The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 17, 1998

Author: Ibrahima Dalanda Barry

The present initial report summarizes the study concerning community-based natural resource management in the Republic of Guinea, conducted in the Rural Development Community of Porédaka in Mamou prefecture at Fouta Djallon, with assistance from the SNPRV, a rural support body within the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAEF).

This study is presented in a 35-page volume, and addresses in four sections the range of topics described in the announcement of the Workshop:

• The initial situation

• The reform process

• Results

• Lessons learned and recommendations

The Republic of Guinea is one of the typical countries confronting forest destruction and soil degradation and the consequent decline in precipitation and reduction in the wild fauna and flora population that in turn produce adverse impacts on crop yields by contributing to a substantial impoverishment, if not complete elimination, of soil fertility. Guinea's traditional cropping systems are based on itinerant farming methods and the setting of bush fires, while population explosions have produced more and more people engaging in uncontrolled lumbering activities without any attempt at renewal.

Fouta Djallon is a region of hills and high ferralitic plateaux, with soils that are poor, acidic, sparse and gravely.

These plateaux, at altitudes varying between 600 and 1500 meters, are intersected by large rivers (Bafing, Gambia, etc.), linked to a substantial rainfall of 1000 to 2000 mm, concentrated between May and November. However, a decline in precipitation has been noted, with river flows concentrated over a shorter period, owing largely to overexploitation of the environment: overgrazing, deforestation, bush fires, etc.

The traditional production system in Fouta consists of intensively-farmed plots (tapades) and outlying fields. Tapades are fields under permanent cultivation, clustered around the dwellings and protected by hedges. They are cultivated by the women and treated with organic fertilizer, producing cassava, yams, maize, beans and spices. The outlying fields, which are located on hillsides and in the plains, are jointly owned tracts of land, where crop rotation is practiced.

For several decades, growing population pressure and increased food needs have led farmers to cut down the fallow period and to tend more and more to clear marginal or sloping lands, producing continuing deterioration in the already poor soil fertility, erosion, and a shrinking of the areas under woodland.

Extensive herding uses up all available permanent common grazing land, including fallow and forestlands. The farmers, who are at the same time herders, thus have to protect themselves against their own livestock, using branches to close off the area they are cultivating, a practice that further aggravates deforestation.

The area's economic activities are basically related to agriculture, stockraising, trade, and the craft industries.

Substantial remittances from emigrants also provide the communities with supplemental income over and above their earnings from farming.

The illiteracy rate in the rural areas is 74 percent overall, and for women, 86 percent. The school enrollment rate in 1989-90 was 29 percent, with girls representing only 9 percent of that total (national averages).

The country's middle region has about 1.6 million inhabitants (of whom 90 percent are Peulhs) and covers an area measuring 55,000 km2, or 22 percent of the national territory, running from the border with Senegal in the north to that with Sierra Leone in the south.

From the standpoint of land ownership and management, individual ownership of natural resources is clearly the predominant practice throughout all of Fouta. Such individual ownership may be active or latent, depending on the usefulness of the resources. For instance, where interior and outlying fields, trees and pastureland are concerned, it often happens that the user will be different from the owner, which is why the extension agents have to identify them right from the start in order to prevent misdirection of their supervisory activities.

The interior fields, commonly known as Sunturè, a Pular (local language) term, are mostly adjacent to the dwellings of those who use them. A wide variety of crops are grown there.

For instance, fruit trees may share the same fields as second-level crops such as cotton, maize, cassava, taro, sweet potato, okra, or sweet pepper.

Women are the principal users of the interior fields, since, with the exception of fruit trees, all of the second-level crops belong to them. Nevertheless, it is the men, or more accurately the husbands, who own the interior fields.

Generally speaking, where land tenure is concerned, the problem of insecurity of tenure affects not only the women in general but also certain individuals among the male population.

