Issue
number 9 - February 2008
Message
from the director of the Western and Central
Africa
Division
A
year ends. A year
starts. As Western and Central Africa
struggles to meet the Millennium Development Goals, it seems that few
countries
in the region are likely to reach the targets of halving extreme
poverty and
hunger by 2015. The region continues to face a number of serious
development
challenges.
However,
there are
positive trends to build on. Overall in 2007 economic growth has been
robust in
the region. Growth in agricultural production in many countries has
averaged
more than 4 per cent. Population growth constitutes an opportunity as
urban
markets for agricultural products expand. Farmers’ organizations and
civil society are playing an increasing role in policy development,
programming
and facilitating farmer access to inputs and markets. With increased
stability
in the region, prospects could be bright if major constraints are
addressed.
The
IFAD portfolio in
the region comprises 49 ongoing loan-financed programmes and projects,
for a
total amount of about US$1.3 billion including cofinancing. IFAD’s role
is to help governments produce enough food to feed their people and
generate
enough income to lift a substantial number of poor rural people out of
poverty.
This
entails
supporting water control and small-scale irrigation, technology, and
access to
input supply and local and regional output markets and rural financing.
As
agriculture is central to the livelihoods of the majority of poor
people and
the national economies in most of the region, investments in
agriculture and
rural non-agricultural opportunities remain critical.
IFAD
promotes
innovative and effective programmes that can be replicated and scaled
up. It
also supports policies that contribute to ensuring expanded
agricultural and
rural development growth. The vision here is that West
Africa will be enabled to lift itself out of poverty and
hunger.
Taking
into account
IFAD’s strategic objectives for the period 2007-2010 and the challenges
faced by poor rural people, IFAD’s loan and grant programme in Western
and Central will focus on the following priorities in 2008:
- supporting the building
of inclusive value chains and rural enterprises
- increasing equitable
access of rural households and enterprises to financial services and
local, regional and international input supply and output markets
- increasing access of poor
rural people to technology and innovations to promote sustainable
agricultural productivity and food security
- fostering equitable
access to natural resources (especially land and water) and maintaining
the quality of the resource base for agriculture in the context of
climate change
- increasing resilience to
vulnerability, natural disasters and pandemics, and food insecurity,
particularly in the Sahel
Institutional
development and capacity-building, particularly for farmers’
organizations and microenterprises will remain a cross-cutting
priority.
IFAD-supported activities will also contribute to improving
agricultural
policies and Poverty Reduction Strategies to ensure positive impacts on
the
livelihoods of poor rural people.
The
division plans to
mainstream knowledge-management activities in a more systematic way in
country
and regional programmes and projects. It will improve monitoring and
evaluation, focus on learning from field experience, especially in
thematic
areas such as community-driven development, rural finance and gender,
through
direct supervision and evaluation, using thematic and regional networks
such as
FIDAfrique to disseminate the knowledge acquired.
This
year, IFAD will
hold two learning events in Western and Central
Africa:
a regional innovation workshop/fair and a regional implementation
workshop with
the participation of all IFAD partners. Both these occasions will be an
opportunity to meet, learn, share and create the best conditions for us
to
contribute to development effectiveness in the region.
There
are big
challenges ahead. But with a renewed and strengthened partnership with
all
stakeholders, we will meet our goal.
Dear
readers, I would
like to complete this message by wishing all of you a very happy New
Year for
2008.
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Special features on
innovation
Scouting
and sharing innovations to improve the livelihoods
of poor rural smallholder farmers
In
Western and Central Africa, many
innovations have been identified and
developed within IFAD programmes and projects. However, often there is
limited
knowledge of the existence of innovations outside the project context.
No
systematic approach or mechanism exists to identify, harvest and
disseminate
innovations between IFAD programmes and projects and with the wider
development
community.
To
address this gap,
IFAD initiated the Scouting and Sharing Innovation (SSI) Initiative in
Western
and Central Africa in mid-2007. The
initiative
will identify and document innovations and foster a forward-looking
process of
exchange and partnership among producers, the private sector and
international
organizations involved in developing and sharing innovations in the
region. It
will also contribute to the regional agricultural policy and strategy
processes, such as the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS)
Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) and the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), that are being developed. The SSI initiative deals
with
innovations that have a regional scope or those that have the potential
to be
adapted to different contexts in countries in Western and Central Africa.
