassed, rather than 
calendar application of six treatments. A Dutch program is also attempting to use this 
method with farmers WACIP indicated that it did not use the LEC method in farmer 
training (often using less than the full dose for light insect infestations, but claimed 
substantial results from its Integrated Pest Management training (applying the 
appropriate pesticide based on infestation thresholds instead of calendar application). 
This could make pesticide use more effective and reduce cost if pesticide application is 
reduced. 
INTERVENTION 2 
Improving access, quality and reduce cost of inputs (seeds, fertilizer and chemicals). 
Pesticides. Pesticides are imported by tender from competing European suppliers after multi￾year testing by C-4 research institutes demonstrate the efficacy and safety of pesticides 
proposed in Europe to address old and new pest problems as reported from Africa to European 
suppliers. Recommended application of pesticides would normally cost 24,000 francs for 
purchase of chemicals for six treatments with farmer backpack sprayers, compared to a total 
cost of inputs of about 80,000 – 90,000 cfa (50,000 for fertilizer, 24,000 for pesticides and 
perhaps 10,000 for herbicides used by some farmers). Gross revenue from cotton sales would 
average roughly 300,000 cfa/ha ($600) for a well managed farm with a yield of 1.6 MT/ha, or 
about $400 after paying for inputs. 
Although WACIP claimed substantial results of reducing pesticide cost from farmer training in 
IPM, it was unclear to the team to what degree this was accurate. WACIP claims of a 66 percent 
reduction of input use on Mali cotton largely due to training and reduction of use of pesticide 
seems unlikely to be accurate, since pesticide cost normally represents only about 30 percent of 
input costs. 
Use of BT cottonseed will cost 27,000 cfa/ha instead of 7,000 for undelinted conventional seed, 
but will save the cost of 4 pesticide treatments (16,000 cfa saving in pesticides) It is expected 
that BT cotton will higher yields by about 30 percent, resulting in a substantial increase in net 
income for farmers. In addition, there are likely to be substantial health benefits to less use of 
backpack spraying, with danger to the sprayer and to family members entering the fields too 
soon after spraying. WACIP training also recommended use of protective clothing for people 
spraying pesticides and provided these garments to the 1,000 test plot farmers. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 28 
Soil Fertility. WACIP worked with research institutes on new fertilizer formulas, in use across 
the region for decades without changes for different soil deficiencies in different regions. The 
project did not dedicate resources to trying to get cheaper imported products, though some of 
the work with researchers touched lightly on the question of whether some fertilizer ingredients 
could be sourced within West Africa. 
Seeds were not a major focus of the project. There was a seminar on plant varieties and a 
desire expressed, but not realized to have a West African seed catalogue, which was supposed to 
be produced by the researchers without any funding, but that did not happen. 
Input credit for importers and farmers. There are a number of competing European 
suppliers of fertilizer and pesticides, but when responding to a tender locally, an input supplier 
faces the issue of credit – supplying in March or earlier and being paid no earlier than December. 
The project did not address the question of reducing import prices, but did address some other 
key problems in input supplies – with respect to proving to farmers in training sessions and 
demonstration fields that they could greatly increase their yields and money incomes if they 
would apply recommended inputs and practices to their farms. The training of cooperative 
committee secretaries was a critical area in reducing fraud and mismanagement, avoiding the 
problem of unpaid debts, and putting cotton production and marketing back on a sound footing. 
INTERVENTION 3 
Improving linkages between the U.S. and West African agricultural research organizations 
involved with cotton. 
WACIP program linkages to US research organizations were modest. Prior to WACIP and near 
the beginning of the program, there were a number of training trips to the United States under 
the Cochran program (not part of WACIP) for training in soil fertility, ginning, entomology, 
agronomy, including training at Tuskegee for crop production issues and at other universities for 
ginning. There was also linkage to earlier French work from Montpellier researchers on insect 
resistance. WACIP used American universities including Tuskegee and Auburn for advice on 
research and extension programs and used MSU to do some policy briefs. The computer, 
internet, intranet, document scanning, and virtual library systems that WACIP/INSAH are 
installing in cotton research institutes will help researchers connect to others in the region and 
to the outside world including the US. The limited English language ability in these countries 
limits somewhat access to US institutions and international events. Also, the 9/11 attack on the 
US made it very difficult to get visas for training programs. 
Monsanto in Burkina Faso. The one area where there was really extensive interaction 
between US and West African researchers was in BT cotton in Burkina. Monsanto took two 
West African varieties and inserted BT genes and worked closely with researchers on issues 
pertinent to BT cotton and pertinent to plans to slow the development of insect resistance. 
WACIP played some role in this partnership as well, funding some modest equipment that would 
help to identify insect resistance for both BT and conventional cotton and helping to fund cotton 
research on resistance to pesticides, research capabilities that can also be applied to insect 
resistance to BT. More ambitious efforts could be imagined such as molecular and genetic 
analysis of insects, or biological control, but the more mechanical process of reproducing suspect 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 29 
insects and testing pesticides on them is workable and useful within the limited funding and 
limited time frame of the WACIP project.. 
INTERVENTION 4 
Improving the technical, bio-safety, and regulatory capacity for biotechnology-Bt Cotton. 
This is an area where WACIP was particularly effective. A government biosafety agency in 
Burkina Faso, Agence Nationale de Biosécurité (ANB), was extremely active in public 
education programs on biotechnology and biosafety programs, not only in Burkina Faso, but in 
Mali, Benin and Chad as well, countering misinformation spread about BT cotton and explaining 
how to develop appropriate biosafety systems. 
Benin research institute contacts confirmed WACIP reports that the WACIP workshop in Benin, 
bringing in experts from Burkina and Mali to talk about benefits of BT cotton and control 
systems needed, removed impediments to frank discussion of BT cotton in Benin, made people 
aware of the benefits of biotech cotton and the biosafety systems needed, and speeded moves 
toward permitting research on BT cotton (expected to be approved soon) and beginning the 
creation of the institutional structure for biosafety controls once the Benin ban on biotech 
production expires. A biosafety seminar was also held in Chad, with assistance from ANB. 
The ANB biosafety education program was extremely active with seminars and careful crafting of 
local language radio messages, some to be broadcast under non-WACIP funding after the end of 
the WACIP program. The program was introduced quickly and effectively in a six-month period 
at the end of the project by a dynamic new director of the Burkina Government’s biosafety 
authority (ANB). A French source said that they also had some funding for similar activities but 
ANB forged ahead to use expiring WACIP funding first to develop a very timely program that 
helped to counteract lies spread by various anti-biotech private organizations in the region. ANB 
said that teachers were assigning school children essays on why introduction of BT cotton is bad. 
The biosafety control systems are important and somewhat problematical to implement (trying 
to prevent exportation of BT seed to neighboring countries - likely to be mixed with 
conventional seed and producing poor results for farmers that reduce pesticide treatments). 
If there is a WACIP II, much could be done to help neighboring countries assess their need for 
biosafety control systems and to help ANB interact effectively and positively with extension 
workers and other authorities in Burkina Faso to implement needed controls. 
WACIP work with research institutes is pertinent to slowing the development of resistant 
insects, becoming a big problem since the 1990’s and also a threat to BT cotton. WACIP 
purchased a piece of equipment to expand the Burkina entomology lab, so that it can test six 
insects at a time instead of two. There was a reported misunderstanding about an alleged 
Monsanto promise to build a laboratory, which would have housed the WACIP-financed machine. 
The failure to follow through was reportedly related to a series of changes in Monsanto 
personnel responsible for West Africa and it was unclear to what extent Monsanto had or hadn’t 
fulfilled its commitments. Given other, sometimes spurious, allegations in Burkina Faso, it was 
very unclear whether there is a problem and who was at fault. But clearly Monsanto has a 
continuing interest in seeing that the Burkina Faso program works. Researchers felt that WACIP 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 30 
could be particularly useful because Monsanto’s interests would be very short term and geared 
specifically to the success of BT cotton, whereas WACIP could consider broader longer term 
benefits for cotton farmers via research activities. 
INTERVENTION 5 
Improving the quality of C-4 cotton through better classification of seed cotton and lint. 
 The US gets a high price for its cotton because manufacturers are certain about the quality of 
the cotton needed to produce perfectly consistent products. West African cotton (hand picked) 
can be of high quality but is less standard, so may be discounted because the quality is uncertain. 
A manufacturer needing an exact type of cotton to keep all of its garments exactly consistent 
will pay a premium to be sure it is getting a precise quality. 
There was some Cochran Program training in the US on better classification of seed cotton and 
lint and a conference funded by WACIP on plant varieties, with an expressed desire to have a 
catalogue of West African cotton varieties – the catalogue not yet done. Much remains to be 
done – particularly with machine classing (HVI) of cotton to obtain better prices in export 
markets. This would be a likely area for action in an extended multi-year WACIP program, if that 
is planned. WACIP did help to introduce a cost saving measure through cheaper ties for cotton 
bales. 
The Benin plant that WACIP helped with a new humidification system claimed that the 
humidification process had substantially increased the amount of longer staple cotton (1 1/8 
instead of 1 3/32 inch length – worth an additional 10 cfa/kg), by reducing breaking in the ginning 
process. 
Various suggestions have been made for improving quality by better classification. A French 
source claimed that standardized microneer (width) of the cotton could lead to premiums and 
that the international trading firm Louis Dreyfus had increased the value of West African cotton 
by re-classifying the bales by microneer. There are issues on whether a sample will be 
representative of the entire bale. 
COTIMES feels strongly that West Africa could gain by moving to machine classing of cotton 
using HVI machines (cost about $2 million for each HVI machine) and COTIMES claims that 
SOFITEX (which declined to meet with the team, saying its key personnel were traveling) had 
purchased HVI machines and plans to use them to class half of its crop this year. ICA the big 
cotton company in Benin said that bale identification systems would be useful, but that HVI 
classing would be excessively slow and thus infeasible. 
In any case, WACIP did little with respect to cotton classing and it appears that this could be a 
productive area for future work, if WACIP should be extended. 
INTERVENTION 6 
Establishing a West African regional training program for ginners. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 31 
WACIP did have a training program for ginners, though the duration of the project was not 
conducive to the original 2004 idea of an annual ginning training program. Some ginners were 
sent to the United States. The major and most effective ginner training was with the partner 
COTIMES, based in Benin, with WACIP selecting by competitive bid two gins to introduce 
automatic humidifiers and other systems of information, accounting, health and safety. These 
programs were reportedly (by WACIP and by both companies – who met with the evaluators) 
highly cost effective and they were used to train ginners from other countries among the C4 in 
these methods. 
INTERVENTION 7 
Improving value added from the cotton sector. 
The C-4 countries export about 98 percent of their cotton. As indicated by a textile/garment 
factory to the evaluation team in Benin, West African textile processing in general is not 
competitive with Asian production, with costs at least twice as high as new Asian goods 
competing in local West African markets. WACIP commissioned a study of the textile industry 
done by Abt Associates at the request of a Minister of Industries in Benin. WACIP also had Abt 
Associates do a study of the cottonseed crushing industry, producing cooking oil and animal feed. 
The 2004 Fact Finding team identified polypropylene contamination (tiny pieces of ground up 
polypropylene bags and covers) as a major problem (the tiny specks in the cloth won’t take dye) 
and this may have led to some attention to try to resolve the matter. The problem of getting 
farmers to use cotton sacks and covers in place of polypropylene sacks is difficult because the 
polypropylene sacks, used to deliver pesticides and fertilizer – are free to the farmers. WACIP 
did finance the provision of locally produced cotton bags for the organic cotton contract in 
Burkina Faso. The Common Fund for Commodities (EU and World Bank funding) in cooperation 
with IFDC, is starting a new program for use of cotton sacks in Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote 
d’Ivoire, probably in part because of the US work in highlighting this problem. I 
In general, WACIP touched on the issue of value added to cotton in several activities (ginning, 
artisans, policy briefs), but did not undertake a major program in the likely futile task of trying to 
prop up a non-competitive textile or garment industry, concentrating instead on improving 
ginning and a modest program of aid to cotton product artisans. 
INTERVENTION 8 
Supporting policy and institutional reform for private management of the sector. 
WACIP did not have the clout to influence the privatization process other than helping some of 
the ginners to reduce costs and helping to reduce farmer debt repayment problems through 
training at the cooperative level. WACIP worked closely with the cotton ginning companies 
(unlike other donors), but did not do any work closely related to privatization of C-4 cotton 
ginning companies. The ginning companies are newly privatized in Benin, will be privatized at the 
end of this year in Mali and in principle were privatized in Burkina Faso, though the largest 
company – SOFITEX - faced financial difficulties, was re-capitalized by the government and now 
is majority government owned once again. Work with the private ginners included working with 
their extension agents (Mali and Burkina), ginner training programs in Mali (for the region), in 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 32 
South Africa (for contamination issues) and in the United States (financed through the Cochran 
Program instead of WACIP). 
The most successful WACIP financed industry program was the pilot programs with gins in 
Senegal and Benin (selected by competitive tender according to their readiness to implement the 
program) with equipment purchases and training done by a very competent private company in 
Benin (COTIMES). The evaluation team met with the Senegalese and Beninese managers of the 
private companies, who confirmed that the programs resulted in very impressive results. The 
total cost of the program (partly cash and staff time contributed by the two companies) was 
recouped within a year and WACIP estimated that the savings for the companies would be $5 to 
$6 million over a 10 year period. SODEFITEX in Senegal was granted $206,904 of WACIP money 
and COTIMES, which implemented the technical program, received $430,264. The Benin 
company, ICA, said that the automatic humidification equipment improved weight and quality and 
earned the company about 58 million cfa ($1.2 million) and that the health and safety 
management program (e.g. control of dust etc) was implemented for all their gins and saved 111 
million CFA (about $2.4 million). These successful efforts were used for training programs for 
ginners from throughout the region. Surprisingly, when the evaluation team asked in Mali and 
Benin whether the ginning companies would proceed with investments in their other gins for 
this technology without donor support, since they could borrow money for the investment and 
pay it back in a year, they seemed doubtful, perhaps not so surprising in Mali, where the cotton 
ginning company is in financial crisis and in the process of selling its gins to four private buyers. 
Some other donors – the French and the Dutch, have been working on developing local farmer 
institutions. See Annex VIII for a listing of some of the other donor programs pertinent to 
cotton. In all three countries more work on management of the sector is supposed to come 
from the cotton “interprofessional” committee, comprised of cotton company representatives 
and farmers unions (and in some cases input suppliers and government Ministry observers). 
These “interprofessional” groups are supposed to set the annual farm gate cotton prices in all 
three countries and in Mali are also involved in imports of fertilizer in pesticides, with help from 
the cotton companies and in Benin with help from a separate group tendering for import and 
tendering separately for distribution. The research institutes develop seeds, multiply them with 
farmers and distribute seeds to farmers with the help of cotton ginning companies and farmer 
organizations. 
Generally the sector is not moving toward using the networks of private input supply dealers to 
source cotton inputs because of the need to provide credit to cotton farmers (and crucially - to 
collect the debts when they sell the cotton to the gins), and also because the private input supply 
system for other crops (unlike the cotton system) currently has a big problem with fake or 
adulterated products. The evaluation team did see sales of herbicides and sprayers (for cash) in 
the open market, though more reliable herbicides can also be sourced on credit through the 
cotton company input supply systems. 
The private farmers unions are considered to be private sector entities. The project did work 
with them, particularly in Burkina Faso in the organic cotton program (where WACIP supplied 
the bags and the farmers union supplied the extension services and purchased the cotton from 
farmers). Contracting directly with the farmers union for extension to train cooperative 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 33 
committees on input supplies alienated the cotton ginning companies in Burkina Faso and 
contributed to WACIP’s most serious implementation problems. 
Problems with Burkina Faso cotton sector. WACIP’s work through the national farmer’s 
organization in Burkina Faso for training cooperative secretaries in input credit management was 
bitterly resented by the cotton ginning industry companies, particularly SOFITEX, which controls 
85 percent of cotton production. This is explained further under the country comment section 
below: 
The evaluation team, after meeting with the partners concluded that communication among 
different units of the Burkina government appeared to be poor and that better communication 
in a future program with all the players might possibly mitigate some, but not all of the problems 
encountered. 
It appears that a future WACIP, if there is one, could usefully target the fledgling interprofessional 
organizations, particularly in ‘Burkina Faso and Mali, and provide staffers of those organizations 
with training and other support. To make such a system work in Burkina Faso, the AICB would 
have to have permanent staff, rather than relying on cotton companies for all monitoring and 
reporting, and permit WACIP to help train the AICB permanent staff on reporting, monitoring, 
evaluation and financial reporting requirements. A future WACIP might wish to consider a 
method to help the AICB recruit staff that was employed by the French to help farmers unions 
recruit new staff, paying 75 percent of the salary of new staffers the first year, 50 percent the 
second year, 25 percent the third year, and nothing the fourth year. 
In sum, WACIP was not active in institutional reform, but was affected by the reforms being 
pursued. A future WACIP would be wise to coordinate even more closely than in the past with 
national advisory committees, Ministries and major players to determine the best organizations 
to work with and avoid getting embroiled in local power struggles. WACIP had trouble with this 
in Burkina, certainly not completely due to its own fault. A similar power struggle is proceeding 
in Benin, influencing the programs of other donors (Dutch and French who helped farmers 
unions) but not WACIP. 
Farming programs and policies are highly politicized in most countries including the C-4. A small 
program like WACIP can influence some policy issues (such as potentially in the future provision 
of credit for corn fertilizer based on cotton sales) but probably can’t and shouldn’t seek to push 
for major political decisions such as pricing and privatization and should tread carefully on issues 
of power struggles between farmers unions and cotton ginning companies. 
INTERVENTION 9 
Strengthening private cotton producer organizations in business management practices in the C￾4 countries. 
Work with business management practices for cotton producer organizations was very limited. 
There was a focus on business management in some of the WACIP programs, including the Aid 
to Artisans program. Similarly, in the business management work with private ginners by 
COTIMES in Senegal was pursued, treating the ginnery as a profit center. Benin did not accept 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 34 
the full revision of accounting procedures and computer programs proposed by COTIMES, but it 
did accept the health and safety systems and the humidification system and reported that this 
resulted in big gains in profits. 
WACIP worked closely with the management committees of the voluntary cooperatives at the 
village level (10 to 70 farmers in the cooperatives), a program of training trainers to train the 
cooperative secretary, input manger and warehouse manager) to make the input credit work 
better. This work is crucial to the viability of the cotton sector, to help to avoid the disruptive 
problems of the recent past with respect to fraud, non-payment, and losses by cooperative 
members who jointly guarantee the input loans for each other. 
