In Guinea, ADF’s commitment to participatory development methods has helped dozens of rural communities invest in themselves and strengthen local capacity to achieve sustainable development. It has also helped communities develop dynamic and inclusive strategies for mobilizing local support and local resources for community improvement. In 1997, the World Bank and the Government of the Republic of Guinea asked ADF to help implement the Village Support Program (VSP), an initiative aimed at empowering rural communities with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to take an active role in building essential infrastructures and services, including health clinics, schools, and clean water supplies.

Because previous international donor investments structured around top-down approaches had failed to generate sustained local engagement in rural capacity-building efforts, the Government of Guinea wanted to initiate community-oriented approaches to development, but it lacked experience in implementing them. As a first step toward decentralizing its rural development strategy, it created Rural Development Communities (CRDs) with their own planning departments in designated geographic areas.

ADF has helped several CRDs build a strong bridge to rural communities by using participatory development methodologies to create decision-making processes that are fundamentally governed by and grounded in local communities, actively engage the expertise of local beneficiaries at every stage of project development and implementation, and generate broad-based community investment in project outcomes.

In Baguinet, a rural community in the valley lowlands of Guinea’s Maritime province that has derived little economic benefit from its proximity to the rich bauxite mining center of Fria, ADF and its Guinea partner organization, the Center for Development Support (CAD)[1], have conducted general village assemblies where all segments of the community have taken an active role. These meetings have described the VSP program to members of the community and facilitated broad discussion of development needs through the formation of separate discussion groups based on age, gender, and other social categories.

Conducted by sociologists who were raised in the local culture and speak its languages, these discussion groups have given women, young people, and other individuals who are normally excluded from decision-making an opportunity to highlight critical issues and concerns that might otherwise be dismissed or overlooked in other settings. Each group has voted on its development priorities and elected delegations to represent their group’s priorities at general community meetings.

Through this participatory decision-making process, the village of Baguinet voted to construct a school and health post for its residents during the first phase of ADF’s work in the CRD between 2000 and 2002. ADF is now helping Baguinet expand its local development activities beyond basic infrastructure development and toward projects that can provide a base for local economic growth.

In December 2003, ADF signed an agreement with the Baguinet community to undertake the construction of a new regional market center that will allow Baguinet’s marketers to rent all-season stalls at nominal fees, store their produce overnight in secure weather-proof facilities, and improve the sanitary conditions in which foodstuffs are sold.

The goal of the new Baguinet market is to provide local entrepreneurs with resources to enhance their income-earning potential while making Baguinet a dynamic market center among local communities with the power to attract more local consumers and support the growth of new small businesses, from bread sellers, to carpenters, to metalworkers. Over three years, the project is expected to increase total revenues for the market by nearly 20 percent and generate sufficient capital to maintain and improve the facility over the long term.