A Food System's Recipe to          Cultivate Resilience

Annual report 2023

A woman voicing her opinion in a cooperative meeting

Browse through the summary we prepared for you or go directly to the full 2023 Annual report.

We support farmer organisations in their business development, so that they are able to market the products of their members in a professional way, leading to stable incomes for farmers and more sustainable food available for consumers.


1882 young entrepreneurs directly involved in our programmes. We believe that young people are the backbone of inclusive business.


In Arusha Generation Food came to an end in 2021. The graduates obtained loans at interest rates as low as 12%, compared to the average market rate of 25%, thanks to the partnership with the private sector and the establishment of a revolving fund.

In Uganda, our advocacy work has contributed to SRP (Sustainable Rice Platform) standards being adopted by national policy makers. They have been included in the 10-year national rice development strategy, which will be launched by government in 2022.

In Vietnam, women are traditionally engaged in vegetable production, yet participation in leadership is often low. By the end of 2021, 43% of all leaders in vegetable cooperatives we partner with, were women.

Facilitation of inclusive businesses: Rikolto accompanied the relationship between the cocoa cooperative Pangoa, and Óbolo Chocolate, a private company that makes internationally award-winning chocolate from bean to bar, using only organic cocoa from Pangoa.

Facilitation of inclusive businesses: Rikolto accompanied the relationship between the cocoa cooperative Pangoa, and Óbolo Chocolate, a private company that makes internationally award-winning chocolate from bean to bar, using only organic cocoa from Pangoa.

In Nicaragua, the average cocoa farm we have worked with in the past five years has seen its productivity grow to 516.35 kg of cocoa per hectare, while the national average is 304.7 kg.


Rikolto supported 56 young cocoa farmers in setting up 10 agricultural service provision units. With Colruyt Group, Entreprise Cooperative de Saint Paul, Puratos among others, Rikolto developed an integrated approach towards a sustainable living income.

In Indonesia, over 1,200 rice farmers were trained to apply the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) standards, through Farmer Field Schools and Demo Plots.

In Belgium, Rikolto closely accompanied 5 schools in installing a healthy, sustainable food policy, working on both food consumption and food literacy. The online GoodFood@School toolkit was downloaded 445 times in 2021, bringing the total to 1031 downloads from an estimate of 825 schools.

In 2021, capacity building took place for 80 aspiring entrepreneurs, 20 business owners, 12 business development service providers and two decentralised financial service providers. Rikolto, in consortium with Trias, SOS Faim, FRA/CES and Inititiatives Tenkodogo Centre Est, launched a programme to develop inclusive and sustainable jobs for youth, women and people with disabilities.

In the DR Congo, we started to work with two new farmer cooperatives, CooKuru and COOPAAD. Demand for coffee was high in 2021 and farmers sold on average 95% of their harvest collectively.

Rikolto means "Harvest"

"From 2017 to 2021, Rikolto enabled farmer organisations to register a significant number of new commercial partners, within the private sector (national and international) as well as the public one (local authorities, public services). In addition to brokering partnerships within the food system, Rikolto also adds value through the content it brings to the table to nurture these partnerships (experience, know-how and market studies for instance)."

Global DGD-funded rice programme endline evaluation

2017-2021 DGD Programme Evaluation

In all countries where we ran programmes funded by our biggest donor, the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD), endline evaluations took place under guidance of ADE, to evaluate the results and impact of our 5-year programme.

Download the reports per country

A network organisation

In 2021, Rikolto financially supported 144 organisations in 16 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, compared to 136 the previous year. Of these, 62% are farmers’ organisations, compared to 55% the year before. Apart from farmer organisations, we also closely work with – and sometimes financially support – local NGOs, commodity platforms, different national and sub-national government institutions, business service providers and/or research institutes.
Which type of partner organisations are involved in our programmes?
What is the volume of the main commodities sold collectively by farmers?
Who are the members of farmers' organisation?

Partner organisations in 2021

Last year Rikolto financially supported 144 organisations in 16 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, compared to 136 the previous year. Of these, 62% are farmers’ organisations, compared to 55% the year before.

