Message from the director of the Western and Central Africa Division
This year has been fruitful for the Western and Central Africa Division. During 2007 the division has focused on improving aid effectiveness and maximizing IFAD’s impact on development as outlined in the organization’s Action Plan for 2007-2009. This commitment led to the implementation of the following objectives:
- implementing IFAD’s projects in accordance with country development strategies and priorities
- ensuring that 80 per cent of IFAD’s projects reached their development objectives
- achieving 60 per cent or more efficiency in IFAD’s projects
Implementation of the Action Plan required a profound change in the way IFAD conducts its operations, particularly regarding the design, implementation and supervision of projects and programmes.
To ensure that 80 per cent of IFAD’s projects achieve their development objectives by the end of 2008, programme managers and cooperating institutions must closely monitor difficult projects. With this in mind, it was decided that each programme manager would directly supervise at least one project. A training programme to help them and their assistants to strengthen their supervision was established. This training course, initiated and designed by the division, is now successfully used to train the entire staff of the Programme Department and IFAD at large in supervision and implementation support.
Since 1999, national governments have developed Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The PRSPs fall within the framework of the Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative (HIPC DI). The HIPC initiative was first launched in 1996 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank with the aim of ensuring that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage. The PRSPs provide a political framework of action to reduce poverty and promote growth in many West African countries. Although they have already contributed to improving the coherence of aid provided to the poorest nations, their potential has not yet been fully exploited, particularly regarding rural development. There remain many challenges in this area. For example, rural development has not been systematically taken into account, and there is an absence of indicators to monitor the impact of poverty reduction policies.
Responding to these challenges, the Western and Central Africa Division and the International Food Policy Research Institute have established a programme to ensure that rural development is better taken into account in the development and updating of PRSPs. The programme will put in place a monitoring system to evaluate the impact of poverty reduction strategies and policies. The programme will focus on the 15 countries that have reached ‘decision point’. In-depth modelling and analysis will be conducted in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal, and the results will be extended to the other countries in the region.
To support the work of the division in improving aid effectiveness, a number of initiatives have been taken to strengthen the support of public and private partnerships for value chains and to improve market access. Also, projects have been simplified, with a limited number of components. New investments were made within the framework of existing or complementary programmes to maximize effectiveness.
The division has already put in place a number of initiatives to improve the effectiveness of projects and programmes in accordance with IFAD’s Action Plan for 2007-2009. Over the next few years we will continue to focus on the impact and sustainability of our projects and we will simplify and supervise them more closely. We will also continue to progressively strengthen country presence and participate in policy dialogue.
The success of this programme will rely on the effectiveness of the partnerships that we have at the local level with the key actors involved in rural and agricultural development. This is why the division will concentrate on creating appropriate synergies and complementarities to reach its objectives of improved impact efficiency and programme effectiveness.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our partners a happy new year, full of success, in 2008 and I look forward to working with you in the future.
Mohamed Béavogui
Stories from the field
Mali: investing in the northern regions to support the peace process and improve poor people's living conditions
Living conditions are precarious in the northern regions of Mali, where social instability and rebellion are a threat to peace. The Government of Mali has designated IFAD as leading donor in the area. In a difficult environment, the IFAD-funded Zone Lacustre Development Project has made sound progress in the struggle to ensure better food security and improve the living conditions of the poor people of the northern regions, including many nomadic households.
Mali’s northern regions of Tombouctou, Gao and Kidal are the poorest in the country. Poverty and conflict have been exacerbated by the absence of basic infrastructure, as well as by drought and desertification. Lack of development is one of the main causes of social instability there. IFAD started operations in the country in 1982. Since then it has supported the Government of Mali in its efforts to promote economic and infrastructure development. IFAD has financed ten programmes and projects, including the Development Project in the Zone Lacustre (PDZL).
The second phase of the PDZL, which started 15 years after IFAD’s first initiative in Mali, covered the Tombouctou region. The project had the aims of improving people’s precarious living conditions, boosting food security and increasing small farmers’ incomes.
“The challenges were many in this drought-stricken and landlocked area where it was very difficult to obtain data on food availability and on health care services, and to build up the social capital,” said Hamzata Diallo, former coordinator of the project.
