Shea nut collecting women in southwestern Burkina Faso received a computer system in mid-June to help them manage, record, retrieve, and track information about the sale of Shea nuts. This will increase efficiency and eventually will help them to sell more Shea nuts.

'Before, we used a paper-based recording system and it caused many problems at the section levels', said Clementine Hien, the treasurer of Fadefso, the Federation of Women's Development and Emancipation Associations in Southwestern Burkina Faso. The Federation has over 20,000 members, of whom more than 10,000 engage in seasonal Shea nut collection.

'The sections are unable to know exactly how many members involved in Shea nut collection', added Mrs Hien, concluding that this shortcoming affect provisions for the next season.

With the support of IICD and ICCO, who teamed up with other partners to form the Connect for Change Consortium, Fadefso kicked off the piloting phase by installing its computer and accessories in its headquarters in Dano, about 340 km southwest of the capital Ouagadougou.

'With this computer, we will digitalize the list of all our members', said Olivier Some the Fadefso-Dano support agent. He added that the delay-causing handling of paper-based correspondence with clients and partners was to be replaced by emails. 

Shea (a nut that is used to create Shea Butter) collection is the most important income-generating activity for women in Southwestern Burkina Faso. Putting Information and Communication Technologies at the disposal of those hardworking women for managerial, information recording and tracking tasks is a way to increase their efficiency and their incomes.

(Source: IIDC)
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