WACIP also cooperated with the Burkina Farmers union extension service in a training program 
for cooperative secretaries and in supplying bags to organic cotton farmers as part of the 
Cotton Farmers Union’s efforts to fulfill an attractive “fair trade” organic cotton contract with 
Limited Brands, purchasing cotton for a consortium including Victoria’s Secret. Limited Brands 
paid over 3 ½ times the normal price for conventional cotton the first year and over 2 ½ times 
the normal price the second year, making the organic cotton program viable, in spite of the low 
yields (average 587 kg/ha) and the high costs of certification programs for organic cotton. 
In sum, WACIP did some work with farmers unions but little to build capacity except at the farm 
cooperative level. 
CONCLUDING COMMENT COTONOU 2006 INTERVENTION AREAS 
WACIP touched on all nine areas from the 2006 Cotonou meeting, and had impressive results in 
some of the areas. It seems to have made a sensible choice in working in areas where there was 
a strong possibility of success, rather than areas not likely to be successful, such as trying to 
change the structure of the cotton industry, decision making for prices or other highly political 
decisions, or trying to prop up non-competitive processing industries. The short duration of the 
project made it difficult to launch long term capacity building of the type the French and Dutch 
tried to do with farmers’ organizations. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 35 
VI. COMMENTS ABOUT WACIP (BY COUNTRY) 
Generally, except with respect to the cotton ginning companies in Burkina Faso (and their 
Ministry of commerce partner) comments about WACIP were universally positive. There were 
complaints about the Institute de Sahel (INSAH) and in Burkina Faso the INSAH problems were 
also blamed on WACIP. 
A. CROSS COUNTRY: RESEARCHERS COMPLAINTS ABOUT INSAH 
All researchers in the six cities visited by the team complained about the Institute of the Sahel, 
saying that its procurement procedures for computers and communications equipment, 
generators and machines for cotton research were very slow and saying that the money should 
have been allocated directly to the research institutes. One of the researchers in Bobo, Burkina 
Faso said that they would not get money sent by WACIP to them if they didn’t know that it had 
been deposited at their headquarters and they said that WACIP should tell them when it arrived 
so they could ask for it and then they said it would be sent quickly from their head office. It 
appeared to the evaluation team that communications among researchers (e.g. in Burkina Faso’s 
cotton research labs in Bobo and their central director in Ouagadougou) were extremely poor 
and this accentuated feelings that WACIP or INSAH were failing to communicate and failing to 
act in a timely manner. 
Most of the equipment had not yet arrived as of the evaluation team departure, so installing it 
and training on it and evaluating the results could exceed the life of the project (now extended 
to September 30). The WACIP COP explained that INSAH was learning the procurement 
procedures and may have made mistakes at first, trying to buy small lots under the threshold that 
would obviate the requirement for public tendering and then having to go back and group like 
items for tendered purchases after instructions from auditors. She commented that attempts by 
Burkina researchers to buy one specialized entomology machine were not successful and they 
finally had WACIP buy the machine, at a third of the cost they had estimated. In Benin, some 
specific complaints against INSAH were made. One claim was that INSAH promised to pay for 
training for three scientists in Benin and then failed to follow through. An INRAT researcher in a 
Masters Degree program in biotechnology claimed to be waiting for a promised INSAH payment 
for over a year and said the university kept threatening to throw him out for non-payment. 
WACIP (Blaise Fagdoegnon) later advised the team that INSAH told the researchers that they 
wouldn’t pay for a degree program, so that it appeared that perhaps the fault was not that of 
INSAH, though the lack of communication/understanding was surprising. 
Another Benin complaint concerned a scanning machine that INSAH supplied so that Benin 
researchers could share research results of previously prepared reports with the region and the 
world. INSAH reportedly held a training program on the scanner last August, and sent a list of 24 
participants to WACIP indicating successful completion. But INRAT reported that the scanner 
didn’t work and INSAH said a computer program was missing. Thus the training program was of 
limited value, and nearly a year later (June 2010) INSAH had still not sent the missing computer 
program. WACIP personnel were not aware of this. It appeared that better communication could 
have resolved or mitigated many of these problems. Taking a year in Africa for an international 
tender for equipment doesn’t seem astounding. It appears that if there were better and more 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 36 
frequent communication on progress and problems, some of the ill feeling toward INSAH (in the 
case of Burkina - attributed to WACIP mismanagement as well) may have been mitigated. 
B. MALI 
Comments about the WACIP program in Mali were almost universally positive. The head of the 
cotton company began discussions with a ritual complaint about US cotton subsidies, but quickly 
moved into discussion of areas of cooperation in extension and ginning, policies and prospects 
for the future. Researchers were also very positive about WACIP, and clearly the WACIP lab 
visits and quick and effective selection of key equipment improvements within a limited budget 
were appreciated. The only negative comments were about INSAH slow procurement and 
comment by a Ministry of Agriculture official that he didn’t get copies of the studies, or briefs 
that were supposed to be done by WACIP. But all the other programs of WACIP seem to have 
been well implemented and appreciated by the recipients and all recipients expressed a hope 
that WACIP might be continued. (WACIP later told the team that the Ministry of Agriculture 
official originally insisted that the Mali Consultative Committee should control the budget, but 
later conceded that they couldn’t have run the program as efficiently as WACIP and would have 
wasted much of the money on per diem for teams of officials visiting sites). 
C. BURKINA FASO 
In Burkina Faso, the farmers organization seemed very pleased with the WACIP program as did 
the biosafety group, the artisans and the researchers (albeit with complaints about INSAH slow 
procurement). They all expressed the wish for WACIP to be continued. The researchers also 
complained that Monsanto had not followed through on an allegedly informal commitment to 
build a new entomology lab, which would have housed a piece of equipment purchased by 
WACIP. The evaluation team was not able to ascertain to what extent this commitment by 
Monsanto had been solid, whether it was certain they wouldn’t build the lab and to what degree 
this would disfavor the effectiveness of the machine bought by WACIP. The machine is quite small 
and will fit physically in the current entomology lab, though it is unclear whether it will be 
effective without the bigger lab envisioned. 
In contrast to virtually everyone else the team encountered, the cotton ginners in Burkina Faso 
were harshly critical of WACIP, saying that it was creating division within the Burkina cotton 
sector and that the US had wasted its money. They referred to a very minor incident – in a 
regional brainstorming session in Bamako, a Tuskegee researcher didn’t realize everyone had 
backpack sprayers these days and began discussing methods of application without sprayers, until 
he was corrected. They said that this proved that the brainstorming session (which they said was 
phytosanitary training) was not relevant. In a later meeting, the Director of Research referred to 
the same incident – a very picky and inconsequential point blown out of proportion by people 
wanting to find something to criticize. 
During the heated exchange of the evaluation team with the cotton companies and their 
Ministry of Commerce colleague (heated only on their part) they argued that WACIP should 
have run its entire program through AICB (the interprofessional) theoretically consisting of 
cotton companies and the farmers organization – though there was no farmer representative 
present at our meeting. The representative from one cotton company (SOCOMA) said that 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 37 
training of secretaries in the cooperative committee was the most important thing that could 
have been done and if done right, it would resolve most of the problem of credits and inputs. But 
he said that the WACIP method (working through farmers union extension agents) was not 
effective. They said that WACIP had ignored the wishes of the consultative committee and said 
the cotton companies wanted help on variations of soil fertility programs but that WACIP 
ignored their wishes and just implemented programs that were applicable to the entire region 
regardless of their different conditions and needs. 
The team was later advised (by the WACIP country manager) that the cotton companies had 
been angry at the previous farmers union president and started a campaign against him, which 
convinced him to resign three months early. Another donor also reported actions by SOFITEX 
against the farmers union and said that SOFITEX refused to pay money it owed, that the farmers 
union had been hoping to use to pay their newly hired extension workers. Some new hires were 
let go after a few months and others (trained and financed originally by French development aid) 
were at risk. According the WACIP country manager, SOIFTEX originally made a compromise 
agreement with the farmers union that each would have half of the extension agents in the 
WACIP program, but that SOFITEX later backed out of the deal. 
The team met later in the week with the Secretary General of the Ministry of Commerce and 
the same charges were repeated in a more friendly tone by the commercial representative to 
the cotton sector, Mr. Wilfred Yameago. The team read a section from the consultative 
committee’s recommendations (biosafety etc) indicating that in contrast to earlier statements by 
the cotton companies, WACIP activities were responsive to Burkina requests and that those 
requests went beyond soil fertility programs. The evaluation team pointed out that government 
organizations, including the biosafety group and the government researchers told the team that it 
would be highly inappropriate for their programs to be under a contract with the private sector 
interprofessional group. The team suggested and the two Commerce Ministry officials seemed to 
agree that: 
1. The consultative committee should give general recommendations at the outset. 
2. WACIP could talk separately with the various partners. 
3. Separate contracts with some partners were not precluded. 
4. Prior to finalization of the program, WACIP would present it to the interprofessional 
group for their information and suggestions. 
The Secretary General pointed out that they have confidence in their cotton industry and their 
representative in that group (Wilfred Yameago). It was clear that some communication problems 
had contributed to the bad feeling in Burkina Faso and that WACIP had stepped into the losing 
side of a power struggle. It was worse for the French Development Agency, which had helped to 
fund the original hiring costs and training of the farmers’ union extension units, now under 
threat. 
Another problem was financial reporting. AICB was supposed to do monitoring and reporting 
but had no paid staff so had to rely on the cotton companies to do any such tasks. So SOFITEX 
was supposed to do the M&E and SOCOMA was supposed to do the financial report. The M&E 
report for the 2008 program was submitted very late – in September 2009, so as a result, 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 38 
WACIP was not able to have a second year of a program in Burkina Faso for the demonstration 
fields. The financial report was submitted in December 2009. The WACIP COP advised the 
evaluation team that SOFITEX did not include the original receipts with the financial report so 
did not have the type of justification for expenses required, putting IFDC as the grant provider in 
jeopardy for failing to fully account for expenses. 
As noted by the French Development Agency representative, SOFITEX is dominant in the 
industry and donors wishing to work with the cotton industry must take account of the wishes 
of SOFITEX. 
It appears that SOFITEX implemented the activities agreed between WACIP and AICB for 
farmer demonstration plots and training of farmers in conjunction with those plots. They 
reported on them and the WACIP team visited some of them. SOFITEX controls 85 percent of 
the cotton in the most successful of the C-4 countries with respect to cotton production and 
technology. Since the recapitalization of SOFITEX with majority government control, SOFITEX 
reportedly has no long term debt, only short term debt. Burkina Faso is the only C-5 country 
now introducing commercial application of BT cotton. It has reportedly bought HVI classing 
machines and according to COTIMES in Benin, SOFITEX reportedly plans to machine class 50 
percent of its cotton this year. 
The WACIP contract was with AICB so in principle AICB is at fault on financial document 
irregularities, even though it was SOFITEX that failed to respond fully and in a timely manner and 
failed to provide receipts. The confrontational attitude of SOFITEX toward WACIP seems to 
have resulted from an internal power struggle in which WACIP inadvertently became involved 
(exacerbated by the combative personality of the SOFITEX Agricultural Production Manager). 
Unfortunately, the Director General of SOFITEX was out of the country so the team was not 
allowed to visit SOFITEX in Bobo, on the excuse that knowledgeable people were not there. The 
WACIP Burkina country director said the enmity between SOFITEX and the farmers union 
stemmed in part from a desire from the former farmers union President to set up system where 
cotton farmers could use part of their cotton credit to buy fertilizer for maize, a move that 
SOFITEX opposes (but CMDT in Mali supports for Malian farmers). 
So if WACIP were to be extended, the question arises of whether a cotton program would 
include the dominant ginning company (85 percent of cotton production) in the largest and most 
forward moving country with respect to technology (BT cotton and HVI classing). Other 
important programs in biosafety, research, artisans and even organic cotton could be pursued 
without SOFITEX but the main program of largest economic benefit – training for farmers of 
conventional cotton, interface between biosafety officials and extension agents of the cotton 
company, cotton ginning improvements, cotton classing would seem to be difficult in Burkina 
Faso without involving SOFITEX. The less than fully fulfilled WACIP contract was with AICB – 
the interprofessional group, at present something of a virtual group rather than a real group 
since it has no permanent staff and is run by the cotton companies. As in Mali, a logical next step 
for a WACIP development project in Burkina would be to convince the interprofessional and its 
members to provide permanent staff to AICB and provide training of that staff in financial 
reporting, monitoring and evaluation, and other key skills needed to manage decisions of the 
cotton sector. (The cotton companies reportedly plan to keep buying inputs. themselves rather 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 39 
than giving this task to the interprofessional, but that stance might change). 
In sum, SOFITEX was not happy that WACIP trained cooperative secretaries through extension 
agents of the farmers’ organization instead of through the cotton companies. The cotton 
companies did indicate an interest in working with WACIP in the future in their meeting with the 
evaluation team, but wanted WACIP to work with AICB rather than directly with the farmers 
union. SOFITEX didn’t provide receipts for its spending on the 2008 cotton training program, 
though apparently it did implement the program and issued a very late report on monitoring and 
evaluation and a financial report was also submitted, but without original receipts. If there is a 
future program, the question arises of whether programs of farmer outreach should be 
attempted with SOFITEX, after warning them that appropriate receipts are required. This is a 
policy question that USAID would have to address should a future program be approved. 
Better Communication Needed. In Burkina, communication was not the only problem and 
perhaps not the major problem. But the team heard complaints of the Director of Research that 
he didn’t know what was going on with procurement. He indicated that prior to final approval of 
the entire program by USAID (in 2009) there was some lack of clarity about the complete 
program and that WACIP personnel said they had to wait for USAID approval before giving a 
complete picture. These comments imply that better communication might have helped to 
mitigate some of the problems. There was a consultative committee meeting once or twice a 
year that was updated on WACIP activities, but this apparently was not a fully effective 
mechanism to keep everyone fully informed. If local government units don’t talk to each other 
very much, a future WACIP may have to redouble communication efforts on the progress of its 
activities and plans. WACIP may also need to reach out more to INSAH, if it is to be a partner in 
the future to ensure better communications about the progress of procurement and related 
issues. 
D. BENIN 
In Benin the team visited the interprofessional cotton association (Association 
Interprofessionnelle du Coton - AIC), the major cotton group (which had implemented very 
successful improvements). The team also visited the researchers, research facilities and farmers 
near Bohicon and Parakou in the center of the country and several donors. 
In Benin WACIP trained 1930 cooperative secretaries in input credit control or a total of 2,065 
including training the trainers. For the extension program on soil fertility and pesticides, WACIP 
had 103 plots the first year, training 23,300 producers in 2008/9 and they had 250 demonstration 
plots in 2009/10. AIC said that the Benin extension program was very useful, particularly having 
farmers choose 5 to 6 fellow villagers for close cooperation on the demonstration field in 
addition the numerous farmers visiting the demonstration field as part of their WACIP soil 
fertility and pesticide training program. They said the WACIP program in its second year of 
extension to farmers - 2009/10 covered 250 villages, but that there are 2,300 villages, so there is 
room for much more work and an extension of the project would be desirable. One of the AIC 
people and the Ministry of Agriculture Extension Service said that some of the WACIP 
demonstration plots used compost plus the equivalent of five sacks of fertilizer per hectare 
(instead of the recommended four) thus getting higher yields. The chemical fertilizer was given to 
the farmer free by the partner organization for the demonstration plots (for ¼ or ½ ha – not 
paid for by WACIP). 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 40 
The Extension agents and the Researchers who helped them were enthusiastic about the 
program. But the extension agents said that each farm head trained was supposed to train other 
farm workers in their families, but the agents didn’t have fuel for their vehicles to monitor this 
process. They also said that acceptance of use of compost fertilizer by farmers was fairly limited. 
They said the program made everyone enthusiastic about following the recommended 
procedures and encouraged use of organic fertilizer (manure and compost). But they thought 
that to make the new practices continue, the program should be repeated for three years. They 
also mentioned a desire to have biological control of cotton pests in addition to chemical 
pesticides. 
The researchers, in the Ministry of Agriculture, were tied closely to the extension system. They 
expressed great respect for the work of Blaise Fagdoegnon (WACIP/Mali director and former 
head of cotton research in Benin) who visited their labs and identified equipment needs and they 
also said that Gregoire Houngnibo, head of WACIP in Benin was very active and good at keeping 
them informed. A Ministry of Commerce official that the evaluation team met did not know 
many details about the program but seemed supportive. She said she wished they could get rid 
of the fertilizer subsidy (about 30 percent subsidy). The Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of 
Industries are now separate Ministries and the team did not have time to get an appointment 
with the Ministry of Industries (which has responsibility for cotton industries). 
The evaluation team didn’t 
meet farmers that were using 
the recommended compost 
pits, but was told this was 
more common in the north 
where crop farmers more 
commonly have bovine 
animals. Also some of the 
farmers told us most of the 
children in the area were in 
school so sometimes they had 
to pay for labor, particularly 
for harvesting. One farmer 
from a group that met us in 
Bohicon said he bought 3 (400 
kg) cartloads of manure from 
the cattle pens of the Peul-speaking nomadic herders, paying 1,000/cfa/cart ($2) for the manure 
and 1,000/cfa/cart for haulage. In Parakou we met a farmer who was a retired salaried worker 
(former research station head) who was old and sick, said his wife and children worked or went 
to school so he had to pay for all cultivation work, except for spraying herbicide and pesticides, 
which his sons did for him. The hired labor (paid in cash each day of work) for seeding, weeding 
and harvesting cost him about 100,000 cfa/ha of cotton (still leaving him with a profit). He didn’t 
have bovine animals and said that he wasn’t interested in composting or in manure. He said the 
manure might be free but it would cost him 15,000 cfa ($30) to pay a tractor to haul the 
recommended 10 MT for a hectare. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 41 
Composting: A hard sell. It appears that using manure and compost was new to some of the 
farmers we visited, particularly those without bovine animals. It is fairly easy for a farmer to add 
more chemical fertilizer or pesticides if he sees that it is profitable, but making 10 MT/ha of 
compost is quite a lot of work – though it can be very important for maintaining or improving 
the texture of the soil. The compost pits were added to the Benin WACIP training program in 
the second year and one farmer that talked with us in Bohicon said that the compost training 
came in February – too late to do composting for the cropping season that year but he said they 
used some crop residues, though not compost pits. In Sikasso, Mali, where many crop farmers 
had bovine animals, we heard there was some composting, but it seemed new and difficult for 
the farmers we visited in Benin and in Burkina Faso – in both cases areas without many bovine 
animals owned by crop farmers Using manure or making compost is easier for farmers with 
bovine animals that have a supply of manure. Farmers with bovine animals can also use an easier 
method – a night pen for the cattle walking and defecating on the crop residues instead of 
digging pits and transporting tons of material with hand carts. The organic farmer in Burkina 
trying to use a compost pit for the first time was having trouble with it – the sides caved in when 
it rained, mixing dirt with the compost. But using organic fertilizer was more necessary in that 
case because chemical fertilizer was forbidden for organic cultivation. Burkina farmers in that 
village said they weren’t planning to use compost for non-organic crops. In areas with many 
animals some of the crop residues will also be used for animal feed, rather than compost. 