This change reflects our programme strategy: since we want to fix food systems, we also closely work with - and sometimes financially support - local NGOs, commodity platforms, different national and local government institutions, business service providers or research institutes. Moreover, we include investors and social lenders and private companies in our interventions. But our end goal remains the same: our interventions always benefit the farming communities and end consumers.

Constant consultation and dialogue with our multiple stakeholders is part of Rikolto’s DNA.

Type of partner organisations involved in our programme

Farmers’ organisations as business organisations

In 2021, we worked with a total of 206 farmer organisations, farmer cooperatives or farmer groups. 198 of them are supported in their business development; the remaining ones are national-level farmer unions or federations with whom we focus on advocacy work. Not all of these receive funding: we sometimes only give specific advice or provide trainings.

22 of the farmer organisations we work with are certified ‘organic’, 16 organisations are Fair Trade certified, 4 are UTZ certified, and 6 Global GAP.

We support farmer organisations in their business development, so that they are able to market the products of their members in a professional way, leading to stable incomes for farmers and more sustainable food available for consumers. Since 2018 we also keep track of the quantities of the main commodities sold collectively through a farmer organisation, cooperative or another collective action mechanism. Besides the collective sales (figures in the table below), farmers may well use part of their produce for own consumption or sell it individually through intermediaries.

In DR Congo, we reached less farmers in 2021 than in 2020. This is due to the end of the first phase of a big rice programme funded by the World Bank. Guatemala is not a new country for Rikolto: we have worked with Guatemalan partners in the past, in the frame of a knowledge exchange project in the vegetable sector in Central America funded by the Belgian province of West Flanders. However, 2021 was the first year in which we worked directly with vegetable farmers.In West Africa, and particularly in Burkina Faso, the number of farmers reached in 2021 is higher than in previous years. This is thanks to two new programmes in Burkina Faso that explicitly target women and youth. Also, within ongoing rice programmes, we focused more strongly on women and youth, and a lot of young rice farmers and women parboilers joined our partners UDERD and UNERIZ.

Membership of farmers’ organisations

Most of our interventions directly target members of farmers’ organisations. Globally, 104,217 farmers (67,975 men and 36,242 women) received Rikolto’s support in 2021, compared to 109,156 farmers in 2020. The end of the first phase of a big World Bank-funded programme for the rice sector is the main reason for the decrease compared to 2020. However, a second phase of this programme will be launched in 2022.

In many cases, more farmers benefit from our interventions as it is an inherent part of our strategy to achieve policy changes within companies, at commodity sector level and in national legislation, and to encourage other organisations and governments to replicate successful experiences on a much larger scale.

There is still a big gender gap when we look at the farmers we directly support through their organisations. 64% of the members of the farmers’ organisations we work with are men. In 2020, this was 62.5%. Women are hit hard by the pandemic. In East Africa for instance, many women do not own land for farming, but hire it. As a result of the limited cross-border trade due to the pandemic, most farmers had to sell their crops at lower prices than usual in 2020 on local markets that were already flooded with crops due to the closure of the tourist industry. This significantly affected farmer income, and particularly the ability of women to hire lands in 2021 to continue to produce. To tackle gender equality and equity, we started adopting our lobal Gender Inclusion Strategy in the design of the new programmes in 2021.

Overall, Rikolto also pays special attention to increased participation of young people in farmer organisations governance, and to finding new job opportunities for them throughout the value chain. They are, after all, the future of our food systems. 26,290 members of the farmer organisations we work with, i.e. 25%, are younger than 35 years. In addition, in 2021, we had very specific interventions targeting 1,882 young people as entrepreneurs, versus 567 in 2020. 643 of these 1,882 aspiring young entrepreneurs are women and 977 are men.

Total number of farmers reached

Total number of women and men reached

Number of farmers reached per country

In many cases, more farmers benefit from our interventions as it is an inherent part of our strategy to achieve policy changes within companies, at commodity sector level and in national legislation, and to encourage other organisations and governments to replicate successful experiences on a much larger scale.

There is still a big gender gap when we look at the farmers we directly support through their organisations. 64% of the members of the farmers’ organisations we work with are men. In 2020, this was 62.5%. Women are hit hard by the pandemic. In East Africa for instance, many women do not own land for farming, but hire it. As a result of the limited cross-border trade due to the pandemic, most farmers had to sell their crops at lower prices than usual in 2020 on local markets that were already flooded with crops due to the closure of the tourist industry. This significantly affected farmer income, and particularly the ability of women to hire lands in 2021 to continue to produce. To tackle gender equality and equity, we started adopting our global Gender Inclusion Strategy in the design of the new programmes in 2021.