Investing in agriculture and boosting food security
One of the major activities of the PDZL II was to develop hydro-agricultural resources through improved land and water management. The project’s performance exceeded expectations. Thanks to irrigation facilities such as 8,200 hectares of large pools and 1,400 hectares of small pools, it placed 480 hectares of land under management. That was well over the project’s original target of 300 hectares. The investments helped ensure higher levels of food security for poor households in the lake area, where chronic food shortages were common before the project started. Now farmers produce enough to feed their families and also have surpluses that they can sell on local markets.
“For 15 years no one was able to exploit the land in this region because of the water shortage. Now we can farm and harvest sorghum and other products during the dry season, and all this thanks to hydro-agricultural management activities,” said Hamadoune Thimpsi, a farmer.
Karim Sampana, whose household counts about 60 members, testified to the improvements in the family’s living conditions:
“In 1988, when the project was launched, I filed a request for three hectares of land to farm. The results that I obtained encouraged me to file a second request, for 20 hectares. The project invested in a motor pump to irrigate the plots, and this has been a great help to us farmers in watering our plants. With the revenue produced from my 20 hectares, I was able to purchase all the goods that are in my house.”
The family now owns fishing canoes, ploughs and a sizeable number of cattle and sheep. One of the project’s most significant benefits is the security of knowing that the family warehouse is well stocked with sacks of rice even at times when supplies are at their lowest and granaries are normally empty.
Members of project communities have acquired skills to continue exploiting the irrigated plots over the long term. They recently renewed the motor pumps bought by the project for their use. This shows that, with or without the project, people are committed to continuing their farming activities.
Almost 65 per cent of rice production in the area around Niafunké is the result of the development of pools, lakes and irrigated land near the villages. The PDZL II also established basic infrastructure in isolated areas. It built and equipped more than 40 drinking water points, nine community health centres and six schools. It rehabilitated the main road linking the three northern regions and built a pontoon bridge over the Niger River.
Investments in the Tombouctou region have fostered an atmosphere of peace and have reduced the exodus of young people from villages to urban areas.
Better living conditions for nomadic communities
Following IFAD’s long-term commitment to working in the northern regions at a time when no other donor dared invest there, the Government of Mali designated the organization as lead donor in the area. In this role IFAD is working with the government and its other partners in Mali — the Belgian Survival Fund and the West African Development Bank — to consolidate the results achieved under the PDZL. Two new IFAD-supported programmes, the Northern Regions Investment and Rural Development Programme and the Kidal Integrated Rural Development Programme, are ongoing in Gao, Tombouctou and the pastoral region of Kidal.
The programme in Kidal specifically focuses on the population’s nomadic way of life. Although some nomadic herders have established semi-permanent settlements, many households in the area still conduct a nomadic life. Responding to this situation, the programme has introduced an innovative way of planning development infrastructure for those communities. The project management team will establish a social infrastructure only if the nomadic communities have participated in the decision and have agreed on the plan. This means that activities are not pre-determined and that they are fully integrated into the nomadic way of life. Instead of building schools, the project is considering the benefits of hiring teachers to travel with the communities.
For more information, please contact:
Leopold Sarr, country programme manager
[email protected]
Useful links:
Mauritania: focal points to improve education and communication in a project
Some projects in Western and Central Africa have included information, education and communication programmes among their components to improve information and communication at the local level and get communities and villages more involved. But many project activities are implemented by operating partners who are not always from the village or the region and who do not always understand local customs, language and traditions. Because they are less likely to remain with the project for a long period of time, they may cause some instability.
In Mauritania, the Maghama Improved Flood Recession Farming Project Phase II (PACDM II) dealt with the issue in an innovative way by putting in place village focal points who are identified and chosen by the local community. To be eligible to become a focal point the candidate has to live in the village and has to be literate.
Sweileké Mint Tmane, a 26-year-old mother of six children, lives in Dar Elbeidha village just outside Maghama, the main town in the Moughataa district. She is one of the few women in the village who is able to read and write, and she has worked as a secretary for the NGO Caritas. Thanks to her skills, she was unanimously chosen as focal point by the Village Development Committee under the PACDM II project to act as liaison between the community and the project.
Under the project she was trained to use information, education and communication techniques and was educated about issues such as AIDS, the importance of schooling for girls, hygiene, nutrition, women’s participation in democracy, the environment, marriage, divorce and children’s custody. She also received equipment such as a tape recorder, tapes, pens and paper to help her in her daily work, and she benefited from strong and continuous support from the project management. The aim was to transfer knowledge from the project directly to the community in a sustainable way. Focal points are in daily contact with the community and are able to raise awareness about the project and constantly adapt its implementation to local needs. As a result, the community is more deeply involved in the project.
