The meeting which held on the 29th of June 2019 at Buea Town opposite the Police Station started at 10:45 am . It was said the following will be discussed.
-Matters arising from the minutes.
-Way foward of SOWYAB-NET.
-Each group has to come out with a plan of action.
-Secretariat needs office equipment and Stationaries.
-Each group should explain their achievements after the workshops.
-Finances
-Closing remarks.
SOWYAB-NET was created in 2015 with Head office in Kumba. The head office was later changed to Buea due to insecurity. Planning for the official launching of SOWYAB-NET is on the way and members are to host activities during the launching. Members have to work together to develop new projects. Some of the materials needed are flyers, banners and T- Shirts. Each person is to pay 3500 for the T- Shirts and the colours will be white and green. The reason for this launching is to make people know what
NEPAD – GICABS (Gender Climate Change Agricultural Support Group PROJECT (NETWORK) is all about (that is to sensitize people) .We are to understand that SOWYAB-NET is just part of GICABS.
History of GICABS
Out of 58 countries only 5 countries were chosen to support small holder farmers among which Cameroon was one. It started in 2012 but implementation took place in 2017. NEPAD- New Plan for African Development is for small holder farmers. The program was a concern of states so countries came together to fight against climate change which is a threat. In Africa, women are mostly the ones promoting climate change due to forest destruction. Therefore, groups were identified and policies were put in place by people mostly involved in agriculture.
The launching of GICABS is to create awareness and that GICABS targets a few number of people that is the rural women. Note should also be taken to the fact that, the Gender Climate change agricultural support program initiated by NEPAD is now known as AUDA- NEPAD meaning African Union Development Agencies.
58 countries met in Equatorial Guinea due to climate change challenges (over heating,global warming). This is because when the climate changes, it affects the planting season.
Aims of GICABS
- To build people’s capacities.
-Innovative best practices. (Create women platforms,register 10 groups).
-Create policies.
Descisions for the Launching.
-Each organisation can decide to show things they have done while in their organisation’s concerning farming,planting. Every group should identify what he or she can bring.
-Each organisation needs to show case NEPAD by exposing what we’ve been doing.
SOWYAB-NET visited farms owned by members in Tiko and Mutengene and were so happy. An organisation dried plums, sweet potatoes and transformed it into flour and made sweet potato biscuits. They also dried pineapple, paw paw and different vegetables using the Drying Oven.
-Annual dues were read for those who had not paid to pay and it was said a sum of 50000 frs will be given for the Action Plan.
It was decided that the next meeting will be in September and it was said that a word document will be sent in the group so that all organisation’s fill to know the activities they will carry out on that day.