Overall, Rikolto also pays special attention to increased participation of young people in farmer organisations governance, and to finding new job opportunities for them throughout the value chain. They are, after all, the future of our food systems. 26,290 members of the farmer organisations we work with, i.e. 25%, are younger than 35 years. In addition, in 2021, we had very specific interventions targeting 1,882 young people as entrepreneurs, versus 567 in 2020. 643 of these 1,882 aspiring young entrepreneurs are women and 977 are men.

Working with farmers organisations as business organisation

Rikolto worked with a total of 206 farmer organisations, farmer cooperatives or farmer groups. 198 of them are supported in their business development; the remaining ones are national-level farmer unions or federations with whom we focus on advocacy work. Not all of these receive funding: we sometimes only give specific advice or provide trainings.

Globally, 104,217 farmers (67,975 men and 36,242 women) received Rikolto’s support.

22 of the farmer organisations Rikolto works with are certified ‘organic’, 16 organisations are Fair Trade certified, 4 are UTZ certified, and 6 Global GAP.

Farmers reached per country

Closing the gender gap

There is still a gender gap when we look at the farmers we directly support through their organisations. 64% of the members of the farmers’ organisations we work with are men. In 2020, this was 62.5%. Women are hit hard by the pandemic. To tackle gender equality and equity, Rikolto started adopting its Global Gender Inclusion Strategy in the design of the new programmes in 2021.

Download Rikolto's Global Gender Inclusion Strategy
Women Rikolto Gender strategy.png

Learning from our successes and failures

Our Planning, Learning and Accountability (PLA) system provides a framework for the systematic collection of data and the use of this data for continuous programme adjustments. PLA also seeks to stimulate critical reflection internally, among colleagues working in similar interventions across the globe and with external stakeholders.

How we measure impact
A woman voicing her opinion in a cooperative meeting

Up until the edition of 2019, Rikolto drafted its Annual Report in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). As part of our new strategy development for 2022-2026, we undertook an external stakeholder consultation in January 2021. 37 stakeholders representing funders, private companies, farmer cooperatives, sector platforms, city governments, investors etc. from all regions we are active in provided their feedback on our new strategy, our data and reporting system and the Annual Report specifically. The aim hereof was a new list of ‘material’ aspects Rikolto would report on, in line with the GRI standard.

However, the external stakeholder consultation has shown us that the large majority of our stakeholders do not consider the GRI standard as an added value for organisations like Rikolto. For this reason, we have decided to abandon the GRI standard in our annual reporting. We remain committed to transparency and integrity and see this as an opportunity to improve and innovate our reporting practices, specifically as we start implementing our new strategy.

Funders as partners

In 2021, we focused heavily on preparing to launch our new programme 2022 – 2026, in which we want to further develop, a systems approach for making selected commodity sectors, more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient, and address the broad challenges of the urban food system. It goes without saying that we will do this, as always, together with solid partners, for cooperation is in Rikolto’s DNA.
What are we looking for and what do we offer?
Who are our partners, donors, investors?
Which are the principles that we hold dear when working with partners and donors?

Looking towards the future

What are we looking for?

Partners that can fill in the gaps in fields where Rikolto doesn’t have the specific expertise (e.g., nutrition, climate change mitigation, biodiversity protection, consumer engagement…) but that are equally important for achieving our mission: a sustainable income for farmers and nutritious, affordable food for everyone. This type of collaborations will open up new opportunities for Rikolto to amplify its voice.

What do we offer?

Towards our new (structural) donors we want to offer value: investment-ready programme ideas that align with the donor’s ambitions (e.g., locally relevant economic development, evidence for living income generation for cocoa and coffee farmers; sustainable rice transformation); a trustworthy programme implementation making sure that granted or invested resources are efficiently and correctly spent, and, of course, proven and demonstrated impact through our close connection to the field.

In 2021, we collaborated with Connective Impact to identify and contact leaders within around 50 different donor and partner organisations as part of a process to seek long-term strategic partners and funding for Rikolto’s programmes.