And, as is common knowledge today among the SNPRV extension agents, a factor crucial to the success of any development program and of any effort designed to ensure the restoration and profitable use of natural resources over the long term is the farmers' security of tenure, as it affects both their productive activities and their management of local natural resources.

For this reason, SNPRV has accepted the point of view that security of ownership and freedom of land management are essential conditions for long-term investment in agriculture. This is particularly obvious in that wherever the land rights of an operator are clear and unequivocal he will be more motivated to use the available resources in order to maximize his productivity; wherever land rights are definitely and clearly spelled out, the return on the investment goes to the user of the lands, and the benefits from any improvements cannot be claimed by other parties; and wherever land rights are guaranteed, the user is not likely to be ousted from one day to the next by a third party or by the State.

In other words, insecurity of tenure can place an enormous constraint on any actions directed toward the promotion and profitable and sustainable use of resources.

Over almost a decade, this natural region of Guinea was exceptionally fortunate in hosting projects implemented by the United Nations system. The level of assistance, in both financial and human resource terms, was without comparison in other natural regions of Guinea itself, and in very few other regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Very substantial volumes of resources were mobilized during that ten-year period to develop and support a large number of structural innovations designed to promote the region's widespread development. Chief among these were actions to gradually open up the region, development of irrigated and rainfed agriculture, provision of social as well as agricultural infrastructure, creation of farmer associations based on different crops and eligible for credit, improvements in the condition of rural women and their participation in socioeconomic development, training of professionals and permanent institutional support from the agencies working in the rural environment, supply of agricultural inputs, organized marketing of agricultural products, and initiation of community development based on the sustainable development of natural resources.

The following list shows all the projects implemented in Fouta Djallon over the past ten years:

     (a)     UNDP/FAO/GUI/86/004 - Labé

          "Fouta Djallon Rural Development Project"

          A project to support regional and prefectural agencies.

     (b)     UNDP/FAO/GUI/86/012

          PITA, a project to restore and develop the Guétoya representative pilot basin (BRP).

     (c)     UNDP/UNCDF/FAO/GUI/87/015-UNO

          GUI/82/CDF/Dalaba or "Actions to promote production and farmer associations on the southeast slope of Fouta Djallon" (Mamou-Dalaba-Tougué).

     (d)     UNDP/FAO/GUI/87/017 - Labé

          A small-scale farm mechanization project.

     (e)     World Bank Projects

          -     PPVA (Agricultural Extension Pilot Program)

          -     PNVA (National Agricultural Extension Program)

          -     SNPRV (National Rural Development and Agricultural Extension                               Service)/PSA II or PNSA.

     (f)     PGRN/LTC/BRP/USAID

Implementation of these projects in Fouta has yielded some interesting findings in the area of natural resource management based on local community participation. For example:

• The ongoing participatory approach, introduced in 1989 and perpetuated through a productive dialogue with the communities, has gradually caused the latter to become more open to the Government and more accepting of cooperation from the technical services. This represents a radical change of attitude, on the part not only of the communities but also of the extension agents. The participatory process is continuing and the lessons learned are being consolidated.

• In agriculture, the increase in the number of fields cultivated under both irrigated and rainfed systems has made a considerable contribution to the increase in rural incomes, thereby noticeably reinforcing the farmers' own strategies and the extension agents' areas of intervention.

• Nevertheless, the lack of a solution to the land tenure problem has helped to marginalize the most disadvantaged social strata in many of the project areas; for example, new conflicts have arisen as a result of uneven redistribution of the land, with profits still going to the better-off. Nor are rural credit resources exempt from this rule. Misappropriation of funds and nonpayment of accounts have become quite routine.

In some of the other project areas, on the other hand, certain initiatives have been left unfinished.

Suspension of funding has been fatal to the continuation of most of those initiatives, often leaving the communities in worse conditions than those prevailing prior to the project. For example, in a situation where a project attempted to promote production by altering the course of a river, and then failed to complete the work, the target populations were forced to inherit a situation beyond their control.

