Empowering Rice Millers: GIZ-MOVE Hosts Training of Trainers (ToT) in Côte d'Ivoire

To strengthen productivity and sustainability in Africa’s rice sector, the GIZ/MOVE project recently organized a new Training of Trainers (ToT) session in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Held from March 3 to 6, 2025, the training aimed to equip a new group of French-speaking trainers with the skills to deliver high-impact training to rice millers across West Africa.

This session builds on the success of a previous ToT, which focused on modules such as Practical Marketing for Rice Mills and The Business of Rice Milling. The latest edition covered two new core modules:

- Developing Profitable Farmer Services (DPFS)
- Finance Essentials for Rice Millers (FERM)

These topics are designed to help rice mills improve their business operations, offer value-added services to farmers and better understand financial management.

The four-day workshop brought together 26 participants, including 19 trainees and 7 members of the MOVE team. Among them were 9 women and 3 young professionals, underlining the project’s commitment to gender and youth inclusion in agriculture.

Participants came from Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal, and were trained by experts from Sense Consulting in South Africa. The training was hosted at Hotel Djigui in Abidjan, with all logistics—travel, accommodation and materials—fully covered by the GIZ/MOVE project.

The workshop was honored by the presence of representatives from ADERIZ (Agence pour le Développement de la Filière Riz), who offered words of encouragement and participated in the opening ceremony.

The training followed a structured approach, culminating in certificate presentations. Participants from Burkina Faso and Senegal received their certificates on Wednesday before their departure, while Ivorian participants completed their certification on the final day.

At the end of the workshop, participants praised the training for its relevant content, interactive facilitation methods and digital learning tools. Many expressed the desire for a longer training period to better grasp the topics.

“I would have liked the training to have taken place over five full days so that I could go into more detail and better master the topics,” said Onadja Eva Josiane, one of the participants.

The session also provided an opportunity to discuss what’s next. The MOVE team clarified expectations for the next phase of the project, and participants committed to supporting rice millers in their respective countries as future trainers.