Our partners, donors, investors

Engaging in partnerships with private companies

Private companies are important partners in the accomplishment of Rikolto’s mission. If we wish to change food systems and how specific agricultural value chains function, we have to team up with companies. We believe that companies are a driving force for society, and that they are essential to achieve sustainable food systems.

We also partner with some of the below-mentioned companies in multi-actor platforms, such as the Global Coffee Platform, the International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA), the Sustainable Rice Platform, Beyond Chocolate, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), the Living Income Community of Practice, AMEA, … to jointly formulate policy proposals.

Finally, Rikolto also connects its local partners with social impact investors willing to take risks and share our vision of fair business, long-term income security for farmers and guaranteeing a stable demand for their products. Access to commercial financing (loans, investments…) for the small and growing businesses we work with is crucial for them to be able to invest in improving processes, quality, or infrastructure.

Partnering with governments andmultilateral agencies: changing the recipe

Rikolto believes in dialogue as an essential tool for change. For example, in our Good Food for Cities Programme we facilitate urban/peri-urban multi-actor platforms with direct participation of the city authorities. Together we formulate strategies and action plans to create a local food policy. At national level we partner with governmental actors, where we contribute to the development of new policies, based on our experience from the field. This way we want to create enabling environments for specific value chains or for innovations in the food system.

Governments also support our programmes financially. The Belgian Development Cooperation is our main funder (DGD, but also Enabel); the Swiss, Dutch, Canadian and Australian governments are also among our funders. In some cases, we are sub-contracted by a local or national government for specific actions for which our added value is recognised.

At the same time, we also gaining foothold with the EU as a major donor and we intensified our relationship even more with multilateral agencies like UN Environment and the FAO. We consider these institutions as our allies and partners on the path towards sustainable food systems.

In July 2021, Rikolto also joined the RUAF Global partnership with the aim to increase our impact on transforming food systems and support each other to achieve common goals.

Private actors we collaborate with

In 2021, we worked with:

  • Cocoa-processing companies and wholesalers, including, Colruyt Group, Mars, Pacari, Conexión Chocolate, Tcho, Chocolats Halba, Puratos, Lidl, Olam, Mason Gourmet Chocolate, Obolo Chocolate, Sucafina Specialty…
  • Coffee-processing companies and wholesalers, including ECOM, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Olam, Lavazza, Saveur du Kivu...
  • Local and international rice buyers such as Superindo, Natural Farm, Tan Hong Rice Company, SWT rice, Bongomin Group, YARA and Bralima…
  • For the Good Food for Cities programme, we work with local private sector partners such as local chambers of commerce, supermarkets, catering companies, sectoral associations, business incubators, SMEs active throughout the food chain and business development service providers.

In 2021 we were financially supported by Belgian private companies UMICORE,Aperam, Mathieu Gijbels NV and Sioen Industries through the Belgian associationEntrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs (OVO). With OVO and its private company members, Rikolto’s relationship is also gradually evolving from grant-making to impact-investing. Thanks to a loan from Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs (OVO) in 2021, entrepreneur Leonard Shayo in Tanzania could kickstart the production of pre-cooked beans inTanzania. Financing comes from several business angels who volunteer at OVO as wellas from its Acceleration Fund.

Public actors we collaborate with

  • 2021 was the year that all the Rikolto colleagues worked very hard to develop a new 5-year programme proposal (2022-2026) to the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGD). The programme encompasses 21 outcomes that focus on sector transformation for coffee, cocoa or rice and transformation of urban food systems. The programme was approved by DGD for a total amount of 33,453,273.64 EUR, which secures structural funding for our programmes in 17 countries (amongst which 4 new countries: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guatemala and Rwanda).
  • The Belgian governmental development agency Enabel is also becoming more and more of a structural partner of Rikolto. In 2021, Rikolto started or continued working as an implementing organisation on 3 Enabel-funded projects in West-Africa (Burkina Faso and Benin). Other than that, we are jointly exploring how to work towards sustainable food systems and commodity sectors in Africa. In that sense, we have also collaborated on a funding proposal towards the EU in Ivory Coast and are looking into other opportunities to join forces.
  • Next to the ongoing projects in Tanzania, Uganda (with IITA as a lead agency) and Honduras (with Ayuda en Acción as a lead agency) we succeeded in getting EU funding for two new projects: the CREA project in Ecuador (Camino a la Reactivación del Ecuador Agroalimentario) and the project for strengthening agricultural CSOs and social cohesion of farmers in the cocoa, palm oil and rice sectors in Mai Ndombe and Tshopo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (with TRIAS as a lead agency). Together with numerous partners we also developed several proposals for the Horizon Europe ‘Farm to Fork’ programme, of which the project on school food in Europe was awarded a grant.
  • We collaborate with UN Environnement and FAO within platforms like the One Planet Network, we co-create funding or investment proposals, or we jointly place the need for sustainable and inclusive food systems in the public spotlight. We implemented a project with FAO in Ecuador and concluded letters of agreement with them for 3 global projects to be implemented in 2022.

