Coffee cooperatives promoting peacebuilding and socio-economic development of farmers in Huye District , Southern Rwanda

Cooperative organisations play an important role in the peacebuilding efforts undertaken in
the wake of the Rwanda genocide in1994. The genocide tore apart and destroyed large parts
of the country’s socio-economic and institutional foundations, its consequences are still
evident. Coffee is the main source of income for approximatively 500.000 households. The
paper aimed to analyze the impact of coffee cooperatives and the coffee washing stations in
the peacebuilding socio-economic changes of coffee farmer’s members in Huye District,
Southern Province of Rwanda. A research surveyed selected 70 small coffee farmers from 3
cooperatives to measure socio-economic development of coffee washing stations on the
growers. Results reveal that cooperatives increase production and improve the socioeconomic
households’ income (86.5%). Jobs are created for women and girls especially
during the harvesting and the coffee processing (98.7%). When farmers are working together,
a synergy is created among them, by disucussion, exchanging experiences, which avoide
discrimination, conflict, division between antagonist ethnic groups Hutu and Tutsi (67.1%).
Results reveal that coffee cooperatives promote a spirit of understanding each other and the
tolerance between farmers (72.3%). Cooperatives provide loans to the members through the
“rotating funds: Ibimina”. They also educate members through vocational trainings by
enhancing and empowering farmers especially women and girls (97.1%). This is evidenced by
the provision of adequate shelter, the observation of human rights, access to the medical
insurance, school fees for children, undertaking entrepreneurial activities, unity and
reconciliation between members, participating in the household’s incomes allocation.
Cooperatives uses various strategies in peacebuilding such as working together to construct
new schools and houses, land inheritance for women, clubs for peacebuilding and visiting
each others (74.3%).