Skip to: content | navigation | search & sites services
12 - 18 June
UNIDOScope 2005 CONTENTS:
UNIDO Community Based Production Centres in Forest Guinea
supported by Japan's UN Trust Fund for Human Security
Vienna Austria, 6 June, 2005
 |
UNIDO Director-General Carlos Magariños signed an agreement on 6 June, 2005 for the UNIDO implementation of a $US one million project centred around the development of three Community Based Production Centres in Forest Guinea. The project is being financed by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, which is funded by Japan. The new Community Based Production Centres will be in Forest Guinea in N'Zérékoré Province in the Districts of Yomou, N'Zérékoré and Lola. The project will help reduce tensions between refugee and host communities by rehabilitating social infrastructure and productive capacities in communities with high concentration of refugees, returnees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It will promote non-farm productive sector activities to create income generating and skill upgrading opportunities useful for micro- and small-scale enterprises. In addition to providing rewarding employment opportunities, for refugees, internally displaced persons and members of the host communities, it will improve the local availablility of goods .
The project will be carried out in the framework of the Inter-Agency Consolidated Appeal for Guinea (CAP) and in conjunction with the activities of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to identify complementarities with the emergency assistance by agencies that are currently active in N’Zerekore such as UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, IOM, WHO, IFRC, FAO or GTZ and ARC.
The setting up of the Community-based Production Centres will enable direct and quick impact activities while building the foundation for sustainable socio-economic development for the region. The Community-based Production Centres are a combination of an apprenticeship programme and a small-scale village industry workshop. Each Community-based Production Centre will organize skills upgrading programmes in selected trades that are suitable for local markets and resources. Each Community-based Production Centre will carry out the following functions during the project period: production cum training through apprenticeship; intensive skills upgrading training courses; strengthening of collective self-help entrepreneurial initiatives; and rehabilitation of community social infrastructures. The management of the Community-based Production Centre will be transferred to the communities during the project period for sustained operations of the Centre as a small-scale industrial village estate and organized apprenticeship programme after the project period. The total number of final beneficiaries is expected to be in the vicinity of 5,000.
The quick impact of the project will be aided by the infrastructure established and the local expertise developed in UNIDO's US$ 250,000 pilot project approved in September 2003 under its Special Initiative for Post-crisis Industrial Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in N’Zérékoré city. In one year of pilot operation, this project has received a high acceptance in the region as a much needed and welcome assistance. Cooperation from the national and local authorities as well as the communities and the international partners has been excellent. The project has developed training programmes and manuals for basic entrepreneurial skills, functional literacy, carpentry and metalwork, maintenance and repair of rural machinery, traditional textile (weaving & dyeing), adapted technologies for food processing as well as techniques for the promotion of collective entrepreneurial self-help groups.
 |
Existing enterprises have improved their product quality and design in such things as fixing traditional dye and adapting traditional motifs. They have diversified their products or opened new businesses (such as the hairdresser who extended operations by opening a cosmetic shop next door), developed new marketing strategies (such as joint marketing and development of the "Forest Guinea" label), and improved their internal organization with basic accounting. Many participants for the first time opened a bank account. Local blacksmiths in N’Zérékoré have extended their repetoire with machinery for palm oil extraction and milling, water pumps and spiral staircases. Several entrepreneurs report that they have improved their revenues and taken on more employees, particularly apprentices. Some income producing activities were introduced for the first time, such as soap making and the production of traditional textile products.
In all, the N’Zérékoré pilot project trained and advised more than 750 beneficiaries, and more than 20 local trainers and facilitators were trained. Specifically, the pilot project resulted in: at least 250 refugees, internally displaced people and members of host communities with improved technical skills; at least 400 refugees, internally displaced and members of host communities with improved entrepreneurial skills; a Community Based Production Centre; and a pre-viability assessment for three other locations of CPCs in the Forest Guinea region.
The pre-viability assessment for other locations covered six prefectures in Forest Guinea (N’Zérékoré, Yomou, Lola, Macenta, Guéckedou and Kissidougou), which confirmed the need and viability for setting up a Centre in Lainé in Lola (Lainé camp, set up for 6,000 refugees, currently hosts some 17,000 refugees), Guéké in N’Zérékoré and in Yomou with the possible expansion at a later stage to other provinces. A needs assessment was also carried out for the various beneficiary groups (refugees, returnees, displaced, host communities).
The UNIDO project office in N’Zérékoré now includes a vehicle, office equipment and pilot training equipment. More importantly, the current project will be immediately operational as it has at its disposal an enthusiastic local community, a qualified and experienced project team and already-tested methodologies.