The
SSI initiative
will:
- promote, develop and
build on innovative processes, technological innovations and promising
practices developed by IFAD programmes and projects, development
partners and producers
- document, analyse and
disseminate innovations that have potential to be implemented in
IFAD-funded programmes and projects
- develop communication
tools, in collaboration with programmes and projects, regional partners
and various actors in order to present the innovations
- support the development
of wider innovation identification and sharing processes in the region
and create an innovation sharing mechanism between the programmes and
projects financed by IFAD and its partners
The
initiative is
carried out in partnership with a range of development actors and
partners,
including the West Africa Rural Foundation, the Technical Centre for
Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, the Sahel
and West Africa Club/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development and
FIDAfrique.
The
SSI initiative
involves a process of scouting for innovations in the region alongside
consultations with regional actors through electronic surveys and
face-to-face
meetings. Over 70 innovations have already been identified and
documented, and
will be made available on the FIDAfrique website.
IFAD
will hold a
regional innovation workshop/fair in collaboration with regional
partners in
March or April 2008 in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso,
to provide an opportunity for people to share innovations widely across
the
region. This will bring together a variety of actors, from farmers to
representatives from the private sector, development agencies and
regional
institutions, both from within the region and outside to maximize
impact.
For
more information,
please contact:
Useful
links:
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Innovative
solutions for reducing rural poverty in Western
and Central Africa
Financial
Services
Associations: providing access to financial services in rural areas
IFAD
developed the
Financial Services Association (FSA) model in Benin
in 1997 to address the constraints poor people face in gaining access
to
financial services in rural areas in Africa.
The FSA model offers a lower-cost and potentially sustainable solution
in rural
areas that are initially unattractive to formal financial institutions.
FSAs
are set up at the
community level. They are owned and managed by community members who
buy shares
in the FSA. The main challenges are ensuring locally-based
self-management of
the FSA, its outreach and sustainability. In terms of outreach, FSAs
operate in
rural communities that would not be viable for many other forms of
financial
services organization.
In
2004, IFAD’s
Rural Finance thematic group carried out an in-depth review of the FSA
model by
conducting a field study of more than 200 FSAs in Benin
and Kenya
– the two countries where they have had a far-reaching impact. The aim
of
the study was to build on experience gained so far, formulate ways to
further
strengthen FSAs to make them more sustainable and prepare for the
replication
of the FSA model in other countries and regions.
In
Benin,
the
success of the FSAs encouraged project coordinators there to engage in
policy
dialogue and advocate for microfinance with national institutions
responsible
for overseeing savings and lending systems. IFAD projects have provided
support
to the Government of Benin in defining the country’s rural microfinance
policy. The government approved the microfinance policy in 2006 and has
recently
established a vice-ministry for microfinance development.
The
innovative FSA
model has since been extended and implemented in Guinea,
Mauritania, the
United
Republic of Tanzania and Uganda
and more recently in Sierra
Leone.
For
more information,
please contact:
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Video
viewing clubs to
train cocoa farmers
Across
West Africa cocoa extension efforts
remain weak.
Traditional cocoa extension methods in use locally tend to focus on
blanket
technical messages or involve input-driven strategies. While
participatory
training approaches such as farmer field schools (FFSs) have proven
effective
in training cocoa farmers, the success of such approaches is highly
dependent
on the quality of facilitators. Recent experience in several countries
suggests
that ensuring good technical and facilitation skills among FFS
facilitators is
a key challenge.
The
International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture’s Sustainable Tree Crops Program
(STCP)
recognized the need for innovative farmer training and extension
approaches to
improve cocoa productivity in West Africa.
The
institute chose to use video. This tool for training farmers and rural
people
is not new in West Africa but there
are few examples
of its application for training tree crop farmers.
In
2006, the STCP
started video viewing clubs in Côte
d’Ivoire and Ghana. Video viewing clubs
are a
method for group learning using video coupled with guide books, guided
discussion and field activities. The videos used in the clubs are
either
developed in a participatory manner, with farmers involved in the
conceptualization and filming, or by video professionals. The STCP is
testing
both approaches, using participatory videos for training in Ghana, while videos developed by
communications
professionals are being used in Côte d’Ivoire.