Convincing farmers to slightly modify traditional methods (using more chemical fertilizer or 
pesticide) is easier than getting them to adopt something new (making compost). 
INSAH bashing. The Benin researchers sharply criticized INSAH. The financial director said 
the procurement program was managed so badly that at one point he wrote a memo suggesting 
that the cooperation with WACIP be abandoned. He said that INSAH had tendered and awarded 
a contract and then tried to change the terms of the contract. He said INSAH stopped their 
attempts to change the contract when he pointed out that they were likely to be sued by the 
supplier who won the tender. Other researchers had other complaints about INSAH – perhaps 
the complaints were overly picky – difficult to judge. Allegedly, INSAH hadn’t paid a supplier a 
few weeks after arrival of computers, they hadn’t agreed to provide half the money up front as 
requested by another supplier (the evaluation team pointed out that a bank letter of credit or 
other bank payment guarantee could be more appropriate than an up front payment). 
Researchers said INSAH was were very late in procurement, and they had allegedly promised to 
pay for training but never sent the money (Blaise Fadoegnon later said that a letter had been 
sent from INSAH to the researchers explaining that they wouldn’t pay for degree programs and 
they never responded – maybe they didn’t see the letter). 
One area where it appears there may have been negligence on the part of INSAH was in the 
workshop to train research personnel on the scanner. The scanner didn’t work, allegedly due to 
lack of a computer program. A workshop training 24 people to use the system was of 
questionable value, and no one informed WACIP of the problem and the missing computer 
program had not been sent ten months later when the evaluation team visited. WACIP was 
surprised and said that INSAH had sent them the list of 24 people trained on the scanner so 
they assumed everything had worked. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 42 
For the evaluation team, it was difficult to determine whether any of these comments criticizing 
INSAH had merit. But it seemed that it would have been best if WACIP could redouble 
communications efforts with both sides, INSAH and the researchers, to keep them informed and 
on the same page. It appeared that INSAH might have done a much better job of procurement 
and especially of keeping people informed of progress. If INSAH was not doing this, WACIP could 
step in and help keep people informed of progress. 
E. CHAD (MODEST WACIP ACTIVITIES) 
The team did not visit Chad but spoke with one of the key implementers of training programs 
for Chadian extension personnel. Chad, faced with new oil wealth, and various problems with the 
World Bank over diverted oil revenues, a civil war etc, seems to have reduced its focus on the 
cotton sector. Reportedly it has not imported inputs (fertilizer and pesticides) for the last two 
years and cotton production has fallen to a small fraction of previous levels. 
WACIP included Chadian experts in some of the regional research and extension brainstorming 
and training programs. There were substantial efforts to train Chadian extension personnel, using 
demonstration plots (reportedly the fertilizer and pesticide, not generally available locally, may 
have been obtained from a neighboring country – possibly Cameroon). 
A biosafety activity was also pursued in Chad, informing them of what is being done with BT 
cotton in Burkina Faso and of necessary biosafety systems. 
Chad has had some needs for equipment – weather monitoring equipment, etc. Its cotton sector 
has greatly declined and it may seem futile to keep training their extension workers if there is no 
fertilizer and pesticide for the farmers. Some farmers in Chad will reportedly produce without 
fertilizer and pesticide, getting only a few hundred kg/ha. If there were a new WACIP program, 
probably farmer outreach programs should be contingent on importation of fertilizer and 
pesticide (which would have to arrive before the cropping season, e.g. by March 2011). Politically, 
it would be difficult to drop Chad from a new WACIP program, but activities might be extremely 
limited. Or alternatively, if a food security program could include cotton, (which generates credit 
for inputs for food crops) it might be appropriate to include Chad in a Central African program 
(with Cameroon) instead of West African program. But probably if there is an extension for just 
one year, Chad might be included in some modest fashion in a WACIP program. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 43 
VII. EVALUATION FINDNGS 
The statement of work (SOW) asked the team to answer 15 questions, some of which have 
been answered above: Following is discussion of ones not yet fully answered: 
IMPLEMENTATION 
Question #1: Have WACIP’s activities been properly targeted to the appropriate beneficiaries 
to achieve its objectives? 
WACIP’s main objectives are to help farmers and help industries. It has reached the farmers – 
over 900,000 trainees with programs that it is estimated will help them. Both anecdotal and 
sampling results indicate the training helped them raise their income by increasing yields on 
cotton, maize and cowpeas. On the demonstration plots used to train these farmers, cotton 
yields were increased by a third or sometimes much more over average farmer yields by using 
recommended methods. 
Farmer credit became disastrously disorganized during the transition away from parastatal 
companies. Systems in Benin and elsewhere are now starting to be stabilized and the WACIP 
program helped train some of the village cooperative committees whose earlier failure to 
control cheating by some members led to huge debts – guaranteed by other farmers, input 
supply problems, and many farmers not being paid for their cotton, and a decline in cotton 
production in all countries. Even in Burkina Faso, where the cotton ginners were critical of 
WACIP, one of the cotton ginning companies (SOCOMA) said that training the cooperative 
committees to better handle input credit was one of the most important things that could be 
done in the cotton sector. 
Clearly the cotton farmers were appropriate targets. Work with Ginners was also extremely 
successful in reducing costs. Targeting artisans and organic cotton farmers was of limited value in 
overall economic impact, but did involve a substantial group of women (unlike conventional 
cotton farmer training, where farm heads are almost all male), and the training in both cases 
seems to have been much appreciated by the beneficiaries. 
Question #2: What have been the main strengths and weaknesses of WACIP to date? 
Strengths 
1. IFDC experience in fertilizer and in the region. IFDC has been working in the 
region for many years on soil fertility and knows many of the key players and production 
system characteristics. 
2. Strong staff capabilities. Very proactive and experienced staff. Blaise Fagdoegnon – 
former head of cotton research in Benin visited all the labs and identified essential 
equipment needs for INSAH procurement, David Galaty strong M&E performance, 
Ibrahim Sourabie in Burkina, formerly senior advisor to the Minister of Agriculture for 
many years, was very bright and knowledgeable, Gregoire Houngnibo, former experience 
as a high level adviser to the Benin Minister of Agriculture and as manager of a major 
“Global 2000” development program was praised by Benin researchers as particularly 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 44 
responsive and effective. COP Sarah Gavian was particularly energetic and effective, 
traveling throughout the region, centralizing data analysis and reporting in Bamako, 
handing a multitude of tasks and challenges that her largely non-English speaking staff 
could not effectively address. 
3. Timing. Program resources came at a time of crisis when traditional resources for 
research and extension were lacking. WACIP programs filled gaps in research at a time 
when other funding of research activities had been cut (e.g. cut in half in Benin, and 
largely eliminated in Mali). 
4. Sustainable counterparts. Though there were difficulties with some of the 
counterparts, the projects largely worked with dedicated permanent employees that are 
supported by local scale salaries and will remain after the aid project is gone. This is in 
contrast to some assistance programs that hire away local staff at extremely high salaries, 
divert their attention from their traditional roles and drain expertise needed for long 
term sustainability. 
Weaknesses 
1. Small funding – for five countries 
2. Short duration. The program to begin with was quite short for negotiating with the 
various partners and having an impact on traditional farming sectors. Due to 
reprogramming begun in March 2008, WACIP operated until January 2009, about nine 
months, without an approved work plan. This resulted in delays in making sub-grants to 
some sub-partners, particularly those based in the U.S. The program was slated to end in 
June 2010, and even though WACIP made some detailed plans with partners for activities 
for the 2010/11 cropping season, and even though the program was extended until 
September 30, 2010, there was insufficient funding to do extension programs for the 
2010/11 cropping season. For most programs, there was two years or less of program 
implementation. 
3. Changing signals caused problems (WACIP asked national committees what they 
wanted and then narrowed focus, e.g. eliminating some policy studies on effectiveness of 
reforms, focusing away from policy issues and institution building and toward outreach to 
farmers and training in input credit management). Some uncertainty over changing plans 
(revised plan approved in January 2009) led to perceptions in consultative committees of 
ineffectiveness and disorganization and in some cases delays. It should be noted that 
major program activities including the large grants to local institutes received approval 
and thus major activities were continued before the overall program received final 
approval. Uncertainty on US environment regulations was never fully resolved but 
individual activities were approved for environmental compliance fairly quickly by USAID 
as WACIP submitted them for approval. In Burkina there was a perception that there 
was confusion in what the program was trying to accomplish during the period in 2008 
when the program was being revised. 
4. INSAH was criticized by all researchers in the six cities visited for being very slow, 
with specific criticism in Benin that they failed for over a year to pray for promised 
training (apparently refused but it appeared that the Benin researchers didn’t get the 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 45 
message). Training on a scanner was attempted but scanner didn’t work due to a missing 
computer program. Almost a year later the missing computer program for the scanner 
still had not been sent. Other equipment that arrived (computers) was stored at WACIP, 
waiting for the full procurement to be completed. 
Sarah Gavian said INSAH made a mistake breaking up purchases to remain under the 
limit that would require tender purchases but then were told by their auditors that they 
had to change and group like commodities for a tender. 
5. Duration of program – 6 months for biosafety to up to two years for demonstration 
plots 
Question #3: What were the major constraints facing the programs? How have those 
constraints been mitigated? 
1. Low funding: Many countries and many organizations to satisfy. 
2. Late approval by USAID (some projects went ahead earlier including most of the 
local grants). 
3. Need for quick action. 
Biggest constraints were low funding and short time to implement coupled with insistence on 
quick action to address all nine intervention categories set by the 2006 Cotonou meeting while 
also reaching and raising the incomes of hundreds of thousands of farmers. 
In spite of many constraints, major elements of the program were implemented effectively and 
quickly. The program passed the original laugh test. Partners are hoping it will continue. It was 
universally seen as a ridiculously short and small program at first but gained respect by reaching 
the farmers faster and more effectively than aid programs of other donors. 
Question #4: To what extent have activities been coordinated with other donor organizations 
and has the program benefited from any synergies with other donors’ activities? 
Coordination with other programs seems to have been modest, though some donors (ADB) 
claim to be copying the WACIP program in Benin. ADB’s attempts to copy WACIP 
demonstration plots in Benin, with late funding and insufficient monitoring failed at first. They 
tried to do 408 demonstration plots but only 159 were usable due to poor monitoring. Many 
donors have cotton programs or similar programs to support cotton programs – e.g. nine 
cotton support programs in Benin. There was some linkage in WACIP seminars to a French 
research program in Montpellier, coordinating with earlier French work on insect resistance to 
pesticides. Other donors have participated in consultative committees overseeing WACIP (e.g. 
French in Burkina) or in regional meetings of the 9 cotton projects in Benin. Some donors 
(ADB/Benin) copied the successes of the WACIP program and the Dutch program managers in 
Benin also indicated that they have incorporated some WACIP elements into their programs to 
help cotton farmers. Brazil recently has been providing new cotton varieties for experimentation 
and some assistance for cotton research. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 46 
In Mali the French had a cotton farmer support program prior to the program and a new one 
planned, but it was delayed in Mali for three years, during the time that WACIP operated. In 
Burkina Faso, the French said that the WACIP program was helpful and did not duplicate any of 
their programs. The French were apparently unhappy with CMDT in Mali because CMDT had a 
French investment loan that they stopped repaying. The French and Dutch tried to work directly 
with farmer organizations and not with the cotton ginning companies. WACIP generally worked 
with the existing structures of the cotton ginning companies and was less active in seeking to 
build farmer organization structures, though it did try to strengthen the cotton input credit 
system by working at the local cooperative level. 
The Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) is cooperating with IFDC to launch a new program 
to provide 3,000 farmers with cotton sacks in each of there countries – following up on the 
contamination problem highlighted by the 2004 fact finding team and addressed by WACIP in 
providing cotton sacks to organic farmers as its contribution to the organics extension program. 
The evaluation team met with a number of the key donors (World Bank, EU, Dutch, French, 
African Development Bank) and did not receive any negative comments about the WACIP 
program from other donors or complaints of duplication. Some other donors (e.g. in Benin) 
focused on cotton producers – nine programs including WACIP, but in Mali, some of the 
programs of other donors focused on more general issues of cotton farmers – e.g. viewing their 
whole crop planning system, building institutional capacity in farmer organizations, working on 
literacy programs, rural roads, etc. 
A World Bank employee in Mali said that they are launching agricultural programs but not in 
cotton, but could add cotton if the situation in the cotton sector stabilizes. The representative 
commented that cotton is the engine of the agricultural sector. An EU representative in Mali 
indicated that the EU is focusing away from agricultural programs to other types of social 
programs because there are so many other donors in agriculture and it was decided to different 
donors should focus on different areas. A Dutch representative in Benin said that while there 
was a coordination meeting for the nine cotton sector programs in 2008, other attempts at 
meetings had not succeeded and it would be desirable to have more coordination. 
The only donor criticism of US efforts to the evaluation team came from the French 
representative in Burkina Faso who commented that France had made a modest contribution to 
the Burkina fond de lissage (stabilization fund) that they felt this was a useful area that needed 
support and he wondered why the US was not contributing. 
 The Dutch and the African Development Bank seemed to be following the WACIP activities 
closer than other donors, perhaps because they were launching similar activities. The French in 
Burkina Faso and the Dutch in Benin were disappointed that the cotton companies were 
reducing the influence of (and funding for) the cooperative structure, negating some of their 
programs in capacity building in those organizations. 
Annex VIII includes a listing of some of the major donor programs in the three countries 
pertinent to cotton 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 47 
Question #5: Have the positive and negative experiences resulting from activities been 
adequately recorded, validated, and otherwise made available for future use? 
Probably the negative aspects have not been fully recorded. Some of the local managers are 
reluctant to report negative results (such as the partial failure of an INSAH workshop on the 
new scanner because lack of a computer program for the scanner). Like most projects, WACIP 
concentrates on successes, of which there were many. COP Sarah Gavian was extremely open 
about difficulties and problems – local country managers less so. For instance, the Evaluation 
Team was warned in advance by the COP about likely negative reaction from the Cotton 
Companies in Burkina Faso, but the WACIP country manager in Burkina Faso stressed the 
positive, and didn’t prepare the team for the vitriolic attack by some cotton industry 
counterparts – later mitigated somewhat in a Ministry of Commerce meeting with the 
evaluation team.. But WACIP reacted quickly and effectively when they found contract violation 
by use of endosulfan pesticide in Burkina Faso demonstration fields. They used SOFITEX records 
to identify all the areas where endosulfan has been distributed and eliminated WACIP funding for 
those farms (endosulfan was not banned locally – but was being phased out – and the USAID 
environmental assessment said it should not be used in WACIP supported activities). 
There was extensive involvement of WACIP staff in planning, in workshops and in visits to 
demonstration farms provided feedback on implementation problems and contributed to fairly 
diligent respect of procedures by the extension agents and farmers. WACIP had planned to visit 
25 percent of demonstration fields, but Blaise Fagdoenon was frank in telling the evaluation team 
that actually said they visited about 10 percent, a reasonably good effort at monitoring. 
A big problem was in getting some partners to submit acceptable grant proposals (Chad 
submitted numerous inadequate proposals before USAID permitted WACIP to give them 
technical assistance – only after they had made the first several requests since WACIP is 
prohibited from designing grant proposals before requests are made for specific grant activities. 
Another big problem was in getting partners to respect USAID requirements for monitoring and 
evaluation, procurement and financial reporting requirements. This was exacerbated by the desire 
for quick programs and WACIP requests for some organizations to advance-fund some 2008 
crop season activities because WACIP did not have the funds available until August. Probably if 
there is a future program, there is a need to consider an additional staffer at each country office 
to help partners with some of these issues (a suggestion made by IFDC/Accra to the team). 
IMPACT/RESULTS 
Question #8: [To what degree did WACIP Address] the targets, especially the main outcome 
indicators, contained in WACIP’s Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP); 
WACIP met or exceeded its main targets. Over 900,000 trainees, and a survey of 
farmer/participants in training programs indicated 43 percent increase income for cotton (well 
above the 15 percent target), and also substantial increases for the two food crops in the 
program – maize and cowpeas. There was a substantial training program using each of the 
demonstration plots as part of the training program for well over a hundred farmers. The 
trainees were all farm heads, who later trained other farmers in their families. To estimate 
increased incomes, WACIP took yields of cotton, corn and cowpeas for 2008 and 2009 and 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 48 
compared to previous three years – showed substantial increase in income – e.g. 43 percent for 
cotton, 7 percent for maize, 153 percent for cowpeas. There was an extensive monitoring 
system, visiting many test plots, participating in most of the big training sessions. The evaluation 
team learned of one serious problem in an INSAH organized scanner training session in Benin 
that was not reported to WACIP as a problem but generally the monitoring and evaluation 
system seems to have been excellent for such a large and diverse grants program. It did of 
necessity rely on local records, which may have had some problems. The evaluation team noticed 
an anomaly in a supposed 66 percent reduction in input use in Mali, reportedly mostly due to 
WACIP training on pesticides. Pesticide cost is only about 30 percent of input cost. So the 66 
percent reduction was not very plausible. Likely there were carryover stocks or errors in record 
keeping to produce such a result. 
Monitoring and evaluation criteria within the WACIP work plan. WACIP has done 
extensive work on performance monitoring and getting detailed 
reports from its grantees. Its PMP says: 
“The WACIP implementing team worked with USAID to formulate 35 
indicators that will measure the program’s performance at activity, outcome and objective 
level This included: 
• Output indicators (24 total) that track program outputs such as people 
trained, organizations assisted, technologies adopted and policies analyzed; 
• Outcome indicators (8 total), such as policy reforms adopted and changes 
in crop yields, that track progress towards the WACIP outcomes, achieved as a result of 
project 
outputs, and contributing in a clear way to project objectives; and • Impact indicators (5 
total) that measure the degree of achievement of overall project objectives. 
