The Guinea Mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development: Advancing Democratic Governance
Special Objective Helps Residents Rebuild in Forest Guinea
As a building block in promoting regional peace, the Special Objective has helped residents of this once devastated area of the Forest Region rebuild and restart their economic activities, and has had a positive affect on the lives of approximately three-quarters of a million Guinean citizens.
USAID/Guinea announces the successful completion of a two-year Special Objective to address the post-conflict situation in Gueckedou, Kissidougou and Macenta, three prefectures in Guinea’s Forest Region that suffered extensive damage in 2000-2001 during cross-border attacks from Sierra Leonean and Liberian territory. The project has had a positive impact on approximately three-quarters of a million people living in these areas of the Forest Region of Guinea.
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| Map showing the location of numerous rebel attacks into Guinea from Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2000-2001. |
Immediately following the attacks into Guinean territory, U.S. Government agencies responded with timely humanitarian assistance. 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.
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| Tamba Millimouno, upholsterer and USAID beneficiary in Gueckedou, in the Forest Region of Guinea. |
After carrying out a socio-economic survey
to determine the most efficient use of project funds
to improve economic conditions for people living in
the target zones, USAID, through non-governmental organizations
Premiere Urgence, ARC, and Plan Guinee, selected 2,337
beneficiaries from the Gueckedou area to receive kits
with tools for hairdressers, cobblers, blacksmiths,
and other artisans, while 2,121 cultivators and farmers
have received agricultural tools and seeds.
Says beneficiary and upholsterer Tamba
Daniel Millimouno of Gueckedou, “During the fighting,
I had to flee all the way to Kissidougou. When I returned,
all of my tools were stolen. I had to beg to feed my
family. After I got the sewing machine and the other
tools, I made a living room set and sold it right away.
Now I’m earning a living and supporting my family,
thanks to USAID.”
To celebrate both the closure of the USAID project and the restarting of economic activities in the region, artisans held a fair in Gueckedou May 10-11 in Gueckedou to show off their wares. Says François Sandulo, Director of Tourism and Artisans in Gueckedou, “The initiative of holding a fair has really been appreciated, coming as it has just after a successful intervention carried out by USAID through Premiere Urgence in helping those who were vulnerable, displaced, and who returned to their homes destitute, victims of the rebel incursions. We thank USAID for allowing our artisans to get back to work.”
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| Before: the Nongolo Primary School that was once destroyed in Gueckedou. |
Small grants ranging from $50 to $1,000 were also given to beneficiaries to restart small businesses as well as agricultural activities. As a condition for receiving a grant, some beneficiaries were asked to reinvest 15% of the value of their grants as well as donating seven days of free labor toward work on jointly identified community development projects.
Says Alpha Bah, USAID Special Objective Project Coordinator, “Beneficiaries chose to rehabilitate school classrooms, improve community water sources, and to clean up garbage and waste on the streets, and many devoted more than seven days to complete these projects. This kind of community reinvestment is an indicator that micro-enterprise development has taken root in the area, with excellent perspectives.” 51% of the small grant beneficiaries were women, and 90% of all beneficiaries have improved their economic conditions enough to be able to honor the 15% reinvestment and free labor commitment.
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| And after: the Nongolo Primary School is now rehabilitated and in use for grade school children in Gueckedou. |
Another key component of the Special Objective has been the rehabilitaton of infrastructure in the region. Renovation work has now been completed on a number of major infrastructure projects, including a hospital, a vocational training center, and a prefectoral education office in Gueckedou, a nutritional feeding center in Macenta, and classroom rehabilitation for two schools.
Rehabilitation of a total of eight health posts and a work center for handicapped citizens, along with the improvement of two community water sources has also been completed.
The cross-border attacks have been an illustration of the social dislocation of the Forest Region, which has served as a safe haven for approximately 1,000,000 refugees from Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia over the past fifteen years. Although refugees have found shelter in Guinea, it has often been at great cost to the border populations, who have suffered through both the social and economic burden of more mouths to feed, as well as the environmental degradation the refugee populations have caused such as cutting firewood to meet their basic needs.
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| U.S. Ambassador R. Barrie Walkley plants a tree at Nongolo Elementary School as parents, teachers and schoolchildren look on. |
Since peace has finally come to Liberia after 25 years of intermittent war, and the peace process in Sierra Leone has steadily moved forward since the country’s civil war ended in 2000, new hope has come for peace in the Mano River subregion, and refugees are starting to return home.
USAID/Guinea continues to work synergistically with both the USAID/Sierra Leone transitional program and the USAID/West Africa Regional Program’s “Mano River Peace Building Initiative” even as the Special Objective come to an end to ensure the project’s contribution to peace and stability to allow for develop to take root in the region.
The reconstruction and stabilization of the areas of Guinea that are contiguous with Sierra Leone, where USAID/Guinea is successfully implementing a transitional (post-conflict to development) program, has allowed USAID to develop a coherent response to the sub-regional post-conflict situation. Given the long-standing ethnic, cultural and economic ties, USAID feels that it is essentially serving the same community across borders. Furthermore, buy-in to the Mano River Peace Building Initiative represents an investment in conflict prevention that will be beneficial to the sub-region in the longer term.
Story by Laura Lartigue. Photos by Laura Lartigue and Plan Guinea
Last updated February 5, 2007.
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