Sweileké, who works on a volunteer basis, has a regular work plan, with organized sessions that involve the community. She usually gathers about 12 people in a group and uses a question and answer method to tackle particular issues. She also makes use of other opportunities when the village community meets, particularly for family ceremonies. The community holds her in high esteem for her work and commitment.
“I think that our living conditions have improved, more children attend school, the way we eat is more balanced and is based on local produce, and our water is drinkable thanks to better hygiene,” she said. She would like to continue her work, even though it is difficult at times. “Some issues are difficult to tackle and talk about, even if there’s no taboo in knowledge, as we say here,” she added. She would also like to have translations of the work material in Arabic, the most commonly spoken language in her community. “One day I would like to become a strong and respected director,” she added.
Sweileké is an example of a focal point who has shown a high commitment to the job and has contributed considerably to improving living conditions in her community. As part of that community, she is also better placed to raise awareness about the importance of the project. But in other instances focal points have not been as literate and for that reason their contribution has been more limited in scope.
For more information, please contact:
Cristiana Sparacino, country programme manager
[email protected]
Salikou Ould Aghoub, project director
[email protected]
Useful link:
Special features on innovation
Executive Board Members approved IFAD’s innovation strategy
Rural poverty is more complex than ever because of unprecedented challenges related to globalization, conflict, climate change, environmental degradation and a host of other factors.
To make a positive and lasting impact on rural poverty, IFAD needs to innovate and to help its partners innovate.
Innovation is a process that adds value or solves a problem in new ways. The goal of IFAD’s innovation strategy is to ensure that innovation is systematically and effectively embedded in every aspect of IFAD’s development processes and practices, both at headquarters and in the field. IFAD will work to enhance its capacity to find and promote new and better ways to enable poor rural people to overcome poverty and manage the risks inherent in innovation.
To implement the strategy effectively, it will be necessary to consider:
- maintaining a consistent focus on innovation in all of IFAD’s development processes and practices
- establishing a small, dedicated team called the Innovation Services Group to advise IFAD’s management and to facilitate innovation efforts across the organization
- building strategic partnerships that foster innovation
- identifying an innovation champion among senior management
- using existing funding instruments, where possible, to finance innovation-related activities
- establishing an Innovation Funding Facility to finance activities that cannot be financed through existing instruments
FIDAfrique launches a survey on IFAD's innovation initiative in Western and Central Africa
IFAD’s Western and Central Africa Division is launching an initiative to scout and share innovations (SSII) in Western and Central Africa.
The initiative’s objective is to identify, share and disseminate innovations that can deliver solutions to the problems faced by producers and poor rural people in the region, especially women, young people and members of other vulnerable groups. Its starting point will be the activities and results of the Ségou farmer innovation fair in Mali in 2004 organized by IFAD, Inter-Reseaux and the Technical Centre for Rural and Agricultural Cooperation (CTA). The context and objectives of SSII and IFAD‘s definition and classification of innovation can be found at http://innovation.fidafrique.net
FIDAfrique launched an electronic survey about the initiative on 15 October. Its purpose is to prepare the fair and workshop and to obtain participants’ contributions on:
- agricultural innovations that have a potential for scaling up and that can be disseminated on a regional scale
- factors likely to limit or favour access to innovations
- incentives to foster a ‘culture of innovation’ within projects, programmes and development organizations
- policies needed to foster access to innovation for rural populations at the local, national and/or regional level
Send contributions to: [email protected]. Contributions and occasional summaries will be published on the FIDAfrique website and disseminated by e-mail. At the close of the consultation, a summary will be produced and disseminated across the region. Participants in the Innovation Fair and Workshop scheduled for March 2008 will receive a copy of the document.
For more information, please contact:
Karim Hussein, regional economist
[email protected]
Useful link:
Innovative solutions for reducing rural poverty in Western and Central Africa
Senegal: equal opportunities for women in budget planning and programming in the Ministry of Rural Development and Agriculture — a pilot scheme
A political innovation was introduced in 2006 to give equal opportunities to women in the agricultural sector and favour equal access for poor women to agricultural resources. Poor women farmers in Senegal do not have the same access to resources and commercial value chain as their male counterparts, with the result that poverty levels are higher among women. Because of a lack of awareness of gender issues and gender policy in the Ministry of Rural Development and Agriculture, the production potential of women was largely unexploited.