All indicators are drawn from USAID’s Operating Plan indicators for 
Agriculture, as described above, from the USAID Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) 
and from IFDC consortium’s WACIP proposal. They are classified under three categories: 
Agriculture Enabling. Environment, Agricultural Sector Productivity and “Custom” indicators, 
where the Custom category includes certain IEHA indicators. The three tables show the 37 
WACIP indicators, indicators at each level, and for each indicator, indicate which category 
they belong to and whether they are equivalent with IEHA indicators.” 
While the evaluation team was not able to exhaustively investigate the logic behind 127 
indicators used and cross referenced in the projects targets and monitoring and evaluation 
system, it was able to judge the overall effectiveness of the program by reviewing claimed 
activities and verifying the effectiveness of many of these activities with partners and other 
contacts. The methodology for judging program effectiveness in terms of increasing income was 
suitable to evaluate many activities. Some other activities are not closely tied to income gains 
that can be measured: e.g. research that is not yet finalized but is important to the long term 
viability of the sector, but such measures give some indication of the success of the program. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 49 
The M&E work seems quite rigorous in that tables are produced on various targets and 
estimated results. Obviously they couldn’t get completely accurate data on income changes in 
over 75,000 farms – the surveys were crop by crop and estimated changes in gross margin, not 
counting the value of unpaid family labor (family labor was probably used more heavily in more 
rigorous cultivation methods taught by the program). If maize is kept on the farm for the family 
food, it probably isn’t weighed. Cotton records in principle should be fairly good, but errors in 
the record keeping and reporting would not be surprising given the disruption in the cotton 
sector in the past few years and the low level of literacy in the region. 
The method used for the income for farmers was to get a random sample of 426 farm units for 
Benin and 2,500 units for Mali, consisting not of the demonstration plot farmers (who got free 
inputs from the local extension organization – the free inputs were not financed by WACIP) but 
from among the other farmers who underwent training programs including visiting the 
demonstration plots to observe the methods and successes of the plots. The demonstration 
plots were run for one year in Burkina Faso and two years in Benin and Mali. The baseline was 
the yields of the three previous years for the randomly selected farmers, compared to the yields 
in 2008/9 or 2009/10 after their exposure to the program (for Mali it was the previous two 
years due to lack of data). 
Anecdotally from contacts reporting results to the evaluation team, there were substantial gains 
by correct use of inputs and other practices. In Mali cotton farmers reportedly normally 
averaged 800 – 900 kgs/ha but the test plots averaged 1.6 MT/ha. Similarly in Benin farmers 
normally averaged 1.2 MT/ha but the test plots averaged 1.6 MT or some said 1.8 or 2 MT/ha 
was more common as an average yield for good practices. Thus, it appears that if farmers respect 
the recommendations (and don’t have to divert their cotton fertilizer to corn for the family’s 
annual food supply) they could increase yields and their net profits by at least a third, maybe 
substantially more). Reports from many contacts during the trip indicated that the program did 
have an effect in improving cultivation practices for the farmers that were trained. 
The random sample for yields for cotton trainees showed an average yield increase of only 17 
percent – substantially above the target of 15 percent but lower than anecdotal information on 
average current and average potential crop yields. The random sample showed a gross margin 
increase of 43 percent (rather high relative to a 17 percent yield increase and partly explained by 
a 66 percent fall in input costs in Mali – reportedly mostly due to lower pesticide cost. It appears 
to the evaluator that something may be wrong with the data in this case – both in the lower 
than expected increase in yield and in sharp fall in input costs in Mali, coupled with an increase in 
yield. Yields for corn and cowpeas also increased during the base period, modestly for corn, 
dramatically for cowpeas. Availability and use of pesticide could easily explain the huge increase 
in cowpea yields from the base period, though supposedly pesticide use for cowpeas went down 
– probably not a correct report if the production increase is accurate. 
In sum, the attempts to measure the outputs seem to have been actively pursued. Intensive 
planning by WACIP personnel in cooperation with local trainers, WACIP visits to seminars and 
to demonstration fields seem to have been important in ensuring that the program worked and 
in increasing the enthusiasm of all participants. A contrast in Benin was with the African 
Development Bank project, which started about the same time as WACIP but is just getting 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 50 
started on implementation as WACIP is finishing its first budget tranche. ADB said they asked the 
extension service to do 408 demonstration plots in a manner similar to what WACIP did and 
like WACIP in 2008, they promised later funding (near the end of the season to reimburse the 
agencies implementing the program). But unlike WACIP they did not actively monitor the efforts 
and as a result they found that only 159 of the 408 were done correctly with proper record 
keeping. Judging from the reports of numerous interlocutors met by the evaluation team, it 
seems fairly certain that WACIP surpassed its main target of improving the income from cotton 
(the main source of money income) by at least 15 percent. It reported over 900,000 farmers 
trained, including the direct trainees and the family members working on the farms, trained by 
the farm head who underwent the formal training. 
Of necessity, WACIP relied on partners to monitor and report the results of activities in 
extension and other areas, such as sales of products under the aid to artisans and reduced costs 
and expanded profits resulting from the pilot programs for ginning companies in Senegal and 
Benin. 
USAID has done a separate evaluation of WACIP’s monitoring and evaluation system. While our 
evaluation team did not have the time to exhaustively analyze all M&E procedures and results, 
the claims of success in meeting targets seem to be plausible and were verified by numerous 
public and private contacts met by the evaluation team in the three countries visited. WACIP’s 
exhaustive tables on IEHA categories (number of new technologies introduced, etc) and are 
useful for USAID etc) reporting but these numerous iterations do not provide much clarification 
on the success of the WACIP program in reaching its main goals.. 
Question #9: How successful was the program in meeting the expectations expressed by key 
stakeholders in the C-4 countries, including (i) cotton producers organizations, inter￾professionals, and companies (ginners); and (ii) key officials at Ministries of Agriculture and Trade? 
Comment: Partners in Mali and Burkina Faso linked to the Ministry of Trade and the cotton 
ginners expressed the desire for $400 million in compensation for US cotton subsidies and 
started off meetings with the team with ritual mention of this issue, quickly dropped for more 
substantive discussion. It was clear that the program was smaller and of shorter duration than 
desired. It filled a critical gap as new issues arose threatening farm production (such as pesticide 
resistant insects, and funding cuts for research), and helped to counteract funding cuts for 
extension services. Clearly the regional brainstorming meetings followed up by revised training 
modules and active and carefully monitored programs energized researchers, extension officials 
and farmers. The farmers were glad to get free inputs for their demonstration plots (supplied by 
counterpart funding, not by WACIP) and were delighted with the substantial increase of yields. 
The Ministries cannot be described as universally content with the program. The Ministry of 
Agriculture contact met in Mali complained that he didn’t see the studies done by the WACIP 
program (some plans for policy briefs were dropped, other briefs were not published yet). The 
Ministry of Commerce in Ouagadougou complained that the farmers organization got a contract 
that they thought should have gone to the interprofessional association instead, Ginners in 
Senegal and Benin seemed quite happy with the ginning humidification and health/safety program 
and ginners in Mali also seemed impressed and interested in having a trial in one of their gins. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 51 
The program generally earned respect as a small, short but useful program, that might have long 
term benefits if it is continued. 
SUSTAINABILITY 
Question #11: Is the assistance effective in building local capacity to carry on and sustain 
development after USG funded technical assistance is ended? 
Comment: In most cases systems won’t collapse with the end of WACIP. WACIP energized and 
catalyzed the system, but the research people and most of the extension people have their 
salaries paid by the government or by the cotton industry, not by donors. WACIP consulted 
regionally and nationally, slightly modified their training modules for providing advice to farmers 
and WACIP energized and funded training programs. The local research and extension people 
will be paid by the government or their organization, though farmers organizations may have 
trouble generating funds to pay their extension personnel, especially given lack of full 
cooperation between farmers organizations and the cotton companies in Burkina Faso and 
Benin. But WACIP was not paying these salaries. In absence of WACIP the research and 
extension people and farmers wouldn’t have had the energy, money and enthusiasm to pursue 
the activities that were generated by WACIP. A contrast to WACIP success is the African 
Development Bank program in Benin which tried and failed to copy WACIP demonstration fields 
as a basis of farmer training – failing because of lack of planning and monitoring by ADB staff, in 
contrast to the intensive interactive work of WACIP. 
If a year is skipped (2010 – cropping season already missed) and programs are resumed for the 
2011/12 season (beginning with planning and input supplies in March, 2011), the momentum will 
still be there. If there is no further program, much of the value of the program will be lost and 
the memory of successes are likely to turn to criticism of a small and excessively short duration 
program. 
The program filled some very useful funding gaps. It disproved a farmer assumption that seeds 
were no longer effective, proving that with use of recommended inputs, farmers could increase 
their yields by a third or more. Probably there will be little lasting effect if it is not continued. In 
any case, it will provide (hopefully) some useful communications and other equipment to labs. 
Question #12: Will the improvements in producer and processor performance be sustained in 
the absence of the assistance? 
The ginnery assistance will last for the two plants helped. Humidification equipment and safety 
training substantially raised profits and the equipment is expected to last at least 10 years. 
Producer performance and input credit control may be influenced by the training, but traditional 
farmers, many of them illiterate and stuck in old ways have not been fully convinced to create 
and move many tons of compost (5 – 10 MT/ha) to preserve and renew the structure of their 
soil. It will take at least several years of similar programs to have a long term impact on farm 
behavior. SOFITEX was demonstrating on method of composting in 2004 (crop residues in a 
night holding pen for cattle) when a USG team visited, but it isn’t yet widely accepted in Burkina 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 52 
Faso. The team didn’t meet any farmers enthusiastic about composting on their land, though 
there were reports of voluntary composting in Mali and possibly in northern Benin. Farmers 
were happy to get free fertilizer and pesticides (provided by the partner, not by WACIP) for their 
little half or quarter hectare demonstration fields and were happy to see substantial yield 
increases – often doubling, due to use of proposed inputs plus bovine manure in some cases. 
Question #13: Is there a credible exit strategy that will allow USG funding to be phased out 
efficiently and without undue transition problems? 
Comment: US funding was largely used up before June 30, though late deliveries of research 
equipment through INSAH were still awaited. There is a small amount of residual money 
($500,000) that will fund some minor activities and the operating expenses of the no-cost 
extension through September. WACIP missed the 2010/11 crop season and would need to 
provide new funding to partners by March 2011 to activate farm outreach programs in the 
2011/23 season. Generally the government pays the salaries of the research and extension staff 
so there will be continuation of the knowledge learned. But resources will be needed. SNV 
(Holland) is providing some resources for a similar program in Benin (their program pre-dated 
WACIP). ADB is trying to copy WACIP in Benin, but with poor results so far. The programs of 
other donors are covering only a portion of farmers and they, like WACIP partners would like to 
see the WACIP program continued to reinforce its successes into long term sustainability. 
The system will not collapse in absence of US funding. In some cases (research) it might be 
argued that others (Monsanto in Burkina) should provide much of the funding for insect 
resistance. The phase out was not efficient. WACIP made plans with cotton companies for a 
2010/11 season program up to the last minute (June) hoping futilely that funding might be 
expanded. Local partners will be disappointed if WACIP is not renewed and the US will lose 
some of the credibility it gained. 
The US WACIP program is not the only player. The private sector – including local cotton 
companies, Monsanto, NGO’s, and other donors are supplementing the national government 
efforts to reach out to farmers with improved and changing technical advice and materials. 
But if an important part of the program is credibility, the one-shot program for one or two years 
will be seen as less sincere, less valuable and less effective if it is not continued. 
WACIP is not revolutionizing the system. It is filling some gaps and showing the way for farmers 
to substantially increase their incomes and for processors to reduce their costs. If they took 
advantage of these opportunities, it would be more meaningful to farm and processor income 
than the effect on world cotton prices if the US ended its subsidies. 
WAY FORWARD 
Question #14: If there turns out be a follow-on project, which components (implementation 
areas) of the current WACIP should be retained, and which eliminated? 
Comment: The main issues are how the credit system for inputs will work and whether 
researchers will be able to address changing issues of soil fertility and new types of bugs. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 53 
Programs to Eliminate: 
1. Equipment. No more Equipment in a one year extension: The reaction to INSAH 
equipment purchases was so negative that it is uncertain that this was a useful program. 
Probably the researchers will be happier once they get their equipment, provided that it 
works and they know how to use it. Perhaps with more information back and forth in a 
longer term WACIP program this procurement problem could be mitigated. Apparently 
much of the complex procurement process was new to INSAH and they made some 
time consuming mistakes. Contrast with WACIP staff which visited all the labs and got 
equipment needs, pared them down and quickly determined the list of equipment that 
INSAH was supposed to buy. INSAH seems much more lethargic from reports from the 
researchers in all three countries. Perhaps part of the complaint by researchers 
stemmed from the desire to control the funding themselves, though a Burkina research 
group was unable to buy one piece of equipment due to poor tendering procedures and 
reverted to WACIP to purchase it for them from the US instead of Europe (at a third of 
the price they had estimated). 
The current INSAH program is in the process of buying and delivering the needed 
equipment and information systems. If there is a one year extension of the program, it 
would be unwise to add more equipment – not needed and procurement difficulties of 
INSAH have reduced the perceived effectiveness of the WACIP program among 
researchers, contributing to a perception among some researchers (Burkina research 
director) that WACIP is slow and not well managed – unlike WACIP activities not 
involving INSAH. 
For a longer term multi year program need for additional equipment for researchers 
could be revisited as an issue if there are new areas of focus in classing, seeds, or other 
areas. Longer term equipment purchases should not be precluded, provided there is 
focus on better communication between the purchaser and the beneficiaries. 
2. Pricing policies. No Policies on Farm Gate Prices: Policy work on internal price setting 
isn’t really welcome and is unlikely to be useful. The system will remain a managed 
system, with set prices for cotton and inputs and all farmers in a country receiving or 
paying the same price. 
3. Textiles/garments. No Textile company support: It appears that the cotton processing 
industry is not competitive – Asian imports are much cheaper – half or less the price. 
Used clothing flooding African markets with affordable clothes are even cheaper. There is 
not much point in trying to prop up non-competitive textile and garment industries. 
The key useful parts of the program that should be continued are: 
1. Helping train many farmers with demo plots and using the existing research and 
extension services and recommendations. 
2. Helping the research system test new fertilizers and test insects for resistance, and 
develop better communication systems. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 54 
3. The successful reduction in ginning costs.
4. Some help for highly visible programs with very limited aggregate impact – help for 
artisans, organic farmers. 
We should continue with most of the same programs for the next year, including extension, 
research and a pilot ginning program in Burkina Faso and a biosafety program In Burkina Faso 
and its neighbors – Mali and Benin. We should also include the cameo programs of aid to artisans 
and organic cotton (not big in impact but big in visibility and with heavier participation by 
women than the male dominated conventional cotton program). 
The main programs with substantial economic impact will be on production issues involving 
fertility and pests and better management of input credit. 
Policy reform for credit on corn fertilizer. For food security – the US should push for 
reasonable policies to permit cotton farmers who pay their debts to get some corn fertilizer on 
credit as well through the cotton program. The idea of the President Director General of the 
CMDT cotton ginning company in Mali to let a debt free farmer have up to 40 percent of his 
expected cotton value in credit for fertilizer for cotton (30 percent) and corn (10 percent) 
seems sound. We should push gently perhaps introducing this only in one or two countries and 
hoping the others will change later if (like SOFITEX in Burkina Faso) they are opposed to this 
idea. 
Ginning Program: The issue of whether to help private cotton ginners is interesting. Ideally 
they could invest themselves. But raising this question in Mali (CMDT) and Benin (ICA) didn’t 
elicit a response that suggested the investment in humidification equipment for gins would 
automatically occur, in spite of the demonstrated benefits and one year payback for investment. 
Financial crises in Mali make it more difficult and the private companies will take over 
presumably at the end of the year. Probably it would be a good idea to repeat the programs of 
humidification and health/safety/management procedures in one gin in Burkina Faso, next year, 
with a Mali program to be considered a year after successful privatization of the ginning industry 
is completed (privatization is programmed for the end of 2010). 
It is questionable to what degree we can/should help the private sector (newly –privatized 
cotton companies in Mali, the cotton gins with more investment in humidification and accounting 
and information systems. But these efforts were highly effective and could be extended to Mali 
and Burkina, which unlike Benin and Senegal, did not have test efforts. 
Chad’s cotton sector has fallen sharply with stopping of input buying. Without that, there will be 
no progress and not much point in training. A farmer outreach program for Chad should be 
dependent on clear signals that inputs are coming in. 
New Programs: 
Starting new programs on cotton quality, on seed quality and distribution on seed varieties for 
cotton may be desirable in a multi-year program. A multiyear program could not be approved in 
time for the 2011/12 cropping season. It would need programs developed and grants funded with 
partners by March 2011. Composting training programs for 2011/12 should start in October 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 55 
2010. Ideally the a year extension of IFDC could be supplemented by an RFP later this year for 
follow on program to begin on In August 2011 for five years building on some of the programs 
an overlapping with WACIP II. 
The BT biotech work is a good opportunity for rapid implementation and could be launched as 
soon as funds are available in an IFDC one year extension. ANB already proved it can act quickly 
and effectively. The US will gain if the lies about BT are addressed through public education 
campaigns. Burkina’s neighbors should have a keen interest in avoiding serious problems if mixed 
BT/non-BT seeds are purchased by their farmers illegally across borders – almost certain to 
happen without a substantial education campaign for these largely illiterate farmers. 
Our main interests continue to be: 
1. Improve incomes of farmers; 
2. Address inefficiencies that could lead to better cotton price or lower costs (quality, 
ginning); 
3. Have programs that that look good and have good results. 
Question #15: What are the main lessons learned from WACIP that should inform any future 
decisions on additional USAID-funded activities of a similar nature? 
A main lesson learned is that is possible to work with local organizations, use their procedures 
and personnel to have a substantial positive impact on farmer incomes. Many development 
programs in the past have been stand alone operations, hiring local staff away from their 
organizations at a multiple of their previous salaries with little sustainability. 
WACIP found areas where there was an existing system of dedicated and competent research 
and extension staffers with salaries paid by the government or the cotton companies (or by the 
fledgling farmer unions) in a system which had been already traditionally focused on farmers 
needs. Thus WACIP had sustainable partners that were willing to put in meaningful counterpart 
funds and efforts. 
