The CapGestão Cerrado Program, since 2021, has involved hundreds of participants from various states, notably Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Minas Gerais. The participants engaged in the CapGestão Cerrado Program are key players in the area of rural enterprise management, especially those working with socio-biodiversity production chains. The first three courses allowed for a rich exchange of experiences among these professionals who have been working in this field through their associations, cooperatives, Technical Assistance and Rural Extension agencies, universities, non-governmental organizations, work networks, state and municipal secretariats, teaching and research institutions, among others.
Improving the performance capacity of these professionals is yet another strategy promoted by the Ceres project to strengthen socio-biodiversity chains located in the Cerrado biome. The CapGestão Cerrado Program is promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-BR) and the Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN), with support from the European Union and in partnership with the University of Brasília (UnB). German Cooperation for Sustainable Development, through German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).
The content of the CapGestão Program was designed to meet the needs of family farming organizations, including: 1. Improving the management of cooperatives, associations, and other enterprises; 2. Enhancing the ability of stakeholders to participate in decision-making; 3. Strategic analysis of production chains considering gender issues; 4. Meeting sanitary requirements; 5. Differentiating products in the market to add value; 6. Developing business plans.
The program is being conducted in an online format (distance learning) and each course requires a commitment of 18 hours for online meetings, access to support materials on the learning platform, completion of assignments, etc. To date, 03 courses have been offered:
Most participants who have attended the courses so far consider the teaching methodology, the digital tools used, and the content taught to be excellent or good.
Through this capacity-building process, the Program aims to contribute to strengthening the main socio-biodiversity chains in these Cerrado territories, such as: babassu, baru, pequi, buriti, honey, among others. This will allow for fairer participation of cooperatives, associations, and other family-based production enterprises in public and private markets.
Course 4 on Sanitary Regulation will begin in March and the class has already been selected. So far, we have had 66 registered participants in Course 1 “Facilitating participatory and multi-stakeholder processes”, 60 registered for Course 2 “Organizational management of the enterprise”, and 85 registered for Course 3 “Organization and promotion of value chains with a gender focus”.