WHAT'S THE PLATFORM

 -    The multifunctional platform is built around a simple diesel engine, than can power various tools, such as a cereal mill, husker, alternator, battery charger, pump, welding and carpentry equipment, etc. It can also generate electricity and be used to distribute water.
 -    The platform reduces many of the women's burdensome and exhausting tasks  (fetching water, grinding cereals...). It offers them income-generating 
opportunities, management experience and, as they become more economically independent, increases their social status.
 -    The multifunctional platform also stimulates the creation, development and/or modernisation of other artisan activities in the villages (e.g. blacksmiths, mechanics, carpentry, etc…). It is both manufactured, installed and maintained by private mechanics.

       How to help a village
   acquire a Platform

 

CONTEXT

"With the Platform, I can leave my bowl of cereal for grinding, while I go to harvest groundnuts in my own individual plot". 
 A woman client of the Platform

A rural woman's working day in Africa is extremely arduous. Rising at 5 a.m. she carries out her work in difficult conditions, relying only on her own strength. She walks long distances to fetch water, which can take several hours each day. She prepares a meal, then spends at least another hour pounding grain. Then she must process the produce from fruit gathering, animal breeding and fishing, as well of course providing for the needs and education of her children. In addition to all of this, she labors on the family farm and her own vegetable plot. 

This hectic schedule leaves her neither time nor energy for herself or her children.  There is certainly no time left to develop any kind of profitable business activities. In the busiest farming periods, women sometimes don't even have the time to prepare meals and the whole family can stay hungry until the following day. 

This general lack of time and the unequal workload accounts for the fragility and vulnerability of rural women. It has direct and adverse consequences too for the men and the children, in fact for the whole community. Lightening the arduous work of village women is therefore a priority in order to effectively combat poverty. Time saved can be devoted to education, health and child care, as well as to generating extra income. 

The Multifunctional Platform, owned and managed by village women, is an instrument with a durable impact on several different dimensions of rural poverty. It reduces women's labour, particularly non-productive labour, through an integrated socio-economic approach. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATFORM

Essentially, it comprises a 10 H.P diesel engine, capable of driving up to a dozen different ancillary modules. Among are a grain mill, a de-huller, a shea butter press and even an electric alternator. This alternator can drive modules such as a water pump, provide power for up to 250 light bulbs, charge batteries, drive a sawmill or weld metal. The platform employs simple and appropriate technology and is an economic, practical and sustainable solution for many of the problems faced by rural communities.  Local artisans are trained to master all aspects of this simple and appropriate technology.


 More informations on the diesel engine

  • It is a simple, inexpensive energy source at the village level,

  • It provides energy for milling, dehulling, charging batteries, welding, food processing, pumping water, lighting….  

  • It reduces many of the women's burdensome, exhausting and unproductive tasks (fetching water, grinding cereals...), offers women income-generating opportunities and management experience and , increases women’s social status as they become more economically independent,  

  • It is paid for (60% = US$ 2,500), owned and managed by rural women, through the women management committee,  

  • It is made of locally available equipment and is installed and maintained by local private artisans,  

  • It stimulates the creation, the development and/or modernisation of other artisan activities in the villages (e.g. blacksmiths, mechanics, carpentry, etc…).

  • It can run on oil pressed from pourgher nuts (jatropha curcas).

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY 

It is vital that the project ensures that:

  • women can purchase and manage the platform in a durable way,
  • that women’s economic activities and revenues increase,
  • the offer for equipment and maintenance is available, constant in quality and affordable,

Thus, the following strategies are implemented : 

1.    A flexible, decentralised and client-oriented approach is followed, adaptable to specific situations encountered in different villages. The project only responds to expressed demand from villages for a multifunctional platform. This ensures ownership and appropriation of the platform by the villages and its autonomous management. 

2.    To ensure maximum benefits to women, the ownership and management of platforms is entrusted to a group of organised village women.  Training and technical support are provided to build up their management capacities. 

3.    to capitalize and add value to national resources and competencies, all technical operations required by the platform are handled by the private sector (purchasing, installation, repair, and maintenance). The programme only intervenes in this area to network mechanics with villages and, in some cases, to upgrade their skills. The programme also informs villages of existing financial and management support facilities in order to allow them to finance the platform.