Using
videos for
training tree crop farmers makes it possible to visualize new
techniques and
practices, and to show in a short time something that takes place over
a long
period. Farmers who cannot read and write are able to learn. It also
allows
information to be packaged in such a way that it is transmitted
accurately from
technical sources to farmers. The clubs are thus a more effective way
to convey
technical information and knowledge about cocoa production to
small-scale
farmers. There are still challenges to be addressed though, such as
difficulties finding power sources to run the videos.
For
more information,
please contact:
- Sonii David, Regional
participatory extension specialist, STCP, International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture, s.david@cgiar.org
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Stories
from the field
Cameroon:
empowering women
through village coordination committees
Emilie
Nyate used to
depend on small-scale farming for subsistence. Today, thanks to
training she
received from the Roots and Tubers Market-Driven Development Programme
(PNDRT)
in Cameroon,
she is a consultant for setting up cassava multiplication farms and a
major
producer of cassava cuttings. With the proceeds from her activities,
she is
able to finance the education of her six children, two of whom are in
university.
Emilie
Nyate is the president
of the local coordination committee for roots and tubers in Ngam, the
village
where she lives in Cameroon’s
South Province. She is also the
secretary
general of the cassava producers’ basin of Sangmelima.
“I
am respected
today in the community. Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural
Development invite me to teach other women how to plant cassava,” she
says.
The
story of Emilie
Nyate is the story of the over 5,000 women taking part in PNDRT
activities to
boost cassava production, processing and marketing in Cameroon.
“The
project has
a dual purpose,” says Ngue Bissa, the PNDRT national coordinator.
“It works to increase the revenue of rural women and to build their
capacity to take decisions.”
The PNDRT structure
comprises antennas, basins, villages and village coordination
committees (comité
villageois de concertation
[CVC]). The
CVCs are the link
between the programme and the beneficiaries at the village level. CVCs
comprise
all the people involved in roots and tubers activities in the villages,
including producers, processors, traders and distributors. There are
some 250
CVCs in Cameroon.
The
PNDRT has a
long-standing policy that six of the eleven executive members of each
CVC should
be women. They can occupy any executive position, but the post of
treasurer is
exclusively reserved for women.
According
to Benjamin
Bidjoh, the PNDRT chief of antenna for Ebolowa, 48 of the 50 CVC
presidents in
his area are women, and women constitute more than 80 per cent of the
CVC
membership.
The
CVCs are
responsible for drawing up development plans for roots and tubers in
their
areas and ensuring their implementation, mobilizing resources and
enabling
villagers to gain access to new farming techniques and inputs.
The
CVCs are also
involved in the selection, construction and management of rural
infrastructure
such as markets, bridges and road maintenance. They facilitate access
of
products to markets at a profitable price.
“At
first people
were individualistic. Everyone wanted to go it alone. So the first
thing we did
was to assemble people into groups in villages so as to inspire the
spirit of
joint venture,” says Bidjoh. “Then we provided training to the
farmers and improved high-yield varieties of cassava cuttings.”
The
PNDRT and CVCs
have set up 14 farmer field schools in Ebolowa-Sangmelima. The PNDRT
provided
training to a first group of people who in turn trained the others in
the
villages.
“There
are 70
farmer field schools nationwide, 14 in each antenna,” says André
Mbairanodjo, officer in charge of production and processing at the
PNDRT head
office in Yaoundé. “There are also over 600 cassava multiplication
plots
across the country.”
These
measures led to
an increase in production in the Ebolowa-Sangmelima area from 8-10 tons
per
hectare in 2005 to 25-30 tons per hectare in 2007. The PNDRT
constructed two
warehouses for cassava products at a cost of 17 million CFA francs
(US$38,300).
Five drying facilities were also constructed at a cost of 29 million
CFA francs
(US$65,300) for those wishing to produce cassava pellets for eventual
processing into flour. The PNDRT is also working to put producers and
traders
together to boost marketing.
“We
happen to be
near the border with Gabon
and Equatorial
Guinea,
where the bulk of our customers are. We have made a list of traders
from these
countries and their contacts, which we distributed to the CVCs,” says
Bidjoh.
The
success of the
PNDRT cassava activities in South Province
has attracted
the interest of villagers outside the area covered by the programme.
