giving stock owners a boost in guinea

Near the town of Labe in Middle Guinea, an N'Dama cow searches for forage against the backdrop of a dry, hot December day.

Guinea's natural environment poses significant challenges to rural families who earn their living raising and selling cattle and various small stock animals. Guinea has one of the world's rainiest climates, but its annual rainy season comes during a six-month window between June and November, when an average of 1.5 meters (five feet) of precipitation soak the landscape. For the remainder of the year, high pressure zones over the Sahara produce a hot, dry wind - known regionally as "the Harmattan" - that limits the growth of grasses and underbrush and denies essential food to grazing animals.

These dry season months produce a sharp rise in dietary-deficiency disorders among domesticated animals and a spike in communicable diseases as herds gather together to graze along stream beds.

Most rural families in Guinea practice low-yield, dry-land cultivation and do not produce enough surplus food to feed their stock during the hungry months. As a result, domestic animals are left more vulnerable to increased morbidity and mortality, family meat supplies are reduced and the volume of meat that local stock producers can sell to local and nationwide consumers is severely limited.

To help rural livestock and small stock producers manage animal disease and improve the quality and quantity of their herds, ADF is providing US $15,757 in funding to support the construction of a veterinary clinic that will serve more than 300 stock-raising families in the Rural Development Community of Banguigny. This grant will be supplemented by a five percent cash donation from local residents and an in-kind donation of labor and locally procured building materials equivalent to 15 percent of total construction costs.

Over the past five years, ADF has supported a wide-ranging program of rural infrastructure development in the Rural Development Community (CRD) of Banguigny. ADF funding has helped local communities across Banguigny build seven new schools, two new rural health centers and 11 public wells.

The goal of the new veterinary clinic is to stimulate economic growth that will sustain and reinforce local efforts to improve broad-based access to education, basic health care and clean water.

The PACV, which was launched in 1997 with support from the World Bank, helps rural communities across the country build essential infrastructure for social and economic development. Over a span of 12 years, 303 CRDs will receive funding for the construction of needed infrastructure, including schools, clinics and clean wells over 12 years.

ADF serves as both a donor and field operator for rural infrastructure development in the CRDs of Bady, Baguinet, and Banguigny - low-income rural areas that surround Guinea's major bauxite processing center in the town of Fria. The residents of these CRDs play a key role in deciding what types of infrastructure will be built in their communities under the PACV by participating in broad-based, participatory development discussion forums that identify and prioritize pressing needs.

A unique element of ADF's participation in the PACV program is the Foundation's commitment to enhancing the long-term impact of its contributions to social infrastructure development by providing additional small grants with the potential to generate new income streams for local residents.

In 2002, an ADF review of lessons learned from five years of on-the-ground experience in Bady, Baguinet and Banguingy identified the importance of integrating economic stimulus plans into the Foundation's ongoing support for the construction of new schools, health centers and clean wells. The staff of ADF's Guinea partner organization, the Center for Development Support (CAD), has worked with participatory development forums in each CRD to identify and fund small projects with the potential to generate community-wide income growth.

The goal of ADF's support for the Banguingy veterinary clinic and the construction of a local market center in Baguinet* is to stimulate local income streams that will help make the cost of education and basic health more affordable to low-income families while producing a revenue base capable of supporting the maintenance and expansion of new community infrastructure.

The Banguingy veterinary clinic will give more than 300 local stock owners direct access to inoculation services and veterinary care at an affordable cost. Currently, livestock owners seeking to protect their cattle against dry season disease threats like anthrax, hemorrhagic fever, and black quarter must hire a private veterinarian based in the town of Fria to treat their animals on a client-by-client basis. There are extreme inefficiencies in this service because each herder is billed for the full cost of the veterinarian's travel time and fuel.

The new clinic will allow herders in Baguinet to purchase and stock veterinary medicines in bulk, and inoculation fees collected from herders will support the facility's general maintenance and supply costs and the salary of a full-time, on-site veterinary assistant.

According to a recent livestock census, Banguingy supports more than 4,000 cattle of the hardy, trypanosomiasis-resistant N'Dama variety. Local families also manage about 1,000 sheep, 2,000 goats and nearly 11,000 chickens.

The dynamics of ADF's participatory approach to community-level capacity building in rural Guinea will be featured this December in the first issue of ADF's new online journal, The ADF Approach. Each issue of The Approach will highlight best practices and lessons learned from ADF projects in 15 African countries. The premiere issue examines ADF's support of participatory development methods and small- and micro-enterprise development in Guinea. All subscribers to ADF e-news will receive the first issue of The Approach by e-mail.

*ADF's grant for the construction of the Baguinet market was featured in the May 2004 issue of ADF e-news.
 

• Contact Us
• Site Index
• Privacy Statement
• Fair Act
• No Fear Act
• Inspector General Hotline
• Disclaimers