Clearly communications have been a problem, particularly in Burkina Faso. Financial reporting, 
tendering procedures, environmental issues, and monitoring and evaluation procedures of 
grantees have been problem areas that should have more attention (a dedicated staffer in each 
country) to help partners with these issues in future programs. 
IFDC/Accra, overall manager of the program, suggested that another area of focus should be 
better communications – addition of a bilingual communications expert staff member at the 
WACIP Head office in Bamako, able to address some of the USAID requirements and help 
develop reports, websites etc. that report the successes of the program and give continuing 
access to grantees to keep abreast of plans and progress of the program – mitigating the poor 
communication among host country agencies. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 56 
Clearly part of the problems of this generally very successful program stemmed from the need 
to move quickly – asking partners to launch activities before funding was ready, moving ahead 
before the full program was approved, catering to divergent directives from Consultative 
Committees (wanting a broad scope of activities and wishing for local control of funds) versus 
USAID’s need to focus activities, have adequate monitoring, reporting, and financial records and 
enforce contractual obligations of the implementing organization (IFDC ). Waiting another year 
to start activities while they were being planned and coordinated could have obviated some of 
the problems that WACIP faced. WACIP needed to move speedily and it did – with impressive 
effectiveness. 
If there is a WACIP II or WACIP III there is an opportunity to have more careful advance 
planning and coordination. This would require for a one year extension to implement programs 
in the 2011/12 cropping season , extension of the IFDC program by October or earlier (to avoid 
losing all the staff), so that new activities could be launched by March 2011, as inputs are 
delivered to farmers. A composting program should be launched in October 2010 to compost 
2010/11 crop residues for the next season. A WACIP III for a new competitive bid for a three 
year or five year program should be planned now – and awarded no later than July 2011 to 
permit implementation and overlap with WACIP II in August/September. 
WACIP III should not be done without WACIP II. WACIP II (one year extension of IFDC) could 
follow up on existing agreements, relationships understandings and is even more important than 
WACIP III because of the prospect of continuity. Starting over with a multiyear WACIP III 
program and trying to renegotiate local partner contributions after a long hiatus would be of 
questionable value. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 57 
VIII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ON VALUE AND 
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PROGRAM 
The breakdown of cotton company funding for activities for the cotton sector led to 
opportunities for WACIP to have a major impact in a potentially sustainable system. The long run 
sustainability o f WACIP successes is not assured in a system where politics will always influence 
the setting of farm gate prices for cotton and for inputs. But several elements being introduced 
in these systems could create a sustainable system. Those elements include: 
1. The Burkina Faso “fond de lissage” (stabilization fund) system (based loosely on the 
former “ristourne” system) for paying farmers a portion of the value of their cotton 
when they deliver, and the rest later. If farm gate prices are not set too high, this could 
lead to a sustainable system that would permit fixed prices to farmers in advance of the 
season (as insisted upon by all the countries) in spite of fluctuating world market prices. 
2. Benin’s system of charging a fee of 20 cfa/kg to fund essential services including research. 
The system is not self sustaining at present but could be. WACIP filled in gaps at a time of crisis 
and its active involvement in planning and monitoring provided financing for key outreach 
activities, but also energized all the players, resulting in impressive results. 
Whether this can be repeated for other crops is questionable. No other crop has the credit 
potential of cotton because the cotton farmer (unlike the food crop farmer) has no alternative 
but to sell to a ginner and thus will be obliged to repay input credit. The cotton ginners and 
related credit/purchasing systems have strong incentives to ensure that inputs are there on time, 
of appropriate quality (unlike the open market) and that farmers are paid when or soon after 
they deliver their cotton. The cotton companies, public (SOFITEX) or private (Benin) have an 
incentive to fund researchers in high risk areas such as insect resistance to preserve their long 
run viability. 
Food security. All cotton farmers also produce food crops – and most of the farm of a cotton 
farmer is devoted to those food crops – notably corn, which is stored throughout the year to 
sustain the family’s basic food needs. Surpluses are sold but prices for food crops can be quite 
low during the harvest season. A controversial but attractive suggestion (By the head of the 
ginning company in Mali and by the former President of the Farmers union in Burkina Faso) 
would have farmers who have paid their cotton debts be given the permission to borrow against 
cotton sales (up to 40 percent of the value according the suggestion of CMDT/Mali) to purchase 
fertilizer and other inputs – e.g. 30 percent for cotton fertilizer and pesticide and 10 percent for 
corn fertilizer). SOFITEX of Burkina Faso currently opposes this system, wanting credit only for 
fertilizer for cotton not for corn. But farmers will divert the fertilizer to their food crops anyway, 
so it would be sensible for a future program to promote use of the program for much needed 
input credit for food crops. (Other systems such as warehouse receipts for stored grain have 
been proposed to generate input credit, by delayed sale of the crop, but are still very 
experimental and of uncertain success). Cotton credit could clearly be used for food security, if 
managed correctly. A future WACIP program could explore this issue, though taking account of 
local sensibilities – if it isn’t acceptable in Burkina Faso, it could be introduced in countries where 
it could be acceptable – e.g. Mali and Benin, just as BT cotton is being introduced in Burkina Faso 
long before introduction in other countries. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 58 
The original reason the WACIP program was begun was to respond to requests of the C-4 
Ministers and help to provide credibility to US intentions in the WTO negotiations. The main 
efforts under WACIP program management were to help farmers, artisans and ginning industries 
and to provide support for new biotech efforts. Given the short duration, the limited 
preparation time, the small budget and the diverse groups providing advice and direction, the 
program was remarkably successful in accomplishing its main objectives of increasing incomes in 
the farm and processing sectors. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 59 
IX. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE PROGRAMS 
Based upon desk reviews of program documents and interviews with USAID, IFDC, WACIP 
partners and beneficiaries, and other cotton sector donors, the Evaluation Teams recommends: 
1. A one-year extension to the current program implemented by IFDC: This extension 
would enable the following: 
 Further purchases of equipment through INSAH at this time are not necessary 
in a one year program. The deliveries, training, implementation of these system 
should be pursued with close attention from WACIP to ensure that INSAH and 
researcher understand each other and cooperate on a timely basis. 
 It would be useful to continue work on fertilizer formulation – closely tied to 
soil fertility and productivity issues. 
 The trapping plants haven’t worked yet but researchers want to keep pursuing 
research – they could become very important in resistance for conventional and 
biotech cotton. Burkina will have a major problem in keeping the 20 percent of 
conventional cotton separate from the BT cotton and the trapping plants 
(keeping alive non-mutant bugs to mate with the occasional mutant resistant bug 
instead of two mutants mating) could be an alternative to planting conventional 
cotton. Sarah Gavian seemed doubtful about the value of continuing work on 
trapping plants since the initial results were negative on finding plants that could 
attract the bugs away from cotton. But even if success is not assured, it might be 
useful to continue because success would be very important for delaying insect 
resistance in BT cotton and could also be useful in conventional cotton. 
 The biosafety program in Burkina Faso and in neighboring countries will have 
problems and needs a lot of coordination. WACIP can help and WACIP funding 
could be very useful to combat the propaganda and lies spread by NGO’s against 
biotechnology. The US has credibility in this area and the countries around 
Burkina are eager for information that could be provided by the energetic and 
effective head of ANB. 
 The aid to artisans program is of limited economic impact but involves women 
managers and is highly visible and should be continued. This program includes 
helping them with designs and getting their products to markets. Funding levels 
should continue to be modest. 
 The organics program is similar – low economic value but highly visible, but 
perhaps more problematical. WACIP should be open to assisting in a project if 
(as in the case of the Burkina organic cotton contract) there is already a buyer 
willing to pay high (fair trade) prices for organic cotton. WACIP should not offer 
to find such buyers but may wish to coordinate with private voluntary agencies 
that can provide such contracts. The risks of marketing problems without such a 
contract are substantial. 
 In the one year extension, WACIP could pursue a contract with COTIMES to do 
a ginning humidification/management training program with one of the three 
Burkina Faso companies similar to the successful efforts in Benin and Senegal. A 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 60 
regional visit by ginners should be arranged to see the results. A program in Mali 
should wait until after the new private ginning companies have been in business 
for at least a year. 
 A composting activity could be started with crop residues planned immediately 
and implemented when crops are harvested in October/December 2010. 
2. Follow on three or five year program: To overlap with IFDC program at the end of FY 
2011. This follow-on makes sense only if the one year extension is approved. If there is 
no IFDC extension, momentum will be lost, counterpart contributions might be difficult 
to re-negotiate, and the value of re-starting a cotton program would be questionable. 
A longer term program (three year $20 million or preferably five year 30 million 
program-) is desirable and should be developed and approved as early as possible in FY 
2011. Areas of interest including continuation of successes from programs in the one￾year extension would include: 
 Help with capacity building – interprofessional organization. 
 Cotton classing – bale identification. 
 Cotton classing – use of HVI classing equipment (reportedly, y SOFITEX has 
bought some of the $2 million HVI machines and is proceeding with this). 
 Seed issues – varieties catalogue, seed delinting, seed storage and distribution 
systems, possibly research in improved seed varieties. There are other USAID 
programs for seeds, but generally they do not overlap with research and seed 
production/distribution for cotton – which is separate from food crop seed. 
 Credit issues for food crops (cotton credit for maize fertilizer, cowpeas 
insecticides etc). 
 Ginning humidification program with one of the newly privatized mills in Mali 
once they have been operating under new management for at least a year. 
Regional visit of ginners to see results. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 61 
ANNEXES 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 62 
ANNEX I: C-4 MINISTERS JULY 2004 REQUEST FOR 
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE IN KEY AREAS 
In July 2004, after a visit to US cotton producing areas financed by USDA, a visit to Washington 
and meeting with the USDA and private sector cotton experts, the US Trade Representative, the 
Secretary of Agriculture and other high officials, C-4 Ministers of Trade and Agriculture jointly 
drafted a letter asking the U.S. Government to consider funding and technical assistance for the 
following areas. 
1. Improve scientific and technology research 
2. Improve farmer access to high quality inputs. 
3. Protect the environment and conserve water and soil 
4. Strengthen the capacity of cotton sector actors 
5. Improve cotton-related infrastructure 
6. Provide assistance in cotton processing 
7. Biotechnology center of excellence 
8. Partnerships: US and African research institutions 
9. Bamako Ministerial: Financial and technical support 
The USAID-led interagency fact finding visit was sent in response to this request. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 63 
ANNEX II: FIFTEEN INTERVENTION AREAS SUGGESTED BY 
2004 INTERAGENCY FACT FINDING TEAM 
RECOMMENDATIONS, PUBLISHED AS PART OF 
USAID REPORT IN JANUARY 2005 
Summary and Findings of the West African Cotton Assessment 
September 25 – October 14, 2004 
Potential Development Interventions 
1. Strengthen Private Agricultural Organizations 
2. Link US and West African Agricultural Research Organizations 
3. Improve the Enabling Environment for Agricultural Biotechnology 
4. Improve Seed Production, Quality, Certification and Utilization 
5. Improve Tendering, Quality Assurance, and Distribution of Agrochemicals 
6. Expand Agricultural and Rural Credit 
7. Develop Alternative Approaches To Technology Generation and Transfer for the 
Cotton Sector Under the Assumption of Privatization 
8. Arrest Soil Degradation and Loss of Fertility in Cotton Areas 
9. Expand the Use of Good Agricultural Practices in Cotton Farming Systems 
10. Reduce Post-Harvest Losses and Costs Through Better Practices, Handling and 
Logistics 
11. Establish a West African Regional Ginning School 
12. Reduce Contamination in C-4 Seed Cotton and Lint 
13. Improve the Quality of C-4 Cotton Through Better Seed Cotton Grading and Lint 
Classing 
14. Better Manage Critical Risks Confronting the C-4 Cotton Sector 
15. Improve Competitiveness of Selected C-4 Textile & Apparel Enterprises 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 64 
ANNEX III: NINE AREAS OF INTERVENTION 
RECOMMENDED BY 2006 BENIN CONFERENCE 
WEST AFRICA COTTON IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM PLANNING WORKSHOP 
Cotonou, Benin, January 25 – 26, 2006 
WORKSHOP REPORT (excerpt) 
3.2 Suggested Implementation Plan 
Each of the three working groups were assigned intervention areas the following intervention 
areas: Group 1 - Interventions 1, 2, 3, 4; Group 2 - Interventions 1, 5, 6, 7 
Group 3 - Interventions 1, 8, 9. They were instructed to make suggestions for activities that 
would be carried out for each of the assigned interventions, specifying how the activity would be 
carried out, by whom and when. Each working group then presented its findings to the plenary, 
followed by discussions and adoption of the suggestions. 
Identified themes and areas of intervention for implementation. 
Theme 1: Increase Productivity 
Intervention 1.1 Expanding the use of good agricultural practices in cotton producing areas, 
including addressing soil degradation and fertility problems and improving pest management 
practices. 
Intervention 2. Improving access, quality and reduce cost of inputs (seeds, fertilizer and 
chemicals). 
Intervention 3.3 Improving linkages between the U.S. and West African agricultural research 
organizations involved with cotton. 
Intervention 4.4 Improving the technical, bio-safety, and regulatory capacity for biotechnology-Bt 
Cotton. 
Theme 2: Processing, Marketing and Improving Quality 
Intervention 5.5 Improving the quality of C-4 cotton through better classification of seed cotton 
and lint. 
Intervention 6.6 Establishing a West African regional training program for ginners. 
Intervention 7. Improving value added from the cotton sector. 
Theme 3: Institutional/Policy Development 
Intervention 8.8 Supporting policy and institutional reform for private management of the 
sector. 
Intervention 9.9 Strengthening private cotton producer organizations in business management 
practices in the C-4 countries. 
*dTS Note – the above nine (9) points were either identical or very similar to the 15 areas 
recommended with a few exceptions: 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 65 
The Cotonou recommendations did not specifically include the following recommendations 
from the original 15, though point 7 in the list of 9 (Improve value added) or point 8 (Support 
policy and Institutional Reform) might be linked to some of them: 
6. Expand Agricultural and Rural Credit 
7. Develop Alternative Approaches to Technology Generation and Transfer for the Cotton 
Sector 
10. Reduce Post Harvest losses and costs through better practices, handling and logistics 
12. Reduce Contamination in C-4 Seed Cotton and Lint 
14. Better manage critical risks confronting the C-4 Sector 
15. Improve competitiveness of Selected C-4 Textile and Apparel Enterprises. 
*dTS Comment: It appears that the Cotonou Conference deleted some comments that specified 
failings of the current system, while welcoming less specific changes, including “policy and 
institutional reform” that might address some of those problems. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 66 
ANNEX IV: EXCERPT FROM 2006 WACIP WORK PLAN 
IDENTIFYING OVERALL OBJECTIVES AND NINE 
AREAS OF FOCUS 
1.3 WACIP Goal and Objectives 
The overall objective of the WACIP project is to increase incomes of cotton-farming 
households. The project assists these four countries to increase cotton yields and improve sales 
and income for the cotton sector. Farm-level activities focus on increasing the productivity of 
cotton as well as increasing income from rotational crops and diversified farm enterprises. 
Other program elements support the farmers with better access to appropriate and high-quality 
inputs, farm credit, more effective farmer organizations, higher quality handling and processing, 
increased value adding enterprises including artisan products, and improved and better targeted 
marketing strategies. WACIP also helps to build a better supporting environment through direct 
assistance to agencies and organizations providing services to the cotton value chain, assisting 
the industry to engage in policy dialog, and by fostering public-private partnerships. 
The project aims to: 
 Increase productivity of cotton, the quality of cotton lint, and farmers’ income from 
cotton and other crops in the cotton farming systems; 
 Create momentum for longer term policy and institutional changes that will encourage 
investment and value-addition; and 
 Improve value addition by exploiting niche processing and marketing opportunities for 
cotton-based products. 
The WACIP strategy is based on the concept that whereas the fundamental reforms in policy in 
the cotton chain will take a concerted effort over a longer time than the project; opportunities 
exist now to make significant improvements in yields and rural incomes. 
Within the three-year duration of the project, the focus therefore needs to be directed on 
issues that will have a good likelihood of impact on the incomes of producers in the cotton 
growing systems of the C-4 countries. Based on this, WACIP overall strategy includes the 
following: 
 Focus WACIP resources on improved agricultural practices, inputs, producer 
organizations, and ginning efficiency in the cotton sector. 
 Explore ways to provide opportunities for crop diversification through the better 
availability and application of agricultural inputs in both cotton and non-cotton farming. 
 Prepare the stage and set in motion elements for longer-term policy reforms and 
institutions, value-addition processing, and biotechnology 
 Take advantage of opportunities to increase marketing of higher value products such as 
organic or fair trade cotton lint, artisanal cotton products, and oilseed co-products such 
as oil, soap and livestock feed. 
 Determine the allocation of WACIP funds and efforts in each country in a step-wise 
manner, based on finding promising interventions, providing modest initial grants to 
partners, and then rewarding good performance with larger follow-on grants. 
Input from regional stakeholders, governments, industry and farmers in the C-4 countries has 
been central to the formulation of WACIP, as well as its first year plan. This input has been 
provided throughout the project identification, proposal development, and project start-up 
periods: 
1. Recommendations from the Sept-Oct 2004 West Africa Cotton Assessment Team. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 67 
2. Recommendations from the January 2006 WACIP Stakeholder Workshop in Cotonou. 
3. Guidance from the July 2006 USAID WACIP solicitation 
4. Input from meetings with both political leaders and technical organizations involved in 
the cotton sector in all C-4 countries during the course of: 
a. IFDC’s preparation of the WACIP proposal (July-September 2006) 
b. USAID’s high-level launch of the WACIP program (January – February 2007). 
c. The initial inception period of the project by the WACIP Implementing team 
(February-May 2007). During this latter period, the WACIP field teams, under the 
guidance of the WACIP Chief of Party, were assisted by the US-based members of 
the team from IFDC, Abt Associates, Aid-to-Artisans, Auburn University, Michigan 
State University, and Tuskegee University. 
The WACIP technical agenda is organized in nine different intervention areas – generally 
mirroring the links in the cotton supply chain. 
WACIP Theme 1: Cotton Sector Policies and Institutions 
• Intervention 1: Support policy and institutional reform for private management of the sector. 
• Intervention 2: Strengthen private cotton producer organizations in business management 
practices in the C-4 countries. 
