The East Africa Living Income Program (EALI) creates and strengthens a multi stakeholder approach towards integrating living income into the coffee sector through measurement and closing of living income gaps for coffee farming households.
EALI builds on previous IDH work in Colombia through the Taskforce for Coffee Living Income (TCLI) which differentiated the coffee trade into 4 distinct sourcing archetypes using market segment sourcing relations, value chain structure, and recognition of quality and sustainability as the differentiating criteria. It explores how to use the archetypes to close living income gaps through a mix of approaches such as higher prices, good sourcing practices, development of other income streams, value and risk redistribution within the supply chain, strengthening the operational capacity of small producers’ organizations, and changes to policy and regulatory frameworks.
The strategic objective of EALI is the closing of living income gaps for coffee farmer households in Kenya and Uganda. There is particular focus on increase of household income through both coffee and other sources of income and income stability to increase resilience farmer resilience in a volatile coffee market. EALI uses three pathways to reach this objective:
- Sector governance: convene the local coffee sectors through collaboration with the respective country coffee platforms to ensure alignment with existing global efforts around farmer living and prosperous income, and efficient dissemination of learnings from IDH interventions (including field level projects with companies).
- Business practice change: engage private sector companies to act on aspects such value and risk redistribution, and sourcing practices so as to progressively close living income gaps and to report progress.
- Field-level sustainability: create service delivery and sourcing models which combine aspects of the IDH’s Roadmap on Living Income to contribute to increased and more stable incomes for farming households.