In 2021 Rikolto, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) committed themselves to boosting Kampala’s urban farming future in the framework of an urban farming project called “Promoting Sustainable Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture for healthy, sustainable, andnutritious diets in Kampala”. What did we achieve?

  • We trained 50 model farmers to use and demonstrate urban farming technologies
  • We equipped model farmers with the necessary information to sensitise their communitieson food safety and nutrition
  • We promoted urban farming by organising a workshop with Kampala’s food system stakeholders.

As a result of setting up new urban farms andincreased community awareness, the demand for inputs (seedlings etc) for urban farming from the big Kyanja Agricultural Resource Centre in Kampala has tripled. Local council authorities and city division planners have already committed to including urban farming in the budgets forthe next financial year

In 2021, Rikolto led farmers’ organisation Coosempoda in Nicaragua to a USD 215,000 loan of Kampani for them to improve their processing infrastructure.

What convinced the social impact investor was that Coosempoda has a sound and pragmatic investment programme, the management capacity to carry it through, a stable membership base, and a proven track record. Furthermore,they have strong partnerships and a demand for its product that exceeds theirproduction.

Kampani also stipulated some ambitious social targets. In partnershipwith Rikolto, Coosempoda commits to continuing its efforts of adopting Good Agricultural Practices and promoting environmental health, and to having at leastone woman on the Board of Directors and increasing total female and youth participation to 15%.

Rikolto joins forces in Europe to bring good food to schools

Rikolto is one of the leading organisations workingon a brand-new European project on healthy andsustainable food at school: SchoolFood4Change.

Theproject is implemented in 16 cities in 12 EU countries. SchoolFood4Change is coordinated by ICLEI, a networkof 2,500 local and regional governments concerned withsustainable urban development, and brings all relevant school food actors to one table: from students, parentsand teachers, farmers, chefs and canteen staff to expertson sustainable food procurement, dietitians, and localenterprises. That way, 3,000 schools throughout Europe become catalysts for changing the food system, which willhave a positive impact on 600,000 young people.

Rikolto has been a key strategic partner accompanying therelationship between Pangoa, a cocoa cooperative in Peru, and Óbolo Chocolate, a Chili-based private company that makes internationally award-winning chocolate from bean to bar, using only organic cocoa from Pangoa. The benefitis perceived from both sides: the cooperative provides a quality product, the customer receives a tailor-made product for which he/she pays a fair price.

"Responsibility in the fulfilment of export contracts,professionalism and an efficient team. Defined areasand roles, to work in a transparent and orderly manner. Óbolo is a customer with a differentiated price, and that contributes to improving the income of our producers. Since we started working with a group of high-level chocolatiers, including Óbolo, our partners have increased their income by 15%, due to the quality of the product”. Albino Nuñez, Commercial Manager of CAC PangoaMark Gerrits, CEO of Óbolo stresses that their relationshipis not purely commercial; it is a long-term commitment based on common values. “We share an interest in the cultivation of fine flavour cocoa and the vision of turningit into traceable chocolate. We are proud of what we have achieved with Pangoa.”