There is need for immediate action. In December 2004, the UN launched the Consolidated Appeal for Guinea 2005, pointing to the prevalence of a variety of vulnerable groups in Forest Guinea and the urgent need for strategies to stabilize the region, given its geographic location close to the three neighboring countries which have recently experienced armed conflicts. The CAP 2005 highlights the existence of refugees, returnees and IDPs as well as ex-combatants and the fact that host communities that need to share their resources are in fact suffering from deteriorating socio-economic conditions. The Appeal calls for reorienting initiatives from emergency assistance to longer-term development, and to mobilize the necessary resources for the improvement of living conditions of vulnerable populations through rehabilitation and re-integration programmes and to prepare the ground for activities that aim at facilitating the transition from relief to development. The CAP 2005 refers to the UNIDO project as being an important and complementary project to the emergency assistance.
 |
The civil conflicts of the 1990s in Sierra Leone and Liberia transformed Guinea into one of the largest refugee hosting countries in the world, with refugees at times comprising seven percent of the population. Over the last decade, Guinea has been host of approximately one million refugees. At the same time, Guinea is classified as a least developed and as a food-deficit country. UNDP's 2004 Human Development Index ranks Guinea 160th out of 177 countries. Years of hosting a significant number of refugees and intensified armed conflicts along its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone dealt a severe blow to Guinea’s capacity to ensure the safety of its population and to focus on economic development and political stability. Tensions peaked towards the end of 2000 when fighting broke out in the so-called “Parrot’s Beak” area bordering with both Sierra Leone and Liberia. Guinea had to deal with destruction of infrastructure, loss of property, the emergence of internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as rising grievances of citizens who attribute their plight to insecurity related to the presence of the refugees and IDPs.
While Sierra Leonean refugees today are returning home after the official ending of the decade long war in 2002, renewed armed conflicts in Northern areas of Liberia, in spite of a peace agreement, has meant that throughout 2002 and 2003 there were new influxes of Liberian refugees in Guinea. Since September 2002, the situation in Cote d’Ivoire has brought more refugees into the country. According to the Consolidated Appeal for Guinea 2005 (CAP 2005), there are about 78,000 refugees in Forest Guinea from Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire.
In addition, it is estimated that over 100,000 Guinean nationals who were part of the immigrant community in Cote d’Ivoire, have returned to their country. In districts along the Guinean-Ivorian border, local communities are currently hosting over 50,000 Guinean returnees, representing approximately 10 per cent of the population. Furthermore, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) that left their home communities for security reasons and are now based in Forest Guinea were estimated to be 82,000. The prefectures mostly affected by refugee and returnee influx are N’Zérékoré, Lola, Yomou, Macenta, Guéckédou, Kissidougou in Forest Guinea, and - to a lesser extent - Forécariah prefectures.
Hosting refugees for many years has seriously damagee Guinean communities. The enormous influx has been putting pressure on already strained natural resources, food supply and social infrastructures and has destabilised the region. Host communities have been suffering from insufficient social services (such as access to potable water, sanitary facilities, health and education services), disruption of cross-border trading, price increases for basic goods, lower prices for labor and insufficient land for agricultural activities. Armed incursions in these zones has resulted in loss of life, property and crops and the displacement of tens of thousands of Guineans and refugees away from dangerous border zones. Continued fighting and security constraints has severely inhibited the delivery of humanitarian assistance within the region. In this context tensions and negative sentiments of the local communities against refugees are currently on the rise, after many years of relatively hospitable acceptance.
 |
In a sub-regional context it is important to acknowledge and promote a positive asylum environment provided by Guinea so far by the efforts that reflect the solidarity of the international community to the Guinean population. UNHCR and other agencies have expressed concerns about the relationship between local population and newly arriving refugees. Each of the selected localities in Yomou, Zérékoré and Lola is suffering from overstretched infrastructures, destruction and lack of rehabilitation. The project will organize the rehabilitation of one to two social infrastructures, for example schools and health posts, in each of the communities where a Community Production Centre is located or surrounding villages.
These rehabilitation activities will be identified, developed and implemented in close coordination with the agencies active in this area, such as UNICEF, UNHCR, WHO, WFP as well as bilateral agencies or NGOs. The project will make use of existing coordination mechanisms established by the sub-regional office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the network and contacts already initiated by the UNIDO pilot project. Based on the exchanges held during the pilot phase with a variety of organizations, potential areas for synergies have been identified that can be further developed.