WACIP Theme 2: Value Added in Cotton Processing and Transformation 
• Intervention 3: Improve the quality of C-4 cotton through better classification of seed cotton 
and lint. 
• Intervention 4: Establish a West African regional training program for ginners 
• Intervention 5: Add value to West African cotton through processing and transformation 
within the region. 
WACIP Theme 3: Cotton Productivity 
• Intervention 6: Expand the use of good agricultural practices in cotton producing areas, 
including addressing soil degradation and fertility problems and improving pest management 
practices. 
• Intervention 7: Improve access, quality and reduce costs of inputs (seeds, fertilizer and 
chemicals). 
• Intervention 8: Improve Linkages between U.S. and West African agricultural research 
organizations in the cotton sector. 
• Intervention 9: Enhance capacity to manage the technical issues and establish biosafety, and 
regulatory procedures for agricultural biotechnology, including Bt cotton. 
These nine intervention areas also involve three cross-cutting themes: 
• Identify gender issues and ensure participation by women. 
• Accommodate needs of disadvantaged groups, especially people living with HIV/AIDS. 
• Environmental impact and mitigating measures. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 68 
ANNEX V: EXCERPT FROM WACIP 2010 WORK PLAN 
IDENTIFYING AREAS OF ACTION 
Following is description of major program beneficiaries and activities from Sept 15 2008 revised
program description:
B.5. WACIP Beneficiary Population 
A summary of WACIP beneficiary populations is given in the table below:
WACIP Intervention Area Direct Beneficiaries
Goal 1: Improved productivity of cotton and non‐cotton crops
Expand the use of good agricultural practices in cotton
producing areas, including addressing soil degradation and
fertility problems and improving pest management
practices
 Farmers and their associations
 Researchers and their institutes
 Extension agents and their
organizations
Improve access, quality and reduce costs of inputs (seeds,
fertilizer and chemicals)
 Farmers and their associations
 Input suppliers and their
associations
 Researchers and their institutes
Improve Linkages between U.S. and West African
agricultural research organizations in the cotton sector
 Researchers and their institutes
Enhance capacity to manage the technical issues and
establish biosafety, and regulatory procedures for
agricultural biotechnology, including Bt cotton
 Researchers and their institutes
 Bio‐safety regulatory bodies
 Parliamentarians, scientists, civil
society
 Cotton companies
 Owners of Bt cotton patents
Goal 2: Improved productivity of cotton and non‐cotton crops
Improve the quality of C‐4 cotton through better
classification of seed cotton and lint
 Cotton Classers and their
companies
 Researchers and their institutes
Establish a West African regional training program for
ginners
 Ginners; cotton companies
Add value to West African cotton through processing and
transformation within the region
 Artisanal and industrial spinners,
weavers, and clothing makers
 Oil seed factories and their
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 69 
personnel.
Policy and Institutional Capacity
Support policy and institutional reform for private
management of the sector  
 Government policy makers
 Cotton companies
 Farmers associations
Strengthen private cotton producer organizations in
business management practices  
 Farmers associations  
 Inter‐professional associations
B.6. Key Impact and Outcome Indicators 
The tables below sets out illustrative indicators for the key elements of the project and
targets we believe achievable. These together with intermediate indicators will be
discussed with the National Advisory Committee and USAID, and will form the basis of
the monitoring and evaluation system. These indicators are for the region as a whole.
Key Impact Indicators
Indicator Overall Project Target
Goal 1: Higher incomes for cotton farmers
Objective 1: Improved productivity of cotton and non‐cotton crops
1. Gross margin of seed cotton  15% increase for (300,000) beneficiary
farmers*
2. Gross margin of non‐cotton crops (maize and
cowpea)
o 10% increase for (300,000)
beneficiary farmers*
Goal 2: Higher incomes for cotton processors
Objective 2: Increased value of cotton products
o Value of total trade in cotton products for
selected processors  20% increase for selected processors*
* Consistent with FACTS, % change compares current year with baseline year
  
Key Outcome Indicators 
Indicator Overall Project Target
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 70 
Goal 1: Higher incomes for cotton farmers
Objective 1: Improved productivity of cotton and non‐cotton crops
o Yield of seed cotton  20% increase for (300,000)
beneficiary farmers*
 Yield of non‐cotton crops (maize and cowpea)
  
 10% increase for
(300,000) beneficiary
farmers*
Goal 2: Higher incomes for cotton processors
Objective 2: Increased value of cotton products
o Number of new cotton products marketed by artisans  40 new products
 Volume of organic seed cotton processed using WACIP‐supported new
processing techniques
 1,200 Mt
 Volume of conventional cotton fiber processed using WACIP‐supported new
processing techniques
 4,000 Mt
Improved policy and institutional environment
o Number of policy reforms adopted as a result of USG assistance  One (1) policy
 Number of institutions /organizations making significant improvements based
on recommendations made via USG supported assessment
 Four (4) research institutions
* Consistent with FACTS, % change compares current year with baseline year
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 71 
ANNEX VI: BRIEF SUMMARY OF WACIP SUCCESSES SENT 
BY WACIP TEAM (IFDC) TO USDA MAY 2010 
Highlights of Results
 Agricultural productivity: We ran two years of extension activities focusing on cotton,
corn and cowpeas. By the end we had:
o Developed new training modules
o Trained over 1100 extension agents
o Demonstrated improved technologies on over 1000 plots: cotton, corn &
cowpeas, each with proper measures for the safe handling of pesticides
o Provided hands‐on trainings for 900,000+ farmers  
o Increased yields for seed cotton (17%), corn (18%) and cowpeas (31%) for
75,944 WACIP‐supported farms.
o Increased gross margins (returns) per hectare for seed cotton (43%), maize (7%)
and cowpeas (153%) for those 75,944 WACIP‐supported farms.
o Contributed to a new increase in net revenues for those cotton farmers (on the
75,944 WACIP‐supported farms of $64 886 310 (a 43% increase over baseline).
 Ginning: We ran a multi‐year ginning program which involved a diagnostic, a one‐week
regional ginner training program, and then investments in humidification, better
financial management systems, and integrated information management systems at
two competitively selected gins (Sodefitex in Senegal and ICA in Benin). As a result of
these efforts, the two target gins enjoyed:
 $70+ of revenue gain per ton of cotton lint
 Profits of $580,000 in 2009/10 alone  
 Profits of $6.5 million when assessed at net present value over 10 years
 Textiles: We have worked with a small group of export‐ready artisans in each country to
1) train in business management, export marketing, and environmental risk mitigation,
2) develop new products, and 3) introduce those products at a number of high profile
regional and international handicrafts fairs. As a result, WACIP‐supported artisans
earned over $700,000 in sales, including more than $220,000 from the New York
International Gift Fair and other international markets, more than $295,000 from SIAO
and other regional events, and $268,000 in domestic sales. They also created and sold
more than 700 new cotton products.
 Food Security: Using estimates drawn from local surveys, we estimate that WACIP has in
one way or another benefited over 560,000 rural households and over 290,000
impoverished households vulnerable to food insecurity.
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 72 
ANNEX VII: WACIP REPORT ON SAMPLE RESULTS ON 
CHANGES IN YIELD, COSTS, INCOME BY 
COUNTRY AND CROP
Following is WACIP’s report of the results of its program in terms of crop yields and income,
based on sampling of farmers participating in training programs, with their yields compared to a
base period of yields on their farms for the same crops in the previous two (Mali) or three
(Burkina and Benin) years. Commentary is from WACIP.  
Baseline Yield: As indicated in the PMP, WACIP defined its baseline for agricultural productivity
as the average of the three seasons preceding WACIP’s intervention: 2005/6, 2006/7 and
2007/8. In the case of Mali, however, the partner did not manage to collect retroactive data for
WACIP farmers for 2005/6, so the average of the most recent two seasons, 2006/7 and 2007/8,
was used instead.  
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 73 
Baseline and 2009/10 results for WACIP target farm units in Benin are shown in the table below.
Table 1: Baseline and 2009/10 WACIP Agricultural Results: Benin
Crop/Parameter Unit Baseline 2009/10 % Change
Cotton
Area Ha 65,874 65,874 0%
Production Kg 81,640,645 95,025,422 16%
Quantity Sold Kg 81,640,645 95,025,422 16%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.38 $0.42 12%
Purchased Input Cost $ $11,067,715 $14,926,786 35%
Yield Kg/Ha 1,239 1,443 16%
Gross Margin $/Ha $300 $382 27%
Net Revenue $ $19,774,306 $25,195,058 27%
Maize
Area Ha 91,395 91,395 0%
Production Kg 108,785,524 150,744,369 39%
Quantity Sold Kg 67,305,526 93,265,433 39%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.29 $0.24 ‐15%
Purchased Input Cost $ $895,992 $7,844,014 775%
Yield Kg/Ha 1,190 1,649 39%
Gross Margin $/Ha $334 $317 ‐5%
Net Revenue $ $30,530,937 $28,962,473 ‐5%
Cowpeas
Area Ha 19,716 19,716 0%
Production Kg 6,697,323 8,921,297 33%
Quantity Sold Kg 3,244,714 4,322,183 33%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.36 $0.59 61%
Purchased Input Cost $ $0 $0 N/A
Yield Kg/Ha 340 452 33%
Gross Margin $/Ha $124 $266 115%
Net Revenue $ $2,440,802 $5,248,249 115%
Net revenue (all crops) $ $52,746,045 $59,405,781 13%
For cotton, Benin’s results are very impressive. Yield increases of 16% were achieved, due
mainly to improved adoption of productivity‐enhancing techniques. However, expenditures on
inputs rose by 35% due to better adherence to recommended input doses. Assisted by a 12%
rise in cotton prices, the net result was a 27% increase in cotton gross margins. For maize,
however, the yield increases (39%) were even more impressive, but increased input costs
coupled with dropping maize prices contributed to a small drop in gross margins. For cowpeas,
large yield increases and a huge rise in sale price led to a 115% rise in gross margins. Overall,
WACIP farmers in Benin gained almost $7 million (+13%) in additional net revenue.
Baseline and 2009/10 results for WACIP target farm units in Burkina Faso are shown in the table
below.
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 74 
Table 2: Baseline and 2008/9 WACIP Agricultural Results: Burkina Faso
Crop/Parameter Unit Baseline 2008/09 % Change
Cotton
Area Ha 103,863 103,863 0%
Production Kg 83,924,505 101,080,629 20%
Quantity Sold Kg 83,924,505 101,080,629 20%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.37 $0.37 0%
Purchased Input Cost $ $16,884,702 $16,119,914 ‐5%
Yield Kg/Ha 808 973 20%
Gross Margin $/Ha $134 $202 51%
Net Revenue $ $13,887,617 $20,942,983 51%
Maize
Area Ha 60,192 60,192 0%
Production Kg 75,622,032 68,735,167 ‐9%
Quantity Sold Kg 46,787,297 30,930,825 ‐34%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.26 $0.26 0%
Purchased Input Cost $ $7,717,725 $7,414,893 ‐4%
Yield Kg/Ha 1,256 1,142 ‐9%
Gross Margin $/Ha $195 $171 ‐13%
Net Revenue $ $11,739,173 $10,270,074 ‐13%
Cowpeas
Area Ha 13,241 13,241 0%
Production Kg 4,082,607 5,268,197 29%
Quantity Sold Kg 1,977,938 $895,594 ‐55%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.44 $0.44 0%
Purchased Input Cost $ $1,591,807 $133,027 ‐92%
Yield Kg/Ha 308 398 29%
Gross Margin $/Ha $15 $164 1022%
Net Revenue $ $193,425 $2,170,638 1022%
Net revenue (all crops) $ $25,820,216 $33,383,695 29%
For cotton, Burkina Faso’s results are extremely impressive. Adoption of productivity‐enhancing
technologies led to yield increases of 20%; and adoption of more efficient pesticide treatment
methods led to a 5% decrease in expenditures on inputs despite increases in input costs; thus
gross margins increased by 51%. For maize, however, yields decreased, reportedly due to erratic
and unpredictable rainfall. Thus, despite a 4% drop in expenditures on inputs, gross margins fell
by 13%. It is likely that the effect of improved farmer adherence to correct cotton production
practices led to decreased use of cotton labor and inputs on maize farms, resulting in decreases
in maize input cost and maize yield. It is interesting to note that the reduction in net revenue
from maize ($1.5 million) is far outweighed by the net revenue gains from cotton ($7 million).
For cowpeas, huge yield gains (+29%) and large reductions (‐92%) in expenditures on inputs led
to a huge gross margins gains; it should be noted, however, that despite the large % increase in
gross margins, due to the lower value and acreage on cowpeas, the resulting net revenue gain
for WACIP farmers is less than $2 million. Overall, WACIP farmers in Burkina Faso gained over $7
million (+29%) in additional net revenue.
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 75 
Baseline and 2009/10 results for WACIP target farm units in Mali are shown in the table below.
Table 3: Baseline and 2009/10 WACIP Agricultural Results: Mali
Crop/Parameter Unit Baseline 2009/10 % Change
Cotton
Area Ha 50,573 50,573 0%
Production Kg 49,510,475 55,216,434 12%
Quantity Sold Kg 49,510,475 55,216,434 12%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.36 $0.38 5%
Purchased Input Cost $ $6,126,027 $2,111,274 ‐66%
Yield Kg/Ha 979 1,092 12%
Gross Margin $/Ha $232 $371 60%
Net Revenue $ $11,752,756 $18,748,268 60%
Maize
Area Ha 47,928 47,928 0%
Production Kg 78,575,111 89,678,489 14%
Quantity Sold Kg 48,614,365 40,355,320 14%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.20 $0.22 10%
Purchased Input Cost $ $3,836,155 $978,645 ‐74%
Yield Kg/Ha 1,639 1,871 14%
Gross Margin $/Ha $247 $391 59%
Net Revenue $ $11,829,103 $18,750,622 59%
Cowpeas
Area Ha 2,845 2,845 0%
Production Kg 1,004,617 1,259,084 25%
Quantity Sold Kg 486,716 610,000 25%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.52 $0.45 ‐13%
Purchased Input Cost $ $7,143 $22,218 211%
Yield Kg/Ha 353 443 25%
Gross Margin $/Ha $180 $190 6%
Net Revenue $ $510,815 $540,173 6%
Net revenue (all crops) $ $24,092,674 $38,039,063 58%
For cotton, Mali’s results are similar to those of Burkina Faso. Adoption of productivity‐
enhancing technologies led to yield increases of 12%; and adoption of more efficient pesticide
treatment methods led to a 66% decrease in expenditures, aided by increases in input subsidies.
Due to these factors as well as a 5% increase in cotton prices, gross margins increased by 60%.
For maize, however, Mali’s case is much than that of Burkina Faso: yields increased by 14% and
expenditures on inputs dropped by 74% due partly to increased input subsidies, but largely due
to a 28% reduction in pesticide use as a result of the adoption of more efficient treatment
methods. As a result, gross margins rose by 59%. For cowpeas, huge yield gains (+25%) were
outweighed by large rises in expenditures on inputs and a 13% drop in cowpea market price,
leading to modest gross margins gains of only 6%. Overall, WACIP farmers in Mali gained nearly
$12 million (+58%) in additional net revenue.
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 76 
Table 4: Aggregate baseline and final WACIP Agricultural Results
(2008/9 final year for Burkina Faso; 2009/10 final year for the Benin and Mali)  
Crop/Parameter Unit Baseline Final % Change
Cotton
Area Ha 220,310 220,310 0%
Production Kg 215,075,625 251,322,486 17%
Quantity Sold Kg 215,075,625 251,322,486 17%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.37 $0.39 6%
Purchased Input Cost $ $34,078,444 $33,157,974 ‐3%
Yield Kg/Ha 976 1,141 17%
Gross Margin $/Ha $206 $295 43%
Net Revenue $ $45,414,678 $64,886,310 43%
Maize
Area Ha 199,514 199,514 0%
Production Kg 262,982,667 309,158,024 18%
Quantity Sold Kg 162,707,188 139,121,111 ‐14%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.25 $0.24 ‐5%
Purchased Input Cost $ $12,449,871 $16,237,552 30%
Yield Kg/Ha 1,318 1,550 18%
Gross Margin $/Ha $271 $291 7%
Net Revenue $ $54,099,214 $57,983,169 7%
Cowpeas
Area Ha 35,802 35,802 0%
Production Kg 11,784,546 15,448,578 31%
Quantity Sold Kg 5,709,369 2,626,258 ‐54%
Average Sale Price $/Kg $0.38 $0.53 30%
Purchased Input Cost $ $1,598,951 $155,244 ‐90%
Yield Kg/Ha 329 431 31%
Gross Margin $/Ha $88 $222 153%
Net Revenue $ $3,145,042 $7,959,061 153%
Net revenue (all crops) $ $102,658,934 $130,828,539 27%
Overall, increases in yields and gross margins are observed for all crops, as well as aggregate
reductions in expenditures on inputs for cotton and cowpeas (the two pesticide‐intensive
crops). WACIP farmers gained over $26 million (+27%) in additional net revenue. For a region
with rural poverty rates of over 50%, the poverty‐reduction implications of these results are
enormous. In addition, on the same area, as a result of WACIP efforts, production of staple
crops (Maize and cowpeas) has increased 18% from 275 to 324 million Kg. With the combined
effects of increased revenue and increased staple food crop production, one would expect the
effect on rural C‐4 food security to be immense.  
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 77 
ANNEX VIII: DONOR PROGRAMS 
The team met a number of donors and got a list of all cotton donor programs in Benin.
Information on donors for Mali and Burkina Faso was incomplete.