Partnering with like-minded organisations: working in synergy

We have also strengthened our relationships with other international development actors and research institutes, such as Lutherian World Relief (LWR), NCBA-Clusa, Technoserve, Preferred by Nature, Rainforest Alliance, Solidaridad, IDH, Africa Rice Center, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, KULeuven and University of Ghent, …

As part of our initiative to seek long-term, mutually enforcing, strategic partnerships we also had fruitful discussions with organisations like DAI, Corus, Gain, Tetra Tech,Tropical, Landscape Finance Facility, Asian Development Bank, International Trade Center, Farmers Voice, …

In the framework of the new Belgian Development Cooperation funded programmes 2022-2026, Rikolto has taken the lead in formulating a comprehensive Joint Strategic Framework between Belgian Non-Governmental development actors both for Tanzania and for Ecuador. This has enabled us to get a thorough understanding of potential areas for collaboration and synergies between BNGAs. Moreover, together with 3 other Belgian NGOs (Iles de Paix, Trias and Bos+) we have agreed on a common objective to support the transformation of the food system in the Arusha region in Tanzania, where we will ensure geographical complementarity and efficiency of our respective activities.

Rikolto also worked together with the associations of cities and municipalities of Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels and Echos Communication to formulate a thematic joint strategic framework on Sustainable Cities. It allows us to further engage in cooperation - not only within certain countries, but also supranationally and around ‘overarching’ themes such as urbanisation, governance, and decentralisation - and to work with other Belgian actors around themes like health, water, agriculture, children’s rights or education within a context of local governance and urbanisation.

Support from forward-looking private foundations

Private foundations have a strongly value-driven mission. Therefore, it is very enriching to be able to work with them when we see strong similarities between both our missions and values. Rikolto has the honour of collaborating with and receiving funds from

  • DOEN Foundation, which supports our pioneering work on the Generation Food initiatives in Tanzania and Uganda.
  • Foundation Gilles who does the same in Burkina Faso.
  • Collibri Foundation supports activities for strengthening young people’s capacities and job chances linked to the value chains on which Rikolto and Colruyt group collaborate. Currently they support our work on the cocoa value chain in Côte d’Ivoire, as they have done for the last five years in Central America

Private fundraising

2021 was a year of new beginnings for Rikolto’s private fundraising department.

The pandemic forced us to rethink all our private fundraising operations: from the annual campaign (a tradition of 40 years) to Rikolto Run and Classics. For the first time in four decades, no Rikolto-volunteers were found in Belgian supermarkets or on the streets to sell gadgets in the second week of January. We chose new paths. Re-inventing is a great challenge, and this is reflected in the private fundraising result.

In 2021, our income from private fundraising rose to €1,876,356, as compared to €1,382,618 in 2020. While we did better than in 2020, this is largely due to bequests. But our donors showed us their loyalty. In the new version of the annual campaign we managed to find also a lot of new supporters. In 2021, we welcomed 2873 new donors supporting our cause. This is the highest number of new donors in our database in over five years.

We will invest in the relationship with them and our volunteers, ambassadors and supporters. We thank them for supporting us in these challenging times; the individuals, youth organisations, companies, local authorities and schools that want to be part of the solution.

“Chain for Good Food” because Good Food is a right.

At the end of 2020 we launched an alternative campaign in Flanders. Rikolto-spoons were no longer sold at supermarkets or in other public places. Instead, they were used as a symbol for ‘Good Food’ and a call for support at the same time. We asked our support base to spread our message by spreading spoons in their own network. They could order a set of spoons and pass on the box from one person to the other, calling for support for our cause: the right to good food all over the world.

We wanted to reach everyone with our message. Apart from our financial objectives, our annual campaign is to raise awareness. Good Food is a right – the slogan of this campaign – was heard throughout Flanders. Because we couldn’t bring our volunteers (ambassadors) on the streets, we brought our message to the media.

Sport events: Rikolto’s #aroundtheworld

Just as in 2020, no Rikolto Bike Classics took place in 2021. Some bikers decided to cancel their Classic, others hope to still ride theirs in 2022. We challenged them and other sportive supporters to participate in a new challenge: Rikolto’s #aroundtheworld.

We challenged individuals and teams to walk, run, ride, … a number of kilometres of their choice. 76 teams took on the challenge and raised €99,033 for Rikolto.

Together they went more than 2 times around the world. For the first time, we had participants outside of Belgium. For example, the Rikolto team in East Africa helped in making this first #aroundtheworld a historical campaign.

Bequest

We were included in the legacy of 5 people in 2021. Together, these legacies represent 51% of the total amount of private funds raised for Rikolto in 2021.

