Strengthening dairy value chain Zambia

In November 2015, organisation assessment of DAZ was conducted. Assessment report is available. The conclusions: DAZ is a commodity association for the dairy sector in Zambia. DAZ has a membership of over 5,000 active and registered individual producers united in 73 primary cooperatives. DAZ is involved in lobbying & advocacy for the dairy sector, facilitates linkages to inputs, credit and the market for its producing members and provides extension support and training. DAZ has a strategic plan for the coming 5 years that outlines clear and achievable growth ambitions in terms of membership count, productivity, production and consumption of dairy products. The financial health check indicated that DAZ is financially sound, although there are a number of weaknesses that need to be addressed in order for the organization to operate more efficiently and effectively in the interest of its members. In addition, financial sustainability is a key aspect to be improved. DAZ plays an important coordinating role for the dairy sector in Zambia, which was commended by most of the members. However, the main risk is that DAZ represents stakeholders with different interests, which limits DAZ's effectiveness to the extent of operating in the common interest of the dairy sector. Nevertheless, DAZ plays an instrumental role in the support of dairy cooperatives and through a partnership with Agriterra, DAZ can strengthen its capacity to improve services provision to its members. Agriterra is seeing opportunities to directly support dairy cooperatives, but parallel to this, to channel support through DAZ to smaller and weaker cooperatives that are outside the Agriterra scope. Both strategies are expected to improve the position of dairy cooperative, in so doing boosting growth and development of the dairy sector in Zambia. Thus, this company assessment concludes that it is recommended to set up a partnership with DAZ.