According
to Bidjoh, over 60 common initiative groups in Mfou subdivision in Centre Province
have requested that the programme be extended to their area. People
like Emilie
Nyate, who has already set up 12 cassava multiplication farms in
villages not
covered by the programme, will be extremely helpful to this expansion.
As the
activities supported by the programme draw to an end, the PNDRT wishes
to see
the farmers take over control of them.
For
more information,
please contact:
Useful
links:
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Cape Verde: a showcase for social
solidarity
and good governance
Over
a decade after
the Government of Cape Verde introduced substantial reforms through a
policy of
economic liberalization, privatization and decentralization to the
municipality
level, the country’s economic situation has improved beyond
recognition. Cape
Verde is
ranked first among African countries for applying good governance and
democracy. Furthermore, the government succeeded in mobilizing the
energy of
its people to develop the country and overcome harsh natural conditions
and the
lack of agricultural resources.
As
a result, Cape Verde
has
graduated from the category of Least Developed Countries, and is
expected to
reach the Millennium Development Goals even before 2015. The country is
today
one of Africa’s success stories.
“Between
2001
and 2006, Cape Verde
had an
impressive growth rate of 5.8 per cent per annum, with a strong social
cohesion
at the same time, which makes it even more remarkable,” says Mohamed
Manssouri, IFAD’s country programme manager for Cape Verde.
The
World Bank has projected a growth rate at almost 7 per cent for 2007.
From
the start, IFAD
supported the government’s reform programme to fight poverty through
its
Rural Poverty Alleviation Programme launched in September 1999. The
programme
is financed under the Flexible Lending Mechanism, whereby funds are
released in
three phases. The initial loan amounted to US$9.2 million over a
ten-year
period from 2000-2009, for a total cost of US$18.34 million, with the
remainder
funded by the Government of Cape Verde.
“This
was a
model programme and Cape
Verde served as a laboratory for us to
develop
effective approaches to community-driven development and to apply the
lessons
learned in other countries in the region,” says Mohamed Béavogui,
director of IFAD’s Western and Central Africa Division.
The
Rural Poverty
Alleviation Programme has been so successful in the areas of the
country where
it has operated so far that it will now be extended to all rural areas
throughout Cape
Verde.
“Not
only
has the programme delivered, but we are scaling up,” says Manssouri.
“It is becoming a major national policy instrument to fight poverty in
rural areas.”
The
programme has
stimulated the establishment of autonomous community and development
associations, known as ACDs (associations communautaires de
développement),
which harness the energy and potential of the local communities. By the
end of
the programme’s second phase, some 177 ACDs had been formed, involving
about 10,000 families or about 40,000 people out of an estimated 51,000
poor
rural people in the programme area.
A
major factor
contributing to the programme’s success was the creation of regional
committees of private partners, known as CRPs (commissions régionales de partenaires),
at the outset of the programme. The CRPs are responsible for designing
a
poverty alleviation plan for their area and managing financial
resources. CRPs
are made up of local stakeholders, such as the rural communities
benefiting
from projects represented by the ACDs (which have the majority of
votes), and
representatives from the municipalities, NGOs and the private sector.
“From
the start,
the programme was based on partnerships, and nothing was imposed. The
communities and their local partners managed their own development,”
says
Manssouri. “That worked very well in Cape
Verde because the values of solidarity and
inclusiveness
are deeply rooted in the culture of every Cape Verdian.”
Based
on the poverty
alleviation plans that were prepared through participatory processes
and
approved by the CRPs, the communities were free to choose exactly what
type of
micro-projects they wanted for a specific community, provided they met
the
general requirements agreed on in the plans. The communities had to
discuss
their proposals with the CRPs and submit them for approval. The
communities
then implemented the micro-projects with the support of the CRPs. A
global
budget was allocated for a three-year period for the communities to
use, and
they could do so without specifying in what micro-projects it would be
invested.
The
government’s
strong willingness to implement the necessary economic reforms and its
recognition of the CRPs was instrumental to the programme’s success.
The
programme succeeded in establishing and strengthening CRPs and provided
them
with the appropriate instruments and mechanisms to function as
institutions.
“The
programme
was very innovative because the CRPs and the ACDs were given the power
to
decide on the type of micro-projects they wanted to develop,” says
Romano
Pantanali, a senior consultant who was part of the initial design team
for the
programme. “We put of lot of emphasis on their autonomy.”