The purpose of the innovation was to introduce new tools in favour of women’s integration into agricultural programmes and policies, and to make policy recommendations to improve gender opportunities. It was put in place by the Ministry in cooperation with UNIFEM, and it provided for the review of policies and programmes as related to gender issues.
For more information, please contact:
Cécile Mukarubuga, UNIFEM
[email protected]
Gabriel Bassène, ministère du développement rural et de l’agriculture – DAPS
[email protected]
Cameroon: unfermented cassava flour, a promising technique for processing and conserving flour
A technological innovation put in place in March 2006 tackled the problem of conservation of cassava flour, which can be difficult to conserve in subtropical zones. A roots and tubers development programme, the Roots and Tubers Market-Driven Development Programme (PNDRT), looked at cassava derivatives such as starch, miondo and tapioca as an alternative, but all have the same conservation problem. Eventually it was found that unfermented cassava flour was the answer, and that its potential was being overlooked. Unfermented cassava flour has qualities similar to those of wheat flour, and it can be used for baking. It is of good quality and odourless. It has the right amount of moisture and can be kept up to six months under the right conditions. Widespread use of unfermented cassava flour could guarantee producers a regular income and increase their living standards. It is relatively easy to produce, as existing equipment can be adapted to transform cassava into unfermented flour, and production units can easily be installed in areas where cassava is produced, as well as in urban areas.
For more information, please contact:
Abdoul Barry, country programme manager
[email protected]
Thomas Ngué Bissa, programme coordinator
[email protected]
Democratic Republic of the Congo: using a different type of rice to deter birds
Watching over rice fields to deter birds from damaging crops is a crucial task for rice producers. But it is a time-consuming activity and does not leave farmers free to work at other tasks. As a result, it is often the farmer’s wife or children who have the responsibility of watching over rice fields, and children who guard fields do not have time to attend school.
It was found that the Nerica 4 type of rice is less susceptible than other types to damage by birds. It was also noticed that rice planted in May was less likely to be damaged by birds because they had already migrated. Further, the use of palm nuts proved to be a good alternative to pesticides because it attracted ants that eat pesticide-resistant caterpillars.
Nerica 4 rice was introduced under the Agricultural Revival Programme in Equateur Province (PRAPE) in January 2007. This technological innovation enables farm households to reduce the time they spend guarding rice fields and use it for other activities. Children are able to attend school on a more regular basis and the rate of first-level education has improved in rural communities. Women can use the time to perform other tasks. And adequate crops ensure food security for rice farmers. In addition, levels of chemical pesticides have declined. A three-year test period will serve to confirm the success of the innovation.
For more information, please contact:
Leopold Sarr, country programme manager
[email protected]
Niger: grain banks to prevent and manage acute food crisis
This innovation was introduced in June 2006 under the Project for the Promotion of Local Initiative for Development in Aguié (PPILDA), in the Maradi region, following the 2005 food crisis. The region suffers from a lack of arable land and low productivity that is exacerbated by rapid population growth of about 3 per cent per year and by repeated droughts and locust damage. As a result, many households regularly face a food crisis, traditionally in the period from July to September when there are no crops.
Grain banks were set up to provide food to vulnerable households during the crisis period. The food is provided as a loan that is paid back in kind from the next crop, with the addition of a maximum of 25 per cent as interest. This allows the grain banks to rebuild their stock for the next difficult season. Grain banks are managed mainly by women. The main objective of this innovation is to contribute to food security, particularly for vulnerable households, and to improve nutrition and increase agricultural production over time. It also helps protect household capital by reducing debt and the need to sell livestock and agricultural equipment during difficult periods.
Useful link:
For more information, please contact:
Hubert Boirard, country programme manager
[email protected]
Chaibou Guéro, project director
[email protected]
News and events
IFAD President presents IFAD's core values
A key factor for organizational change is an enabling organizational culture. Through the Action Plan IFAD has taken steps to define an institutional culture that enables it to attain its goals and strategic priorities of focusing on results and development effectiveness.
In the past five months, the Working Group on Culture Change worked closely with IFAD staff in a process involving focus group meetings and an all-staff survey. Four core values and corresponding behaviours, which will represent the basis of our new institutional culture, have been identified. They are: Results, Integrity, Professionalism and Respect. Values are the principles and standards we live by in every aspect of our work, from our interaction with each other to engagement with members and to how we relate to poor rural people. They are the foundation for our behaviour and decision-making.
