Serving Shea Butter Producers Across Africa

With support from the Common Fund for Commodities and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, rural shea butter producers and other stakeholders from all 16 producing countries came together for an international workshop on shea processing and trade in Africa. The workshop was held by the Centre de Suivi Écologique (CSE) in Dakar, Senegal from 4 to 7 March 2002.

Widely represented at the Dakar workshop were rural women's producer groups and marketing associations representing rural communities living with the shea tree across Africa. [See Dakar Workshop Summary]

As a result of the Dakar conference, producers from across Africa have been given the opportunity to unite for the development of the shea resource, increasing incomes to rural producers for shea products.

The Shea Network (Réseau Karité) is an informal group of institutions working together to increase the productivity and the profitability of shea production for the primary producer, and to improve the product quality of shea butter produced at the artisanal or 'village' level, in rural areas across the African shea zone.

The Shea Network recognises the crucial role played by women as custodians of the shea resource, and works to promote production models in which the producers themselves maintain ownership, and marketing systems based on producer equity. [see The Shea Network Mission Statement]

Through collective action and exchange of practical information across borders and language barriers, producers hope to reinforce the profitability of shea production at the village level, raising the value of the living shea tree for the benefit of future generations.

Projet d'Appui Technique à la Filière Karité