USAID/Guinea: USAID Helps Small-Scale Business Owners After Regional Conflict

JULY 15, 2004

USAID Helps Small-Scale Business Owners After Regional Conflict

As part of a project to help residents in the Forest Region rebuild after rebel incursions in 2000-2001, a USAID-sponsored grass-roots income-generation project carried out by the American Refugee Committee (ARC) is giving families greater access to basic health and education services.

Sita Camara says that she was away in a neighboring village when Rebels attacked her village of Kassadou, Close to the Sierra Leonean border in Kissidougou, in the Forest Region of Guinea. When she came back, she saw that her house was on fire, and her husband, who was sick at the time, passed away shortly after. "When I first came back, we cooked plantains and cassava for the children to eat since we had no rice." Camara bought rice on credit and rented some pots to start up her small restaurant again. "I bought things slowly, a spoon, a cup, one thing at a time. Sometimes I was able to sell my food, and sometimes I couldn't, in which case I would feed it to my family."

Sita Camara and her daughter seated in her restaurant in Kassadou village

Camara, like many other residents of Kassadou and surrounding villages in the Forest Region of Guinea, found themselves in a precarious situation, having lost their homes, their possessions, and even loved ones when armed rebel groups from Sierra Leone and Liberia entered the Forest Region of Guinea in 2000-2001, destroying or stealing goods from towns and villages like Kassadou. The USAID/Guinea development program was forced to halt operations in the area due to the fighting, and the danger it posed to its employees, and the provinces of Kissidougou, Gueckedou and Macenta were off limits to work or travel for two years.

The U.S. Government was, however, quick to respond with humanitarian aid to help those who were affected by the incursions. However, although the assistance meant that immediate humanitarian needs were met, displaced persons who later returned to the three prefectures found that public and private infrastructure had been demolished, social services no longer functioned adequately, and their means to earn a livelihood have been destroyed.

The Special Objective, carried out over the past two years, took advantage of the climate of relative peace in the Mano River sub-region to carry out tasks essential to creating viable communities--the basic conditions essential to a progressive resumption of USAID's assistance program. Activities have focused on stimulating economic activity, re-establishing key social services, and building a culture of peace to promote the return and reintegration of those displaced by the conflicts.

Camara has been a beneficiary of RESTOR a micro-enterprise income generation project put into place through USAID partner the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in the Special Objective intervention zones. The project is specifically designed to improve the economic situation of families affected by the conflict by increasing their ability to access educational and health services in their area. Says Larry Luu, Coordinator, "The goal is to increase the working capital of entrepreneurs by 50 percent. Intermediate results are measured at the family and/or household level, and include being able to pay children's school fees, offer more meals per day to one's family, and carry out household improvement."

Camara received two micro-grants of $50 each, which allowed her to get some business activities off of the ground. With the first grant, Camara bought a 50 kilo bag of rice and four 25-liter containers of palm oil -- she used the rice to prepare rice dishes in her restaurant, and she sold small quantities of oil in the local market. With a consecutive micro-grant, she was able to buy tables, benches and cups for her restaurant, and start making payments on a large cooking pot.

Camara herself talks about her boost in income in terms of what she is able to provide for her family. "Thank God," she says, "my children are in good health, they are eating regularly, and they are in school. I am able to pay their school fees, and I can pay for medicine if they get sick." Camara's longer-term project is to construct a two-room house for herself and her family. "God willing, I will finish the house by 2005," she reaffirms.

Story and photo by Laura Lartigue