The
initial loan
agreement had four programme components: a component to finance
micro-projects,
which received 64 per cent of the total funds; a component to inform
and
educate communities about the programme (12 per cent of funds); a
component to
train CRPs to fulfil their duties, mainly during the first phase (7 per
cent of
funds); and a component to manage the programme (16 per cent of funds).
“What
was really
innovative was the implementation of a mechanism to transfer funds
directly to
the CRPs, which managed them themselves,” says José Maria Veiga, the
project coordinator in Cape Verde. “It shows that
when people are
interested in a programme and get what they want, they are extremely
capable of
managing it.”
Within
six years,
about 1,300 micro-projects had been implemented in areas such as
micro-irrigation, rainwater collection, drainage, running water in
villages,
weaving and other handicrafts, carpentry, ceramic production and fruit
processing. Many communities chose to invest in social housing projects
as a
first step to fight extreme poverty and marginalization.
“The
communities
took the view that once accommodation was guaranteed, the very poor
people felt
less poor and could concentrate on other economic activities,” says
José
Maria Veiga. This changes people’s behaviour. They feel empowered
because
they no longer look at themselves as poor people.
The
programme put a
great emphasis on training and education within the communities. “That
is
also a key element of the programme,” says Veiga. CRPs organized for
trainers to come to the communities to help people improve the skills
and
knowledge needed to develop additional income-generating activities.
“For
instance, some CRPs worked with associations in Portugal
to provide training in
ceramic and pottery, showing their capacity to work outside the realm
of the
programme,” says Veiga.
Initially
the
programme was implemented on five of the country’s islands, namely in
Santo Antão, São Nicolau, Fogo, Brava and Santiago
(in the municipalities of Tarrafal and São Miguel),
and CRPs were created for each. To build on the success of the first
two
phases, the upcoming third phase will extend the programme nationwide,
and the
IFAD loan will increase by US$4 million to reach US$13 million. The
government
will also significantly increase its contribution.
However,
improvements
will be required in the third phase to make the programme’s results
sustainable. In particular, CRPs will have to become more open to
working with
partners outside the programme to be able to leverage more sources of
funding.
CRPs will also have to be more innovative and strategic in setting up
development projects, and improve their design and preparation. While
the
programme contributed to strengthening the role of women at the
grassroots
level, it needs to further raise their profile so as to enable them to
participate more effectively in decision-making at local and national
levels.
“Those are the objectives for the third phase,” says Manssouri.
For
more information,
please contact:
Useful
links:
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News
and events
IFAD
Executive Board approves US$76.1 million in loans and US$1.2 million in
grants
to finance projects in Western and Central Africa
During
its 92nd session
held from 11 to 13 December 2007 in Rome, Italy, IFAD’s Executive Board
approved more than US$236 million in loans and US$20 million in grants
for
programmes and projects that will help poor rural people in developing
countries overcome poverty. The Board also approved US$6.24 million in
grants
to support agricultural research and development activities in rural
regions of
poor countries.
In
Burkina
Faso, a loan of US$11.0 million and a
grant of
US$400,000 will help 20,000 poor rural households intensify and
diversify their
agricultural production through new and newly refurbished small-scale
irrigation schemes, including innovative micro-irrigation technologies.
The Small-Scale
Irrigation and Water Management Project will promote local negotiation
processes to enhance participants’ access to land and water. It will
also
support marketing activities.
The
Northern Rural
Growth Programme in Ghana
willhelp poor rural people – particularly
women – create profitable commodity and food chains, while improving
links with the domestic and export markets. The programme, backed by an
IFAD
loan of US$22.33 million and a grant of US$400,000, will cover the
rural areas
of the three northern regions and the adjoining districts with similar
agroecological characteristics in the Brong-Ahafo region, the poorest
in Ghana.
Nearly
45,000 households will benefit from the income-generating activities of
the
programme and about 100,000 from infrastructure improvements.
Nigeria
will receive a loan of US$42.76 million and a grant
ofUS$400,000 to develop rural microenterprises. The Rural
Microenterprise
Development Programme, which will strengthen Nigeria’s
Medium and Small
Enterprise Development Policy Framework, will support opportunities in
the
off-farm rural microenterprise sector to boost incomes, increase food
security
and improve the livelihoods of poor households, particularly those with
limited
or no access to agricultural land. Participants will be poor rural
people living below the poverty line. These are mainly households
headed by
women, unemployed young people, and those who are physically
challenged.
