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Increased Incomes in the
Artisanal and Commercial Sectors
Metalworkers are among the people with the
lowest status and the lowest incomes in Senegalese society.
They work on the ground in dusty shops, hand-making basic
metallic products that bring them very meager earnings. That
is, unless, they are making fuel-efficient cookstoves, like
the Gning brothers in Yarakh, Dakar. Since they became participants
in USAID's stove program, the Gning brothers have come a long
way from the hand-to-mouth existence of most metal workers.
In a country where the average annual per capita income is
$550, the three brothers together now earn a net profit of
about US$875 per month.
The fuel-efficient stove activity is part
of an initiative by USAID to increase income-generating activities
in the private sector. While it deals with appropriate technology,
it is distinct from traditional projects in its marketing
emphasis. Its beneficiaries include not only the dozens of
artisans like the Gning brothers and their workers that make
the stoves, but the hundreds of merchants who distribute and
sell them, and the thousands of their dependents. Distribution
through the informal commercial sector is reinforced by private
sector-style advertising that has proven effective in making
the stoves a household name in Dakar. Consumers also benefit
financially from the approximately $80 per year worth of charcoal
saved by each cookstove, which is disposable income freed
up for other uses.
The project has yielded some dramatic results.
The Gning brothers, for example, have been able to move to
a location with better commercial potential, upgrade their
shop structure, and add equipment. They now actively seek
out new markets for their products, sub-contract with other
shops for piecework in order to increase their capacity, invent
new product lines which have become popular with consumers,
and do business equipped with personalized business cards
and a cellular telephone, all of which they have financed
from their earnings on the stoves.
Mrs. Samb buys the stoves from the makers
and sells them from her market stall in Bargny, 15 miles from
Dakar. In just three months, she has already distributed over
200 of the fuel-efficient stoves. Her monthly income from
the stoves is at least $125, which she uses to support at
least nine of her children and grandchildren. Mrs. Samb has
plans to build on her achievements by adding two more sales
outlets strategically located in areas of heavy consumer traffic.
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Natural Resources Management Conflict
Resolution in Pata
The Pata Forest in southeastern Senegal is
the site of a struggle between migrant and native populations
regarding use of the protected area. In August-September 1999
(the rainy season), the conflict escalated, claiming two lives
and injuring several more. At the heart of the Pata conflict
is competition for land and natural resources between the
indigenous, agro-pastoral Peul people and migrant farmers
from the north. Droughts and agricultural land pressure in
the north of the Kolda region caused migration into the Pata
area. Over the years, the migrants have cleared large tracts
of land in the forest reserve for peanut production. Local
authorities could not legally exercise control over this problem
since the forest reserves are the responsibility of the Forestry
Department. Native populations have watched in anger and frustration
as the number of migrant settlements in the forest reserve
has grown to approximately 40, with an estimated population
of over 15,000. Conflicts between herders and farmers over
access to grazing land and water holes have become more frequent
and occasionally violent, as events in 1999 demonstrated.
At USAID's initiative, a participatory assessment
of the conflict was conducted. About 5,000 residents, development
partners, and businesses active in the area were involved
in the diagnosis. The study laid out a range of options for
addressing the conflict and identified those deemed most pragmatic.
A meeting of key government agencies, regional and local authorities,
and other interested parties in September 2000, largely confirmed
the analysis and suggested that the study be presented to
the community to provoke much-needed dialogue, search for
solutions, and definition of a conflict resolution plan. This
led to the following outcomes:
· a dialogue on the crisis to demonstrate to local
residents that government officials, local elected leaders,
and development actors in the area will not let the situation
degenerate into chaos.
· a draft action plan that the monitoring committee
will refine in terms of defining clear zones to limit future
settlements in the Pata forest and clarify the principal uses
of the forest, establishing procedures for the enforcement
of that zoning scheme, and developing systems of collaborative
management of the forest reserve between the forestry service,
villages surrounding the forest, and local governments.
· a committee to monitor completion and implementation
of the action plan.
· participants' commitment to develop, with the government
of Senegal and other partners' assistance, simple management
schemes that they can master themselves (as opposed to the
complex plans developed by the Forestry Department) and alternative
crops and production techniques that are both profitable and
protective of the environment.
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Restoring the Productivity of
Natural Resources in Pakane Valley
In the valley of Pakane, Médina Sabakh
Rural Community, poor natural resource management practices,
such as the over-cutting of trees, led to serious wind erosion
and degraded soils. Creeping salinization further reduced
soil fertility. Since 1997, an economic interest group (known
by the French acronym GIE) has been working to restore the
ecological conditions conducive to vegetable, fruit, and forage
production.
