From March 25th to April 1st, 2024, Acting for Life and its partners met in Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire, for the launch of the APAC project – Appui aux Populations Affectées par la Crise sahélienne (Support for Populations Affected by the Sahel Crisis) in Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. This project, financed by the Centre de crise et de soutien du ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères (Crisis and Support Centre of the french Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs) and supported by Air France, will strengthen the socio-economic resilience of these territories while preserving social cohesion between the various local communities.
The 18-month project will be carried out with the support of nine partners in five countries: ACAD and UDOPER (Benin), AEBRB and OPEN-CI (Côte d’Ivoire), CIDELS and GEVAPAF (Togo), CLIP and NORGIC (Ghana) and FREFBV-K (Guinea). Cédric Touquet, Acting for Life’s Head of Africa Programmes, reaffirmed the essential nature of working with local partners. ‘Our aim is to support and strengthen skills and expertise where they exist, within West African civil society organisations’, he said.
Soumaïla Fomba, Agropastoralism Programme Manager for Acting for Life, explains: ‘Our aim is to encourage mobility in the livestock sector, strengthen and diversify the livelihoods of households made vulnerable by the crisis, improve access to natural resources and provide local solutions to the short-term problems caused by livestock mobility’.
With a budget of €5 million, the APAC project will benefit 1,170,000 people in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Ghana and Guinea. More specifically, at least 80,000 people will benefit from training, take part in informed debates and dialogue forums, etc., in order to strengthen social cohesion between the different communities. More than 89,000 people will receive support in the form of food aid, will be helped to find paid work and will benefit from the distribution of small ruminant breeding kits and emergency interventions. Finally, 1 million people will be indirectly affected by the project’s actions, notably through awareness-raising campaigns and by benefiting from the maintenance of existing infrastructure.
According to Mr Diakalidia Konaté, Executive Secretary of the Côte d’Ivoire National Borders Commission (CNFCI), who was present at the event: ‘Everyone is aware of the situation in the Sahel and the issue of pastoralism, so this is an important project not only to strengthen the resilience of the populations who host this high mobility of people and animals, but also to strengthen the fundamentals, including social cohesion between the populations themselves, which requires structuring mechanisms. This project is a response to the problem of security and peace in the region. That is why Côte d’Ivoire is prepared to support it’. He also welcomed the consideration given to the management of natural resources, particularly shared resources in cross-border areas. He affirmed that this helps to strategically anticipate related conflicts.
A holistic approach as part of the APAC project
In his speech, Mr Laurent Bonneau, Head of the Cooperation and Cultural Action Department at the French Embassy in Côte d’Ivoire, added: ‘Acting for Life is one of the few development organisations to provide a holistic response to the challenges faced by communities in the north and in coastal countries, in terms of food and nutritional security, social cohesion, shortcomings in community governance, the lack of basic services and the cross-border mobility of livestock, which can spread cross-border animal diseases. With the APAC project, we can only hope to improve conflict prevention in rural areas and avoid a conflict involving a livestock herders degenerating into a community conflict’.
Acting for Life would like to extend its sincerest thanks to the authorities present at the launch: the Prefect, Sidibe Nassou, the Executive Secretary of the Côte d’Ivoire National Borders Commission, Diakalidia Konaté, the representative of the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries Resources, Dr N’Gota, the representative of the Ministry of National Cohesion, Solidarity and the Fight against Poverty, Laurent Bonneau, the representative of the French Embassy in Côte d’Ivoire, Laurent Bonneau, and the representative of the Côte d’Ivoire National Borders Commission, Diakalidia Konaté. Mr Laurent Bonneau, Representative of the French Embassy in Côte d’Ivoire, Mr Sawadogo Ousmane, Representative of the Burkina Faso Consulate, Mr Bakayoko Oumar, Fourth Deputy Mayor of Bassam.
© Photos : Maurice J. Amonke, CNFCI