Over eight years, about 700,000 people will benefit.
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FIDAfrique:
connecting people in sub-Saharan Africa
FIDAfrique,
the
regional information network for Western and Central Africa (WCA), was
launched
in 1999 to improve the management of IFAD programmes and projects by
increasing
their capacity to share information and knowledge, best practices and
lessons
learned. During its second phase from 2004 to 2007, FIDAfrique has
focused on
developing an electronic web-based portal and related tools. It held a
series
of knowledge-sharing events such as forums, workshops and
project-to-project
exchange visits. And it increased information sharing and related
capacity-building activities among IFAD-supported programmes and
projects and
their partners.
The
International
Institute for Sustainable Development undertook an independent
end-of-project
evaluation of FIDAfrique Phase II in July 2007 and recommended moving
to a new
phase, recognizing a number of achievements as well as challenges and
areas
that could be developed. The evaluation team noted that the network was
evolving positively from a predominantly electronic-based
information-sharing
system to a network of people and institutions.
IFAD
is now exploring
the possibility of expanding FIDAfrique from Western and Central Africa
to the
whole of sub-Saharan Africa, incorporating Eastern and Southern Africa for its next phase. The vision
is to create a unified
knowledge network for sub-Saharan Africa
to
enhance rural development effectiveness, in line with IFAD’s Strategic
Framework for 2007-2010. The proposed network would thus connect people
and
networks for learning and for sharing experiences and innovations for
rural
poverty reduction throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
For
more information,
please contact:
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Strengthening
IFAD's gender approach in Western and Central Africa
The
Western and Central Africa rural
poverty assessment carried out in
2001 emphasized that gender inequality is one of the main causes of
rural
poverty in the region. In response, IFAD launched the Programme of
Action to
Assist IFAD Projects and Programmes in Western and Central
Africa to Reach Rural Women in November 2001. The
initiative was
financed with a total amount of US$1.3 million by the governments of Italy and Norway through their
voluntary
contributions to IFAD’s supplementary funds.
The
primary objective
of the six-year programme was to assist IFAD-funded projects in Western
and Central Africa to achieve greater
impact in poverty
reduction and increased household food security by better reaching
rural women.
The programme’s objectives were to:
- ensure that the design of
projects are more gender-sensitive and adequately respond to the needs
of poor rural women and men
- increase rural women’s
access to assets and resources through
directly funding activities and providing training to project staff to
raise productivity, reduce poverty and contribute to household food
security
- strengthen advocacy for
women at the national and regional levels, empowering rural African
women to influence the design of rural development policies and
programmes at the national, regional and international levels
The
programme linked
up with activities carried out in 15 countries in the region.
It has
provided IFAD with key financial resources to invest in research,
training,
development and implementation of pilot projects through which the
organization
has improved its gender approach in Western and Central
Africa.
In
Niger,
the
Gender Integration Project (Projet d’intégration de l’approche genre [PIAG])
was implemented as a pilot in the district of Aguié from January 2003
to June
2005. The project was financed by a US$95,000 grant and had four
specific
objectives to:
- improve women’s and their
groups’ capacities to innovate and develop activities to increase their
economic and decision-making power and improve their lifestyles
- consolidate the approach
of active participation of men and women in activity planning
- contribute to the
preparatory phase of the Project for the Promotion of Local Initiative
and Development in Aguié (PPILDA)
- build the technical and
organizational capacities of PPILDA’s human resources (staff, partners
and beneficiaries)
A
final review
conducted in the framework of the self-evaluation of IFAD’s Programme
for
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, defined the IFAD grant to PIAG
as the “lynchpin that permitted gender to be mainstreamed and become an
integral part of the planning for PPILDA implementation with the
communities.
The IFAD grant allowed the team and all other project actors to
systematically
include gender issues in the pre-project identification of activities
for
PPILDA.”
Recent
project
evaluations and reviews in Benin,
Cape Verde, the Gambia, Ghana,
Guinea and Senegal
have
noted success in the participation of women in IFAD’s programmes and
projects. They clearly indicate that performance with regard to gender
mainstreaming is improving in Western and Central
Africa,
against the findings of the baseline survey conducted in 2003.
For
more information,
please contact:
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