This GIE includes 120 members (60 men and
60 women) residing in villages adjacent to the valley. In
1997, the GIE submitted a proposal to the natural resource
management (NRM) committee of Médina Sabakh to participate
in a USAID community-based natural resource management project
with the goal of restoring the fertility of the valley. The
request was approved, and positive changes in the physical
environment have begun to show: steady growth of planted trees,
windswept and bare land turning to wooded land, and increased
production of vegetables, rice, and fodder. The key element
in this transformation is the establishment of more than 20,000
meters of windbreaks, consisting of multiple rows of fast-growing
eucalyptus trees. The presence of the trees has not only protected
surrounding soils from the corrosive effects of wind, but
has provided a protected environment that has allowed the
appearance of a variety of small woody and grassy species
of plants in the area. Small species of mammals, such as hares
and warthogs have returned to inhabit the valley. Members
of the GIE claim that the trees have even reduced the salt
content of the soils.
Many hectares of formerly unproductive land
had been recovered and are once again being cultivated in
the Pakane Valley. The GIE accounts show that their vegetable
and rice production have increased four-fold over this period,
while millet and groundnut production have doubled. In 1996,
the GIE president was obliged to pay 40,000 F CFA for straw
and hay to feed his five horses. By 1999, this expense had
dropped to zero as the forage resources now available in the
valley easily cover his needs as well as those of most of
the area's livestock. Given the striking physical and production
changes witnessed in the Pakane Valley, it is obvious that
USAID's support to the GIE has paid off.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Using Local Capacity in
Conflict Resolution
Association pour la Promotion Rurale de l'Arrondissement
de Nyassia (APRAN), a small Senegalese NGO was created in
1986, three years after the armed insurrection began in the
Casamance region. In spite of the deteriorating security situation
there, APRAN continued to work in the Casamance. However,
in November 1999, APRAN realized that its normal program activities
were not getting results. They were confronted again and again
with the effects of the conflict. Some of the villages in
which they worked no longer existed, fields in which they
had plantations were polluted with landmines, attack by armed
bandits when traveling on local roads was common, and sources
of external funding dried up as donor agencies left the region.
APRAN realized that the business as usual approach was getting
them nowhere. They decided that to carry out their work effectively,
they had to deal directly with the conflict.
Based on their close contact with rural communities,
APRAN knew that the population was tired of the conflict.
They also knew that without the backing of the village population,
which Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) fighters
relied on for material and moral support, the peace process
would not work. As they put it "applause had been heard
in Banjul, Dakar, and Bissau, but there had not yet been applause
in the villages."
APRAN approached the problem by organizing
cultural weekends-a nonthreatening social context in which
communities could talk and think about the conflict. Communities
helped to organize the weekends. They assembled village soccer
teams, hired dance troops, organized traditional wrestling
matches, and hired a theater group. Because the weekends were
held in areas where armed banditry and attacks are frequent,
one of the main concerns was the security of the events. At
the insistence of the population, and at great risk to themselves,
APRAN crossed the border into Guinea-Bissau to contact MFDC
fighters based there and obtained a guarantee that the events
would not be disrupted. The MFDC was impressed that, for the
first time, they were being contacted directly by individuals
from the Casamance who did not have political motivations.
Five cultural weekends were held. They were
a resounding success. In many of the locations, it was the
first time in years people were out after 9:00 p.m. dancing
and socializing. The highlight was a local theater production
about a family in which two of the daughters had lost limbs
because of landmines. One of the brothers is in the army,
the other in the MFDC. Each brother blames the other for what
has happened to his sisters. But in the end, the mother of
the family tells her sons that they should not forget they
are family, and they embrace. Many in the audience wept openly
at the end of the play.
Following the weekends, for the first time
ever, women in two of the communities went to the Abbe Diamacoune,
the spiritual leader of the MFDC and requested that their
villages no longer be used for MFDC activities and to ask
him to work for peace. Other women went directly to the fighters
in the bush, naked to remind them that women are their mothers,
and asked that they stop.
APRAN reported back to the MFDC after the
events and was able, because of its transparent approach,
to act as an informal conveyer of messages between the GOS
and the MFDC, between the estranged branches of the MFDC,
and even between the MFDC political leadership and the fighters.
They transmitted the message that after 18 years in the bush,
many of the MFDC members were ready to think about peace,
but they were worried about what they would do if a peace
accord were signed: what jobs awaited them? What about reprisals
against them?
The APRAN program gave the GOS a nonpolitical
means of entering into dialogue with the MFDC political and
military branches. APRAN has been able to provide, as a result
of USAID support, crucial behind the scenes support to the
peace process. The GOS has requested that they start thinking
about how to bring refugees back to the Casamance. The MFDC
has likewise requested that APRAN start thinking about how
to reintegrate ex-combatants. On March 17, 2001, a peace treaty
was signed between the GOS and the MFDC. USAID believes that
APRAN's program has been instrumental in this achievement.
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