We are moved and honoured by this exceptional gesture of these private donors.

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Private donors

The pandemic brought a wave of solidarity in 2020. In addition, donors were encouraged by the Belgian governments exceptional tax relief (60% instead of 45% on donations to an NGO). This measure was not resumed in 2021. For this (and other reasons) the donations made by our private donors went back to the level of 2019).

In 2021, we could count on 6,209 occasional donors and 1,953 structural donors). Over 14% of new donors encountered in the annual campaign have made a second (or more) new donation since.

Investing in our Donor Relation Management is crucial to optimise our private fundraising. In 2021 we started to explore new ways to manage our contacts and build customer journeys that fit the needs of our donor profiles. At the end of 2021 we started to build a new CRM/marketing tool in Microsoft Dynamics. We hope to start working with it as of June 2022.In this way we hope to build strong and loyal relationships with our donors and support base.

Rikolto Limited

Rikolto Limited (Rikolto b.v.) is a limited liability company, established by Rikolto International s.o.n. and Rikolto Belgium v.z.w. Rikolto Limited was set up to scale the methodologies, methods and tools developed by the Rikolto family in its programmes. Its activities are financed by commercial contracts with third parties who seek its consultancy and advisory services, and all proceeds go to Rikolto International s.o.n. and Rikolto Belgium v.z.w. Through Rikolto Limited, additional funds can be accessed to finance our staff’s expenses worldwide.

In 2021, Rikolto Limited realised a total turnover of € 180,215. After deduction of operational costs, €85,447 in wage support for Rikolto International s.o.n. and € 18,185 in wage support for Rikolto Belgium v.z.w., Rikolto Limited is left with € 24,780 in profit before taxes.

In 2022, Rikolto Limited’s target is to grow towards a turnover of € 800,000 to further contribute to the objectives and financing of Rikolto’s global mission and vision.

Rikolto Limited assignments

  • Mapping food chains (a joint project with HIVA) for KULeuven and UZ Leuven in Belgium
  • Advising on sustainable catering for the Flemish public broadcaster VRT (together with Sustenuto) in Belgium
  • Implementing an M&E framework for the Islamic Development Bank in West-Africa (together with Helvetas)
  • Managing the income improvement project and setting upa micro-savings system with cocoa farmer organisation Kuapa Kokoo for Lidl’s WayToGo chocolate
  • Developing a sustainable food strategy for the cities ofSint-Truiden, Sint-Niklaas and Antwerp
  • Organising learning trajectories for the Good Food labelof the city of Brussels
  • Performing cooperative diagnosis and development of sector strategic work plans for UNIDO in Peru
  • Connecting local food producers to the supply chain ofAldi Belgium
  • Upgrading and implementing the Environmental & SocialManagement System (ESMS) at Alterfin

Principles that we hold dear when working with partners and donors

Transparency

Rikolto is committed to clearly and transparently communicating with all its partners and donors on how we spend our resources. We make our information accessible through:

  1. Clear programme descriptions on our website.
  2. Commitment to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and compliance with its reporting standards: on our website you can find an overview of the activity files for each country.
  3. Our financial section in this annual report gives a clear overview of resources and expenses for all our programmes. 

Apart from the above, Rikolto endorses the Donor Bill of Rights, and we work with the following initiatives on transparency and accountability in Belgium: Belgian Association for Ethical Fundraising, Donorinfo.be (a private initiative), Goede Doelen (King Baudoin Foundation) and X-Bank (Belgian NGO-federation). Those websites publish the audited figures of Rikolto Belgium vzw. In this annual report we show you also the consolidated figures for the worldwide Rikolto group (Rikolto Belgium vzw and Rikolto International s.o.n). As accountability, transparency and qualitative reporting are key to Rikolto, checking the adherence to global financial reporting standards and quality control will continue to be the responsibility of the Global Finance Support Team.

Privacy

Rikolto uses personal contact data for administrative purposes and to inform people about our activities. We take the privacy of our donors very seriously and want to be 100% transparent about what we do with personal data. In 2020, we continued working on transparent workflows and elaborated (and updated) our privacy policy. The need for a user-oriented preference centre became more and more immanent. This project is currently in the hands of the privacy taskforce. This privacy taskforce also looks at possible data breaches and ways to upgrade our data management to ensure compliance with the European privacy legislation (GDPR).