The regular OCHA coordination meetings can be a platform to jointly identify suitable common rehabilitation projects with other agencies, for which then detailed implementation plans will be prepared defining in detail each partner’s contribution.
For example, for the rehabilitation of schools or health posts, the project would contribute by mobilizing the required labor by utilizing on-the-job-training of Centre trainees as well as the locally available technologies (e.g. brickmaking) and expertise (through its network to the artisans of the locality). The equipment, teaching materials or medical equipment and medicines could be mobilized by agencies such as UNICEF or WHO. The full details of the joint rehabilitation project can only be prepared once the project is operational, on the basis of the specific needs and programmes of each locality and a consultative process with the possible partners. But experience so far indicates a high interest and feasibility for such joint projects.
The basic merit of a small-industrial village workshop is the sharing of production facilities such as premises, equipment, storage room, tools and products, power, communication, water, management etc. The Community-based Production Centre would accommodate various types of rural small-scale industrial activities such as metal working, blacksmith, soap making, wood working, weaving, dyeing, tailoring, hairdressing and handcrafts, depending on the market analysis for local products, natural resources and the availability of raw materials and the variety of people involved in the programme. The level of the technologies would be about the same as already used in the community or region. A typical centre may accommodate around four small workshops, a training room, a sales room and small administrative space. The Centre would help expand the supply capacity of basic products and to create non-farm income and employment opportunities in a short period of time, as experienced in a similar programme in Sierra Leone.
The Community-based Production Centre will combine the production function with a service function for the local entrepreneurs and community, by: renting of equipment and facilities to local entrepreneurs; organizing the procurement of raw materials for neighboring village producers or the collective sale of their products to increase access of neighboring village producers to markets; taking sub-contracts from the local entrepreneurs; organizing and conducting training courses and apprenticeship programmes. For each Centre, the project would establish the facilities with the participation of the host communities and attach a technical project support team including technical and entrepreneurial trainers to start up and develop local capacities to run the Centre. An important element for the sustaining success of the Community-based Production Centre is a strong traditional and local leadership in the communities supported by the community members. If this element is met, the management of the Centres can be established with the communities at the project start, with the support and training provided by the Centre itself and operations can be thus sustained after the project period by the community management.
 |
The Community-based Production Centres will be managed by the host communities and local NGOs as much as possible from the earliest stage to allow the building up of a sustainable community management system for the post-project period. The project personnel will facilitate the organization of the communities and strengthen their organizational capacities to manage the Centres. Consultations with various local agencies have indicated the feasibility to mobilize strong ownership and in-kind contributions by the communities themselves. The participatory approach is hence crucial. It is envisaged that community management bodies for each Community-based Production Centre will be elected based on the existing community structures . This would comprise the Committee of the Wise Men with seven highly regarded community members and a Management Committee with three members of the community. They will be trained by the project staff to perform the management functions for the Community-based Production Centre and basic accounting.
The project will develop skills related to the construction, repair and maintenance of basic infrastructure or for production of local goods to satisfy basic needs such as food preservation, furnishing, construction and tools and equipment for agro-industries. This will be done through apprenticeship schemes, rehabilitation activities and specific training courses. A simple training package will be adapted from existing UNIDO materials and / or newly developed as required for the local conditions. The project will consult with a GTZ / UNHCR project for vocational training in refugee camps on methodologies, lessons learnt and collaboration possibilities. Hand tools and simple equipment will be purchased and transferred to the trainees, e.g. returning refugees and internally displaced persons upon the completion of the training so that they can use the skills to reduce the burden to the hosting community as well as in the homes of their origin to start up or join existing related businesses.
In addition to the Forest Guinea project, UNIDO has three others financed by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, also in the vicinity of $US 1 million, they are: Nuba Mountains Region, Sudan, "Revitalization of agricultural productive capacities in post-conflict zones by promoting participation and community building for food security and poverty alleviation" (see UNIDOScope 14 - 20 September 2004); Bangladesh, "Improving Human Security by Mitigating Arsenic Poisoning; and in Afghanistan, "Assistance in reducing the humanitarian deficits of war-affected rural communities through increased agricultural productivity and the promotion of auxiliary income-generating activities". Another UNIDO project approved by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security in 2005 was for Malawi: "Empowering HIV/AIDS stricken rural communities with labor-saving technologies for increased labor productivity, food production and income-generation".
Gabriele Ott, Tel: +431 26026 / 3790 Email: G.Ott@unido.orgcoming events
Send your comments to the editor: K.Timmins@unido.org