SOME IMPACT INDICATORS OF THE PLATFORM 

The participatory feasibility study made in each village, before installing a platform, enables the project to make a baseline survey including specific indicators for that particular community. Results can later be identified and measured on the basis of that baseline survey. 79 platforms, including 50 supported by the project, are operational in Mali and 30 artisans are capable of installing and doing the maintenance of multifunctional platforms. These platforms have shown results in the following areas : 

  • Ownership by the private sector, responsible for installing and doing the maintenance of platforms: 19 platforms have been installed without any intervention from the project.

  • Increase time for rest, for physical recuperation, and better health (sleep time is 2,5 hours longer because water is available in the village: women no longer have to wake up at 3.30 a.m to fetch water).

  • Increased consumption of food (when time and energy levels are depleted at harvest time, for example, women simply cannot cook food in time for work or school. Introduction of the platform frees time for food preparation)

  • Increased capacity to produce (on self-owned plots and husbands’ plot).

  •  Increased capacity to earn extra income (sale of cash crops, commerce, processing of shea butter or rice milling for sale).

  • Better health through safe water from boreholes.

  • Increased in education levels (schooling of young girls who are released from time-intensive activities, training and literacy classes for women).

 PLATFORM SERVICES - CUSTOMERS AND DIRECT EFFECTS
(January 1999)

SERVICES

KEY POTENTIAL COSTUMERS

EFFECTS ON WOMEN

EFFECTS ON CHILDREN

EFFECTS ON MEN

MILLING
 
DEHULLING

PRESS

Women : 

Married women in charge of all women involved in income generating activities and capable of affording the cost

  • work less penible
  • Gain in time
  • Increased productivity 
  • Increase of potential revenues
  • Change in gender relations
  • Meals available in the evening
 
  • Meals on time
  • Increase of time spent by women in collective fields 
  • Change in gender relations

WATER

Households

  • Work less penible
  • Gain in time
  • Drinkable water : reduction of some diseases

 

  • Reduction of domestic workload
  • Reduction of some diseases
  • Meals on time
  • Increase of time spent by women in collective fields 
  • Change in gender relations
  • Reduction of some diseases

 

LIGTHING

Household capable of affording the cost

  • Increase of some activities (women income-generating opportunities)
  • Increase of literacy rate
  • Improvment in childbirth conditions

  • Increase of spare time activities

  • Improvment in the material security of  households

  • Improvment in study conditions at home.
  • Prestige
  • Increase of some activities 

BATTERY CHARGE

Men

  • Information, music
  • Light

 

  • Information, music
  • Light

 

  • Information, music
  • Light

 

SAW

Men
Carpenters

 

 

 

  • Increase in productivity
  • Better quality

WELDING

Men
Smiths

 

 

  • Increase in productivity
  • Better quality

 

CHAFFCUTTER

Men and 
livestock

 

 

  • Better quality of livestock food

COST OF THE PLATFORM

The costs of equipment and of the installation of the basic module (e.g.: engine, mill, dehuller, alternator, battery charger, house) is about 4.300 dollars (about 3 000 000 Fcfa), with 60 % financed by the  beneficiaries and 2 000 dollars subsidised by the project.  Depreciation and variable costs (maintenance, remuneration for female operators) are borne entirely by the Women Management Committee.

A drinkable water-distribution network can be installed, which cost about US$ 12,000 for 2000 meters of pipes, a 30 cubic meter tank and 4 taps. It is also possible to install a electric lighting distribution network that cost US$ 10,000. The project finances the costs of these infrastructures and only the costs of consumables (taps, individuals connections…) are borne by villages. The project encourages villages to embark on chargeable electric lighting or water distribution that contributes to ensuring the sound financial situation of the platform and facilitates the depreciation of the pump and other consumables. Here, the depreciation concerns only worn-out parts (pumps, taps) but not the infrastructures themselves, in order to take in account the financial capacities of villages and overall policies for financing infrastructures. 
 More informations on the financing



ptf@ptfm.net

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 Conception & Development : Multisoft