Benin – Nine donor cotton programs from 2008 meeting:
Themes 
PAFICOT PARFCB PADYP Procoton CMIA WACIP ALAFIA GIPD Alifia
Strengthen actor
capacities X X X X X X X X X
Ecological sustainability      X X X X X X
Quality of cotton X X   X X X X X X
Farmer organization
functioning X X X X   X X X X
Extension Service tools,
approaches X X     X X X X X
Research and
development X X   X X X X X X
Partnership among
actors
X X X X X x X X X
Access to Info on cotton
actors
X X   X   x X X X
Counseling and
management
X X x       X X X
Seed & pesticide   X X X X     X X
Transport, storage of
seed cotton X   x X   X X X  
Ginning Management &
fiber quality X X X       
Use of LEC techniques
(Pest Management)                X X
Labeling of Benin cotton            X    
Statistics on cotton            X    
Info on cotton regulation            X    
Other cultivation
techniques                X
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 78 
N° Institutions Donors
1 OBEPAB: Organisation Béninoise pour
l’Agriculture biologique (organic cotton)
Netherlands‐Switzerland
2 GIPD: Gestion intégrée de la production et
des déprédateurs des cultures (pests)
United Nations Agriculture
Organisation (FAO)
3 “Alafia”: Coton biologique et équitable dans
la réserve de biosphères de la Pendari
(organic & fair trade cotton)
GTZ
Germany
4 PROCOTON: Cotton Producer organizations   Netherlands
5 PAFICOT: Projet d’Appui a la filière Coton‐
Textiles
African Development Bank
6 C FC (Common Fund for Commodities EU & World Bank
7 PARFCB: Projet d’Assainissement et de
Relance de la filière coton au Benin
World Bank
8 PADYP: Programme d’Appui aux dynamiques
productives  
French Development Agency
Mali Donors (partial list):
Institutions Domains Amount Observations
European Union Studies on reform 15 million euros  
Build roads (on cotton
production areas)
4 Million euros  
Literacy programs 1.50 Million
euros
Implemented by AFD
Organic ‐ cotton   600 000 Euros Implemented by
Cooperative Mobiom
Research and
Structuring of cotton
producers
350 Millions Managed by Brussels
ADF (French) Promote organic and
fair trade cotton  
11.9 millions
d’Euros
Implementing
partners:  
‐Association des
Producteurs de Coton
Africain (AProCA)
‐Union Nationale des
producteurs de coton
World Bank Granting Fund to the
restructuring mission
700 Million was paid to
Mali
PCDA Programme Value added to
cotton
production
48 Million US D
SNV (Dutch) Train in Leadership    
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 79 
Extension
Training of family
exploitation
Food security
Japan
International
Cooperation
Agency (Japan)  
Equipment grant for
regional Union
Cooperative office  
  
OXFAM
AMERICA
Capacity building of
cotton producers’
cooperatives in
organic and
conventional cotton
production
4 billion CFA Implementing
partners: AOPP, SNV,
Helvetas/Mobiom,
APROCA, Enda
Dialogue Politique
UEMOA‐Fond
Africain de
Developpement
(FAD)
ECOWAS/African
Development
Fund
Improve cotton
productivity  
Support processing
and marketing
Training of cotton
producers.  
Loan from FAD (72%)
Subsidy from FAD
(18%)
Government
contribution 10%  
Beneficiaries of C4
countries.
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 80 
 Burkina Faso Donors (partial list): 
Institutions Domains Amount Observations
European
Union
Organic cotton    
Soil‐fertility    
Helvetas
(Swiss)
Warehouse receipts      
AFD
(France)
Support to union
operation
  
Grant fonds de lissage    
Technical assistance with
qualified personnel
  
Training: Literacy
campaigns
  
Extension services    
Rehabilitation of rural
roads
  
Bio‐security    
Assistance to cotton
companies
Euros: 16 Million
loans and 3
million grants
World
Bank
   Not disbursed yet
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 81 
ANNEX IX: COTTON FARMING CHALLENGES
As a World Bank employee told the evaluation team in Mali, cotton is the engine for the 
agricultural sector and is important for food security. Cotton farmers ideally should have no 
more than a third of their cultivated land cotton, but cotton provides the main money income 
for their families and also helps them get fertilizer on credit for their food crops, particularly 
maize(corn). Cotton farmers usually have some animals (goats, sheep, chickens) and sometimes 
bovine animals as well for animal traction and milk production. Their crops often include maize 
(the key food for their family stored throughout the year) and other crops for food and income 
such as cowpeas, peanuts, yams, sesame, and shea nuts harvested from wild trees and either 
processed into cooking oil or sold for cosmetics manufacture. 
Cotton farms generally range from ½ hectare to five hectares. Exceptionally there are farms of 
up to 40 hectares worked with tractors. But most farms are worked by family members who are 
not compensated directly for their work, though they may benefit from the family income in less 
direct ways. 
Many people in rural areas are illiterate. Literacy is only 21.8 percent in Burkina Faso, 34.7 
percent in Benin and 46.4 percent in Mali and illiteracy is higher than the average in the rural 
areas and among older people. Members of the cooperative committees that coordinate input 
supplies and credit are supposed to be literate. Many farmers identify different types of 
pesticides, to be applied on different dates, by the colors of the containers. In the most rural 
areas, many of the children are not in school and thus they are available for farm work. Closer to 
cities, cash producing activities such as service jobs or opportunities for producing vegetables or 
ornamental plants for sale are more numerous. But in the more remote rural areas there may be 
few alternatives to cotton for cash and the perceived opportunity cost of family labor may be 
close to zero. Near the cities as more children are educated, they become a financial drain but in 
remote areas, an extra wife may mean extra farming labor and children not in school can help on 
the farm. The team heard several times that a farmer with a windfall in income might commonly 
marry an additional wife. The Burkina organics farmer that the team visited was one of six wives 
in a family with 24 children of which only six were in school – apparently an unusually large 
family. The school cost was only about $5 per year, but the farmer felt it was more valuable to 
keep most of the children working on the farm, rather than going to school. The wife we met 
was allocated three hectares under her control and she could decide to keep or share the 
money generated. 
Farmers generally have hand hoes, backpack sprayers for pesticides (and possibly herbicides), and 
a hand cart that can haul over a ton of manure or bagged harvested crops. The typical cotton 
farmer in the three countries has ½ to 5 hectares of cotton and at least three times that amount 
of land in other crops. It is possible to rent a plowing service or hauling service from either 
someone with animals and an animal traction plow or someone with a tractor for hire. But often 
such services require cash payment and farmers usually do not have access to cash outside of 
the harvest season. 
Generally with hand working of farms, labor is a more limiting factor than land. Additional land 
can be rented – e.g. paying 2 bags of corn (200 kg) at the end of the season to rent a hectare for 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 82 
a season. But cotton farming is very labor intensive in seeding, fertilizing, weeding, pesticide 
spraying and harvesting. Cotton also must be rotated with other crops so it is recommended 
that farmers apply no more than a third of their land to cotton. 
The rest of the land is used for other crops, particularly a grain crop (the main source of family 
food may be maize plus sorghum or millet – stored for up to year in mud silos). Other crops are 
grown such as such as cowpeas, sesame and peanuts. Women (and often men as well) may grow 
vegetables to sell outside of the main (June/September) rainy season) if hey can access enough 
water to hand irrigate their little plots. Vegetable and other off season cash crops such as 
ornamental plants have better marketing prospects near big cities. Maize and cotton are 
produced during the rainy season and maize, like cotton, is very responsive to fertilizer in terms 
of increased yields. Maize production above that needed for the family food is also sold, but 
prices are low at harvest time when everyone is selling. Cotton has a price fixed before the 
planting season and because of the guaranteed market and credit for inputs is often much more 
attractive than maize or other crops as a source of money income. 
Cotton is more demanding than other crops in terms of labor and chemical inputs. 
Recommended inputs include four 50 kg bags of fertilizer and 3 types of pesticides applied in six 
treatments (sometimes more depending on infestation). Some farmers use herbicides, which can 
also be purchased for cash or credit. A farmer using recommended inputs would pay 80,000 to 
90,000 cfa, and with good practices might get 1.6 MT of cotton, worth about 300,000 cfa, thus 
netting about 200,000 cfa/ ha worth about $400 for each hectare of his cotton crop. 
Farmers in these countries typically cannot save cash due to extended family obligations. Cash 
almost always disappears into urgent needs for school fees, medical expenses, funerals and 
weddings, so people with cash tend to spend it quickly. As a result, defaults on loans are common 
and banks, input suppliers and others generally won’t lend money to farmers for their crop 
inputs. Microcredit for crop inputs in principle is available for crop inputs in Mali (and is 
commonly used for irrigated rice and for imported seed potatoes in Mali), but generally isn’t 
ideal for crop inputs in the C-4 countries because the administrative costs and interest rates are 
too high to be supported by the profits of crop farming. 
Cotton is more amenable to credit systems than food crops. The farmer must sell the cotton to 
a gin to take out the seeds – about 58 percent of the weight of the cotton is seed. The ginner 
and the credit/input system applied by the ginner provide seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and 
sometimes herbicides to the farmer on credit. When the farmer’s cotton is picked up from the 
village collection point, the debts are deducted from the payment to the farmer. 
The farmer also needs fertilizer for his corn crop but can’t get credit for it from the network of 
independent private input suppliers. Another issue is that agricultural chemicals on the open 
market for other crops are often fake products – adulterated, according to contacts the team 
met. 
The main constraint to increasing farm yields is input credit. Farmers are limited on how much 
fertilizer they can buy on credit for their cotton, but they typically put some of their cotton 
fertilizer on maize – increasing their family food crop, but reducing their cotton yields as a result. 
So farmers who should get an average of 1.5 to 2 MT of cotton, instead get 800 to 1200 kgs/ha, 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 83 
because they don’t use all the recommended inputs and other practices. There were rumors 
among farmers that the cotton seeds weren’t effective and as input prices increased (and 
farmers had to pay back – getting less and less money and sometimes paid very late), some of 
them cut back on cotton production in the last few years as purchasing systems for their cotton 
because less reliable in paying them for their cotton. 
WACIP financed training programs for over 1,000 quarter or half hectare demonstration plots 
planted by private farmers for cotton, maize and cowpeas. Visits to each plot were used as part 
of a training for over a hundred farmers for each plot. The farmers managing the plots also 
actively involved 5 or 6 other farmers in their village in following the practices on the 
demonstration plot throughout the cropping season. This training and demonstration proved to 
farmers that if they used the recommended inputs, many of them could double their cotton 
yields and increase their incomes. The farm heads receiving the formal training then trained 
other farm workers in their families in the improved cropping procedures. 
WACIP-supported programs trained over 900,000 people in various training programs. Its 
methodology, as approved by USAID, counted the trainees in each program, some of them 
participating in more than one program. Farmer extension training in crop practices, including 
programs in two years and maize and cowpeas in addition to cotton, totaled 686,991 trainees, 
including 403,879 in Mali, 162,936 in Benin and 120,176 in Burkina Faso. WACIP estimated that 
farmers trained gained 57.6 million dollars in increased incomes over the base period following 
to its extension efforts on cotton, maize and cowpeas. WACIP was not able to provide the 
evaluators with a firm estimate of the number of cotton farmers in the C-4 countries, but some 
informal estimates heard by the team from WACIP personnel suggested well over 300,000 
cotton farmers in each country – perhaps a million cotton farmers in the C-3. It appeared (as 
suggested by Benin researchers to the evaluators) that while the training was valuable and 
reached a large number of farmers, a substantial percentage of the total cotton farmers did not 
receive crop production training from WACIP-supported programs. Thus, much remains to be 
done in the future. 
Recent Changes in the Cotton Industries 
In the colonial system, the cotton sector was run by the French. The African Governments took 
over this system and the French parastatal company (Dagris – now called Geocoton: reportedly 
bidding to buy a ginning company in Mali) gradually reduced its role. Farmers’ organizations were 
given more of a voice in setting the cotton price and managing the network of input credits. High 
cotton prices on the world market in the 1980’s and late 1990’s encouraged expansion of cotton 
production as the main cash crop (replacing the earlier cash crop of peanuts after the peanut 
export market diminished several decades ago). Yields per hectare in other countries expanded 
as yields in West Africa stagnated or fell. Cotton production in Benin and Mali fell to half of peak 
production and cotton companies had severe financial strains as a result of reduced domestic 
cotton supplies and low world market prices. A strong Euro/linked directly to the CFA franc, 
reduced input prices but also reduced cotton export revenues – a net loss during the middle of 
this decade. Skyrocketing fertilizer prices in 2008 led governments of the C-3 to subsidize inputs 
with a subsidy of about 30 percent to maintain fairly stable fertilizer prices for farmers. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 84 
According to an ICAC report, prices per pound in Asia for Benin origin 1 1/8 inch cotton were 
73.56 in 2002/3 but fell to 53 cents, 59 cents and 61 cents in subsequent years before climbing to 
73 cents in June 2008, falling back to 62 cents in June 2009 and climbing to a 85 cents in June 
2010 – the latter a very satisfactory price that if maintained would restore the industry to 
profitability, but a price level unlikely to last as worldwide supply and demand for cotton and 
synthetic fabrics continue to fluctuate. 
Following is production in MT of seed cotton in 2009/10 for each of the C-4 and peak 
production in this decade (year) 
 
Country Production 2009/10
(thousand MT of 
seed cotton prelim)
Peak 
production 
(year)
Benin 158 412 (2002/3)
Burkina 394 714 (2005/6)
Chad 50 206 (2004/5)
Mali 236 572 (2001/2)
Privatization 
The World Bank and IMF pressured the countries to privatize the cotton sectors, and at the 
same time world cotton prices fell to low levels, resulting in losses by the cotton companies and 
the need for subsidies by the Governments and/or donors to keep them in the business of 
buying cotton from farmers. This year world market cotton prices have climbed to high levels (85 
cents/pound in June) and the dollar has also soared against the Euro/CFA franc - leading to 
prospects of partial financial recovery by cotton companies after experiencing losses in the last 
few years. It is quite possible that cotton prices may decline somewhat from current levels – 
ICAC guessed a likely long term price might be 70 cents per pound, a very uncertain outlook 
creating much risk for cotton companies faced with fluctuating international prices but fixed 
prices for farmers, announced in advance of the production season. 
In the three countries of focus, the cottonseed crushers (buying the cotton seed from gins – 
about 58 percent of the weight but perhaps 5 percent of the value of cotton) were privatized 
several years ago and their former monopolies were challenged by new small-scale investors in 
crushing the diminishing supplies of cottonseed to produce cooking oil and animal feed. Issues of 
pricing and allocation of seed for crushing were controversial as cotton supplies were reduced, 
international prices for oilseeds skyrocketed and privatized former parastatal crushers faced 
financial difficulties. Farmers questioned whether they were getting compensated for the value of 
the seed as well as the lint – and Michigan State University (MSU, a WACIP partner) studied the 
issue under the WACIP program and discussed early results in a workshop in Benin – concluding 
that farmers generally were compensated for the value of both seed and lint and that the seed 
was of very minor value compared to the lint. 
Burkina Faso. Burkina split its cotton producing area into three zones, and set up three ginning 
companies (one handling 85 percent of total cotton production) sold some shares to the private 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 85 
sector and said the sector was privatized. But with low world prices, somewhat stable farm gate 
prices and resulting losses, the state recently re-capitalized SOFITEX, the largest company, and 
became once again majority stockholder. 
Burkina has a fairly stable system and now has replaced Mali as the largest producer n the region. 
Like Benin, Burkina’s “interprofessional” organization is made up cotton companies and farmers 
and in both countries the cotton companies seem to have a much stronger voice than farmers 
organizations at present. The interprofessional will increasingly make decisions on providing 
extension, controlling inputs and other production and marketing issues. Unlike Benin, where the 
government runs extension, in Burkina both the cotton companies and farmers organizations 
have extension agents. 
Mali. In Mali, at one time the largest producer, the cotton ginning company is in a difficult 
financial condition, and is in the process of privatizing. Mali resisted privatization but this year 
expects to complete sale of its cotton gins split into four geographic zones. A number of major 
companies (mostly European or Asian) are bidding. 
Cotton companies in Mali are expected to continue to provide extension. The Government 
provides the salaries for researchers, but researchers have no funding for activities from the 
ginners, but hope for resumption of contributions by the cotton industry once the new structure 
stabilizes. The farmers nominally seem destined to have more of a role in input supplies than in 
Burkina or Benin, albeit with substantial technical advice from the cotton companies. 
In Mali, CMDT – the cotton ginning company reportedly is in a very difficult financial condition. It 
has tendered to sell its gins to four companies in four geographic zones and several major 
international companies have registered to bid. The intention is to have geographic regions 
where the country’s privatized gins will have monopolies to purchase cotton. The Malian Ministry 
of Agriculture told the evaluation team that it has always been the cotton companies that 
arranged extension and funded research and they expect the extension function to be continued 
by the private companies, not the government. Input supplies are supposed to be handled by the 
fledgling “interprofessional” group of cotton ginning companies and farmer representatives. The 
researchers, with salaries paid by the government but traditionally with cotton related activities 
funded by CMDT, say that CMDT has recently not been able to provide them with funding for 
research activities on insect resistance, fertilizer formulas, assistance to extension, etc. So the 
WACIP funding for cotton research/extension activities came at a key time, energizing the 
system of extension/research outreach to farmers when traditional sources of funding had dried 
up. 
Benin. Benin privatized its cotton gins, but had huge problems. Ginners had capacity three times 
the level of production (nearly 600,000 MT of capacity compared to about 200,000 MT of 
production) and ginners poached farmer/suppliers from the territory of other ginners. Some 
farmers who owed debts to ginners sold to alternative ginners and didn’t pay their debts. 
Although small voluntary cooperative groups of farmers guaranteed each others’ debts there 
were many instances of non-payment and fraud. Some farmers, often the heads of cooperatives, 
declared large planting plans to get fertilizer, sold the fertilizer and left the debts to their fellow 
cooperatives members who had guaranteed repayment as a group. By 2005/06 farmers were not 
paid for many months (sometimes unpaid for more than a year) and were responsible for debts 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 86 
of others. There was much fraud in the farmer organizations at the commune and departmental 
levels that managed input supplies. The system began to collapse and cotton production fell 
sharply from a peak of 412,000 MT to below 158,000 MT last year. 
Benin is now stabilizing its system. The Government sold its 10 cotton gins. Of the country’s 18 
gins, 15 are now majority controlled by one private sector person, who also is dominant in 
importing pesticides and fertilizer from Europe to supply to the cotton sector. His ginning group, 
faced with massive fraud and massive unpaid debts from farmers, undercut the existing 
cooperative structure, encouraging the setting up of thousands of new small voluntary 
cooperatives at village level, and made contracts directly with them – ignoring the old debts, 
partly covered by government subsidies and undercutting the viability of the regional and 
national cooperative structure. New rules promulgated by the government refused to let any 
cooperative officers with unpaid debts to be officers on the new cooperative committees. 
Sustainable Funding. The new system in Benin developed funding mechanisms that could 
become workable and sustainable. Ginning companies that want to purchase cotton can get 
quotas based on their capacity but have to advance up 40 percent of the value of expected 
cotton purchases from farmers to get a quota to purchase cotton, a procedure providing fairly 
early repayment to input suppliers in - December. A gin in Benin no longer has a defined 
monopoly purchasing zone, but does have a defined quota, so gins could purchase from farmers 
near other gins, but only up to their quota. If there is residual cotton, new quotas are established 
after the initial ones are filled by all the gins. Input quotas and input distribution are controlled by 
tenders from a centralized set of organizations. Cotton prices are set by cotton ginning 
companies in coordination with farmers unions thorough an “interprofessional” organization and 
with the government as observers; and if necessary as arbiters. 