We did not receive any formal complaints in 2021 through the GBA (Belgian Authority for Data Protection). The individual complaints, questions and recommendations we received via our own channels form the basis of workflow improvements and are all taken up by the privacy taskforce.

Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct

Since 2018, we have a clear internal policy to manage the ethical risks associated with partnering with and receiving funds from companies, corporate foundations and government actors. Moreover, in 2019 our International Board of Directors approved an organisation-wide Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct. These shared values and principles apply to all employees, volunteers, interns and third-party entities such as consultants, partners and donors. You can read them here.

Investors and donors

People and Organisation

Rikolto's people

In 2021, Rikolto had 170 employees worldwide, which is less than in 2020 (196). This is mainly due to the ending of a big programme in DR Congo. Several years ago, men were clearly in the majority in the organisation. In 2021, 47 % of our staff were women, slightly more than the 45% in 2020. There remains a difference between our offices in Belgium, Asia and Latin America on the one hand, and West Africa, East Africa and DR Congo on the other hand. In the last group, proportionately many more men are employed, whereas there are more women on board in the first group.

Financial report

The RikoltoGroup spent €14,443,210 in 2021 and received €15,201,731, which led to a positive balance of €758,521.

In 2016, Rikolto’s organisational and governance structure underwent a complete makeover and we became an international network organisation. Rikolto has three legal entities: the Belgian Public Interest Foundation Rikolto International s.o.n., Rikolto Belgium v.z.w. (previously Vredeseilanden v.z.w.), and Rikolto b.v., an enterprise with limited liability. You can read more about these legal entities in the chapter on Governance.

This report covers the financial activities of the three entities. The focus in this chapter is on the analytical presentation of the consolidated financial statements, i.e. following the structure of the international network organisation. In the Annual Reports of the previous years, we only consolidated the figures of Rikolto International s.o.n. and Rikolto Belgium v.z.w. Now, for the first time, we are including Rikolto Limited in this consolidation

2021 Finances: investments per programmes and regions

Programme operations 2020 vs 2021

Income sources in 2021

Expenses in 2021

Ecological footprint of our air travels

Being an international network organisation, traveling by air has always been necessary for our operations. We are aware that this considerably increases our ecological footprint, and always try to use Teams or Zoom as much as possible, as well as combining as many assignments as possible in one trip.

The following principles guide our decisions as to whether airtravel is absolutely required or not:

  • Flying is the last resort. Rikolto staff should always look first for alternatives to travelling by plane.
  • When considering the options, look at distance, but also time. Sometimes travelling by car or public transport takes too long and can be exhausting. Travel time for staff should also be taken into account, as it might significantly reduce the time available for programme activities.
  • If you fly, you compensate. We always carbon offset the trips made by our staff. Non-staff are invited to do the same. Compensation will be invested into a specific Rikolto project aimed at climate change mitigation. Rikolto’s sustainability working group (one staff member from each office) decides on how the money is allocated.

In 2021, our air travels increased as compared to 2020, but airtravels were still lower than pre-COVID.

Number of one-way flights globally

Amount of CO2 (kg) from flights per region

Number of flights per region

As in previous years, the number of flights is highest for Indonesia, due to the country’s geography limiting other travel possibilities. With the exception of Vietnam and the DR Congo, air flights have gone up again in our other regions but are still significantly lower than pre-covid. This is due to a combination of covid restrictions that remained in place in the course of 2021, and specifically in DR Congo also due to the drop in airfares because of the volcanic eruption and covid, which pushed some companies to stop their traffic for a long period. Additionally, ICT literacy and ICT infrastructure have improved among colleagues andpartners, decreasing to a certain extent the need for flights.

For 2021, the total amount of 316,241 kg of CO2 equals a carbon compensation of €8,956. It was decided to pool this amount together with the carbon offsetting funds of 2020, i.e. €4,276, to be able to make a more meaningful investment. As such, the combined amount of €13,232 isinvested into Rikolto’s Innovation Fund. The selection ofthe project funded with this amount will take place after the publication of the annual report and will be reported on next year.

Read the full 2021 Annual Report

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