Useful link:
Western and Central Africa receives a US$5.7 million loan and US$15.0 million in grants
During its 91st session on 11 and 12 September 2007 IFAD’s Executive Board approved three loans to finance new projects in Western and Central Africa.
A loan of US$5.7 million and a grant of US$0.3 million will support small-scale farmers in the Woleu-Ntem province of Gabon as they diversify their incomes by developing and marketing new products from staple crops such as banana, cassava and peanut. Through training courses, farmer exchange visits and a new market information system, the project will also help farmers’ organizations better defend the economic interests of their members and market their goods more efficiently. The project will directly benefit 28,000 small farmers, half of whom are women and a third of whom are young people. The project is expected to indirectly benefit 70,000 additional people through awareness-raising activities in the province.
In Guinea, a US$10.0 million grant will help finance the second phase of a project to strengthen local governance in rural areas and promote the social and economic empowerment of people in those areas. Women, young people and other marginalized groups in about 300 communities will benefit from the project. The project will support ‘learning by doing’ and promote strong accountability measures to foster an environment of transparent and equitable governance. The long-term goal is to enable local communities and their governments to identify, plan, implement and manage their own infrastructure and service needs.
One of the world’s poorest countries, Guinea-Bissau will receive a US$4.7 million grant to help about 100,000 rural people take part in building and sustaining their communities. The project focuses on rehabilitating infrastructure, including 65 kilometres of essential rural roads, and on improving basic social services and strengthening grass-roots organizations. The project will also strengthen the role of the most vulnerable groups – women and young people – in project implementation and community decision-making and management.
The Executive Board also approved four grants to international centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Among them is a US$1.5 million grant to the Africa Rice Centre (WARDA).
Useful link:
Workshop on procurement and IFAD procedures, 8-15 October, Brazzaville, Congo
IFAD’s Western and Central Africa Division, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Congo and the West Africa Rural Foundation organized a second workshop on IFAD procedures and procurement for IFAD project staff of Central Africa in Brazzaville, Congo. The workshop took place from 8 to 15 October.
The main objective of the workshop was to improve the knowledge of project management units about procurement in general and IFAD’s procedures in particular. The Institut supérieur africain pour le développement de l’entreprise (ISADE), partner of the West Africa Rural Foundation, conducted training sessions on procurement. The procurement course was offered under an IFAD grant entitled "Management Capacity Strengthening Programme of IFAD projects in Western and Central Africa region”.
About 35 participants from Central Africa attended the workshop.
Global Forum on Agriculture, 12-13 November, Rome, Italy
OECD, IFAD, FAO and the World Bank joined in holding a Forum on African agricultural development and poverty reduction. The objectives of the forum were to disseminate and broaden the impact of new analytical work and to share reflections on and deepen understanding of a number of constraints and policy issues that are of importance to agricultural and rural development and poverty reduction.
The forum coincided with the release of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008 and newly available analysis from OECD, IFAD and FAO, such as the results of the Support to African Agriculture Project, a joint IFAD-OECD and French collaboration. Reactions to this work have been provided by invited African and international experts.
Senior-level participants from developed and developing countries addressed specific questions related to market and trade developments, international and domestic policy reforms, and governance issues. A high-level panel of International and African experts and policymakers responded to the issues raised at the forum.
Useful link:
First meeting of roots and tubers programmes in western and central Africa, 14-16 November, Douala, Cameroon
Under IFAD’s Regional Cassava Processing and Marketing Initiative (RCPMI), the Western and Central Africa Division organized the first annual meeting of the four IFAD-funded roots and tubers (R&T) programmes currently operating in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria. The meeting was held in Douala, Cameroon, from 14 to 16 November 2007. The purpose of the meeting was to allow an exchange of experiences, know-how and good practices. The event served as a forum on cassava for staff of the R&T programmes to enable them to review on a yearly basis the progress made in implementing their activities. It provided them with an opportunity to discuss obstacles encountered, main lessons learned and challenges ahead.
Participants included staff of R&T projects, representatives of partner agencies, country programme managers and other IFAD staff. Government officials from Cameroon attended the meeting, also. They agree to set up a regional network of actors in the cassava chain, harmonize norms and standards in the subregions and establish a regional market information network.