Benin: Stability with a Private Monopoly. As in the past the same price is paid to farmers 
all over the country and the same price is charged for inputs country-wide (a diversion from a 
purely private market cost based system). Another system in Benin, not yet fully operational will 
levy a fee of 20 cfa/kg of cotton marketed to cover urgent needs, including research. So although 
the farmers’ union power was decreased, most people, including the new President of the 
Farmers Union, who met with the team, seemed to see the changes in 2010 as somewhat 
positive. On the other hand, some observed that a public sector monopoly was effectively 
replaced with a private sector monopoly with control over prices of inputs, ginning and 
cooperatives that could include a lack of transparency and might eventually have negative 
consequences for the country. But in the short run, most people seemed glad to have the credit 
system working again so that farmers could get the inputs they needed for good yields and be 
paid for their cotton. Benin during the transition to privatization, went through several terrible 
years where farmers weren’t paid, were cheated, and suffered from the debts of others. Now the 
system seems to be stabilizing. 
Sector Risk due to Fixed Farm Gate Prices 
One dilemma in cotton is that farmers have a fixed price announced before they plant. But 98 
percent of the cotton is exported and the world market price fluctuates substantially for the 
cotton exported nearly a year later. Some of the companies (e.g. Sofitex/Burkina) sell some of 
the upcoming crop forward to reduce their risk. Burkina also has introduced a “fond de lissage” 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 87 
(stabilization fund) an end of season profit distribution to farmers in the event world prices 
and/or cotton company profits are higher than anticipated and a source of supplementary 
funding for farmers if world prices temporarily fall to low levels. This system – similar to the old 
“ristourne” system of end of season payments (still theoretically in use in Mali as well) would 
permit announcing fixed prices for farmers for the greater portion of their payment, but help the 
industry to adjust to the up and down movement of international cotton prices. But it works 
only if the price set for farmers over a period of years is on average lower than that indicated by 
the world market price. Having a portion of payments come to farmers later may be an 
advantage in a social system where it is very difficult to save cash. But the fond de lissage (or the 
ristourne system) doesn’t create stability if the farm gate price is set too high. While it seems 
cruel to say that the few hundred dollars a year that farmers earn is too high, there does seem 
to have been political pressure to benefit farmers at the expense of the financial viability of the 
cotton sector, as input prices went up and world cotton prices were at relatively low levels in 
the several years prior to the world cotton price increases in 2010. 
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 88 
ANNEX X: CONTACTS MET DURING EVALUATION VISIT
List of main contacts during visit of Thomas Pomeroy and Hadji Diakite (WACIP Evaluation team)
to Bamako, Sikasso, Bobo‐Dialosso, Ouagadougou, Cotonou, Bohicon and Parkaou June 6 – 28,
2010.
Prior to the trip, the team leader met with USTR (Liser, Bryan, Agama) and spoke by phone with
Washington representatives of USAID (Hobgood), USDA (Simmons), IFDC (Crane) and the U.S.
National Cotton Council (Maguire). At the end of the field trip also met Marjatta Elitta of
IFDC/Accra and made a presentation of initial findings to USAID/Accra. on June 30.
Principal contacts in Mali:
N° Surname/Name Position Address
WACIP, Bamako
1 Blaise Fadoegnon
Coordinateur
National
WACIP/Mali
bfadegnon@ifdc.org/44 90 01
22
2 Djimasbe
Ngaradoum
Specialist Regional
Suivi‐Evaluation
223 76 73 83
19/dngaradoum@ifdc.org
3 Marcos Malaku
Coodinateur
Programmes
nationaux
223 490 13 01
mmclaku@ifdc.org
4 Sarah GAVIAN Directrice   Sgavian@ifdc.org
Artisans
5 Mme Niagale Aissata
Namoko 76 32 95 49
6 Mme Baissa Awa
Coulibaly 66 71 91 88
7
Mme N'Diaye
Founemoussa
Sakiliba
President
Association des
femmes veuves et
enfants desherites
76 32 95 49
8 Boubacar Niambele Tisserand 66 71 91 88
9 Mme Ramatoulaye
Sissoko 76 17 85 04
10 Mme Niagale Aissata
Namoko
Centre Christine
Diamou 76 02 69 90
UN SCP, Bamako
11 Mady Keita President 76 36 97 78
unspc_mali@yahoo.fr
12 Wamara sanogo    
14 Bachir Diop President de ACA,
DG COTIMES 44 90 13 01/02
15 Marcellin Akpoue   COTIMES 44 90 13 01/02
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 89 
INSTITUT DU SAHEL
16  Netayo Laomaibao Consultant INSAH/netoyo@insah.org
17 Mahamadina Maiga Chef UAFCIPI INSAH
18 Souleymane keita Charge de
logistique Tel: 223 66 723052
19 Agbuibou Coulibaly Chef UCID/INSHAH aguibou@insah.org
20 Dr Amadou
Moustapha
Directeur General,
INSHA Directeur general/INSAH
21 Keffing Sissoko Chef DREAM ksissoko@insahorg
Compagnie Malienne Des Textiles
22 Ousmane Cisse Conseiller
trechnique 66 78 77 44
23 Adama traore
Administrateur
General   76 476525
24 Issa Sidibe
Recherche
Developpement
OHVN
issasidibe43@hotmail.com /76
45 61 08
25 Sekou Cisse  
Chef secteur
formation
vulgarisateur
76 45 82 29
26 Mamadou Daba
Kouyate
Chef service
fianances, CMDT daba@cmdt.ml 76 47 14 22  
27 Moussa Keita Chef Division
Tresorie filiale
28
Mahamadou Yaressi  
Directeur financier
et Comptable 76 616773
29
Ishaga thiam
Administrateur
General; CMDT
Ouest   66 69 88 27  
30
Abdoulaye Dako
Administateur
General    
31
Sadio Sissoko
Conseiller
trechnique
Industriel 76 21 07 92
32
Salif A Cissoko
Directeur General
Adjoint 76 14 31 52. scissoko@cmdt.ml
33
Tienan |Coulibaly
President Directeur
General   76 52 57 47 tcoulibaly@cmdt.m
Direction Nationale IER
34 Dr Fagaye Sissoko Agronome
Programme Coton
20 12 60 01 /66 79 81
71/fagaye_sissoko@yahoo.fr
35 Dr Abdoulkarim
traore
Directeur de
Recherche,
Coordianteur  
66 18 57
58/abdoul_karim_traore@yaho
o.fr
36 Mamoutou Togola Scientifique des
cultures fluviales Antomologiste
Europenan Union‐World Bank
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 90 
37 DIDIE VERSE Premier Secretaire (223) 44 92 92
92/didier.verse@ec.europa.eu
38 Yeyande Kasse
Sangho
Chargee principale
des Operations
AFTARS
(223) 20 22 22 83
/ysangho@worldbank.org
AGNECE FRANCAISE DE DEVELOPPEMENT
39 Herve Bougnault Directeur (223) 20 21 28 42/20 21 49 96/bougaulth@afd.fr  
40 Jean Francois Cavana   223 20 21 28 42 cavanajf@afd.fr
Ministere de l’Agriculture
31 Adama Coulibaly
Conseiller
technique, charge
des questions
economiques
223 20 222979/223 66 76 78
91/adatbct@hotmail.com
INSTITUT D’ECONOMIE RURALE, Sikasso
42 Djibril Berthe
Chef zone
production
agricole Klela B
75 25 15 55
43 Drissa Bagayoko Chef secteur Klela 76 25 97 79
Demonstration plot at Klela, Sikasso
44 Dramane Bengaly   Demonstration field
farmer, Klela 73 10 33 79
Principal contacts in Burkina Faso:
N° Surname/Name Position Adresse
Union Nationale des Producteurs de Coton au Burkina Fasso
1 Galla E, Cebastien Secretaire general
UNPCB 70 21 72 10
2 Mme Delphine
Zoungrana
Charge de
Programme sols
bio
70 21 72 10
3 Idrissa Sinou Chef Section
Economique 70 21 72 10
4 Yacouba Koura 1er Vice Président 70 21 72 10
5 Ali Badara Diallo Chef Services
Formation 70 21 72 10
6 Georges Quebre Chef programme
coton bio et equite 70 21 72 10
7 Athamase Yara Chef de service
economiques 70 21 72 10
8 Moussa Traore
Responsable adj.
Information‐
communication
70 21 72 10
9 Moussa Sene Tresorier general 70 21 72 10
10 Tairou Fofana 2eme vice 70 21 72 10
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 91 
President
11 Leonce S. Sanou Coordinateur 70 21 72 10
12 Karim Traore President UNPCB 70 21 72 10
13 Moyanga Honore Assistant WACIP 70 21 72 10
Institut National d’Etudes et de Recherches Agricoles
14 Bazoumana
Koulibaly Chercheur cotton bazouna@hotmail.com
15 Oumer Hema Chercheur cotton ohema@fasonet.bf
16 Ouola Traore Programme cotton Ouela.traore.oraf.org
17 Denys Senfo   senfodenys@yahoo.fr
WACIP/IFDC
18  Ibrahim Sourabie  
Coordinateur
WACIP Burkina
Faso
19 Honore Moyencoh Assistant  
      
Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton au Burkina (AICB)
      
20 Georg Yamego
Directeur National
pour la Proudction
Agricole SOFITEX
ygeorges@hotmail.com
226 20 97 39 08
21 Wilfried Yamego Secretaire
Permanent AIBC
yamwilfried@yahoo.fr
226 50 34 38 82
22 Aly Compaore Directeur General
SOCOMA Dgsocoma.net
23 Fousseyni Kabore Point Focal ACIB  
Agence Nationale de la Biotechnologie
24 Chantal Zougrana Directrice   70 72 32 71
25 Jean Simpore ANB 70 72 32 71
26 Samyouda
Ouedrago ANB 70 33 62 63
27 Adama Compaore ANB 70 13 30 27
Association Nationale des distributeurs grossistes et détaillants
28 Noumantie
Alphonse Sanou Directeur centralphytos@yahoo.fr
226 71 25 27 15
Union des Professionnels du Textile et de l’habillement du Centre (UPROTEX‐HAC0)
29 Dieudonne Zoundi Ingenieur Textiles 226 78 82 46
70/uprotex@uprotex.org
30 Emmanuel Cachico
Ouedrago  
Charge de la
formation
226 50 34 12
10/uprotex@uportex.org
31 Moumini Lobilo
Nikiema
Secrétaire General,
charge de
l’Administration
des Contrats et des
Etudes de Prix
226 70 27 39
24/uprotex@uprotex.org
32 Ady Arthur Mava Président, 226 50 38 02
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 92 
IDE Entreprise IDE
MAVA
60 /uprotex@uprotex.org
33 Marcel Ouedrago Charge de la
Communication 226 70 25 45 12 10
Ambassade Américaine, Ouagadougou
34 Sarah m Gourdes
Attachée
Economique et
Commerciale
Ambassade
Américaine
226 50 49 56
gourdesm@state.gov
35 Mr. kabore
Affaire
Economique
Ambassade
américaine
226 50 49 56
36 Dan Clarke Représentant,
USAID 226 50 49 56
Agence Française de Développement
37 Jean Claude Pires
Directeur Adjoint :
Développement
rural
piresjc@afd.fr
226 50 30 60 92
38 Mme sandra
Ruilliere,
Chargée de
mission : Eau‐
Assainissement
rullieres@afd.fr
SNV      
39 Johnson bien Aime Directeur
226 50 34 25 23
bjohonson@snvsnvworld.o
rg
Ministère de l’Agriculture
40 Dr Combari
Abdoulaye
Ministre Délégué
Charge de
l’Agriculture
226 50 49 99 12
acombari@yahoo.fr
Ministère de l’Industrie et du Commerce
41 Mme Amilie
Tamboura Secrétaire General 226 50 32 48
28/atamboura@fasonet.bf
42 George Wilfried Secrétariat
Permanent 70 24 04 67
Union Economique Ouest Africaine‐Banque Africaine de Développement (UEMOA
– BAD)
43 Balla Diong
Directeur de
l’Entreprise de
l’Industrie et de
l’Artisanat
226 50 31 88 73
Bdiong@uemoa.int
44 Charles Nouantin
Appui a la filière
Coton Textiles
UEMOA‐Tchad
226 50 50 06 29
cnountin@uemoa.int
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 93 
Principal contacts in Benin:
Numero Surname/Name Position Address
WACIP Benin
1 Gregoire Houngnibo Coordinateur 229 97 58 21 38
2 Bruno Ouedrago Interimaire
Representant 97 76 44 40
3 Irma Cledjo Assistante
Coordinateur 97 50 33 14
Centre de Recherches Agricoles Coton et Fibres (CRA‐CF Sud
4 Dr. Gustave D
Dagbenonbakin Directeur 229 21 38 80 86
5 Moussibaou
Djaboutou // 229 21 38 80 86
6 Gustave Boni Entomologiste //
Davidoga Nocola Jean
Marie Financier //
Groupe Artisans, Benin
7 Clotilde Tomety Teinturiere 229 90 92 55
03/floridefait@yahoo.fr
8 Francois C. Yemande Artisan 229 90 03 17
94/yemandjef@yahoo.fr
9 Adanon Constant
Senou Tisserand 90 92 95
03/a.constant3@yahoo.com
Projet D’Appui a la Filiere Coton (PAFICOT)
10 Joseph A.M.Djogbede Responsable suivi
Evaluation
229 21 36 37
58/josdjobede@yahoo.fr
11. Justin Z. Houndantode Responsable suivi
environnement
229 21 32 24 61
houndantode@yahoo.fr
Ministère de Commerce
12 Mme Menou Louise
Senou
Directrice de la
concurrence et de
Lutte contre la
Fraude
229 21 14 70
10/alanhoti@yahoo.fr
Centre International d’Etudes et de Management pour le Développement (CIEMD)
13 Jean Kokoye Consultant, WACIP
Tchad 229 95 84 53 25
Ambassade des Pay‐Bas
14 Marcelin Nonfon Ingénieur
Agronome 229 21 30 04 39
Industries Cotonnières Associées
15 Eustache Kotinga Administrateur
229 21 33 58 38
eustache.kotingan@ica‐
groupe.net
16 Kojori Adjiponda
d’Almeida
Responsable audit
interne
229 21 33 58
35/kadjinda@ica‐groupe.net
17. Arnauld Delga Ingenieur
Maintenance
229 21 33 58 35
arnauld.degla@ica‐
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 94 
Industrielle groupe.net
18. Alain Ahossi
Responsable
gestion des
contrats et
facturation
229 21 33 58 35
Alain.ahossi@ica‐groupe.net
19 Jocelyn Ajavon
Responsable
Administratif et
Financier
Jocelyne.ajavon@ica‐
groupe.net
Association Interprofessionnelle de Coton
20 Kakoye S Jean RSE 21 33 23 49
21 Emmanuel Sekloka RSS 95 85 34 17
22 Abdon Adjai ME 95 85 34 17
23 Jacques Zinzou RS 97 64 35 75
24 Desire Agoundote Di Dev 90 02 96 13
Ministère de l’Agriculture : Direction du Conseil Agricole et de la formation
Opérationnelle (DICAF)
26 Gregoire Avoddagbe Service de
Formation
27 Fassassi Ramanou Directeur  
28 Ignace Aguenon    
Institut National des Recherches Agricoles du Benin (INRAB)
29 Jean Tokpessi
Directeur des
Ressources
financières
229 90 94 86 88
229 21 30 02 64
tokjean@yahoo.fr
Agence Française de Développement (AFD)
30 Guillaume Salle Charge de Mission salleg@afd.fr
229 21 31 35 80
Centrale d’Achat d’Intrants Agricoles
32 Thomas Atropko Directeur
Commercial 21 30 97 76
33 Pacome Senou Chef service
logistique
Centre Recherches Agricoles et fibres (CRA‐CF) Antenne Sud
34 Bata Hontounou
Dossou   Chef Antenne 97 76 06 72
35 Thomas Hamdete
Agent laboratoire
d’Enthomolgie de
Cana  
95 81 03 21
Union Conseil de Production Contonniere ???
36 Lucien Noutchogue Producteur 95 62 97 45
37 Marcel Ayatome CPV 95 59 43 42
38 Jean Claude Bossou    
39 Samuel Dagbeto
Technicien
spécialisé en
production
végétale (TSPV)
95 35 08 34
40 De Souza Margoleine Agent vulgarisation  
Final Evaluation Report - USAID/West African Cotton Improvement Project (WACIP) 95 
Centre de Recherches Agricoles et Fibres (CRAF‐CF), Parakou
46 Germain Fayalo Charge des essais
agronomiques 97 08 28 04
47 Marius Sinha   Agent
biotechnologie
90 01 10
54.sinham@yahoo.fr
48 Gustave Bonni Antomoligiste CRA –CF 229 97 44 96
09.bonnigustave@yahoo.fr
SNV, Parakou
49 Raymond Afouda Conseiller, coton 229 23 61 06
50 Gnamou N’Tcha Conseiller, coton 229 23 61 06 10
Complexe Textiles de Benin (COTEB)
51 Bachirou Sake Service commercial 95 84 81 04
52 Ibrahim O Alfa Contrôle qualite 97 48 39 27
53 Gounou. Mama Service commercial 95 71 20 32
54 Wahabou Kougba
Oumarou   C/SAP 95 72 61 00  
55 Yambe Ehabi Chabi C /SI 95 47 65 51/97 98 84
99/yambechabi@yahoo.fr
Conseil National des Producteurs de Coton
56 Bio Tourou Bani
Gouda 94 23 67 57  
57 Jonas Gbeffo    
58  
Société Cotonnière, N’Dali
59 Wilfried Adjognon Chef d’Usine
95 34 14
34/wilfriedadjognon@yahoo.
fr
Producteurs Parcelle de Démonstration sur la fertilisation, Dassa
60 Moumini Laourou Producteur, Dassa 95 86 17 96
61 Lafia Chabi Ouro Producteur, Dassa 97 27 76 38
US Embassy and USAID, Cotonoiu
62 James Knight Ambassador 229 21 300 650
nightj@state.gov
63 Kevin Amstrong Mission Director,
USAID
229 21 30 05 00
kamstrong@usaid.gov