• In the area of natural resource management, it was noted that the technical and paternalistic approach did almost nothing to encourage participation by the local communities or land agencies. Large-scale projects were carried out, but (failure of) the key test, that of direct profit, access to resources, and management of those resources by the populations, detracted from their comparative advantages. The government approach [approche en régie] focused exclusively on the land and obvious physical problems such as erosion, the solution of which was the sole responsibility of appropriately qualified technicians. It is difficult today to understand why in Guetoya, despite the presence of a village management committee, the forestry authorities are maintaining a natural resource surveillance unit. However, the simple explanation is either that the farmers are not yet sufficiently trusted to handle sustainable management of the resources, or that whenever the Government establishes a successful plantation it retains ownership of it. This explains why access to the resources for subsequent use by the communities is rarely discussed when a project is initiated. In such a context, how can we hope for a growing involvement of the local population in natural resource renewal and conservation?

• With these projects, however, it has been shown that it is possible to establish an extremely important environmental impact within certain village lands where the presence of all types of agropastoral landscape is an essential factor.

The project to develop the plains and bottomlands for potential farming by almost all the rural households has very clearly paid off, with the gradual reduction of agricultural pressure on hilltops and hillsides and a rapid return of resilient secondary vegetation. Fouta Djallon has many, in some cases very large, areas where natural regeneration is in evidence, and this process is spreading fast. For the extension workers, this is proof that the protection and conservation of natural resources are by-products of the economic revival of rural communities, and they are continually directing their efforts to that end.

Improvements in the conservation of Fouta Djallon's vast stocks of natural resources will be dependent on the creation of new economic opportunities that undergird the rural strategies adopted. A specific environmental project in the form of an artificial plantation or of a system of direct protection would be extremely expensive and too localized.

Porédaka is the RDC in Mamou prefecture that is recognized as representative of the principal conditions characterizing Fouta Djallon. This RDC is essentially inhabited by Peulhs, who entered the area in successive waves at the same time as the other Peulhs in Fouta Djallon.

It comprises two very distinct agroecological zones: the hilly plateaux in the southeast and the mountainous area to the center and north.

The land is used chiefly for the itinerant cultivation of fonio, with some mountain rice and vegetables. The rural inhabitants also cultivate their tapades and practice herding on the bowés and fallow land.

According to the last census taken (1995) the area's population numbered 14,542, comprising 7,447 men and 7,025 women. Most of the jobs in the area are related to agriculture, although the small trades and craft industries account for a minority of small jobs.

The fact that Porédaka is a very old population center and has a population density of 55 inhabitants per km2 explains why its soils, which have been cultivated for so long, are becoming less and less suited to agricultural practices. In the plains, Porédaka has some 3,500 ha suitable for development. It is greatly in need of conservation and soil-fertility restoration projects. However, this area has received substantial support from the development projects conducted in Fouta Djallon over the past decade.

The SNPRV employs ten extension agents in this RDC, and is thus contributing both to the rural development of the RDC in general and to the organization and support of farmer associations in the area of sustainable natural resource management.

• The SNPRV, or Service National de la Promotion Rurale et de la Vulgarisation (National Rural Development and Agricultural Extension Service), is a public service agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, with responsibility for providing guidance to farmers throughout the national territory. Its principal mission is to transfer to the farmers improved technologies developed in Guinea and elsewhere.

One of the SNPRV's principal objectives is to help the farmers to develop better structures and organizations to facilitate their access to credit, inputs, and improved seed, and to enable them to identify the priority development issues affecting their community.

The SNPRV is one of the components of PSA/II (PNSA), financed by the World Bank. It is a support service of the Ministry of Agriculture, and is the only such service currently in existence in the entire country. Its staff of approximately 1000 extension agents is deployed throughout the country's 33 prefectures.

SNPRV's extension strategy for Porédaka may be summarized as follows:

• Capitalization on the results and experience of projects implemented in Fouta Djallon within the context of community development based on sustainable natural resource management.

• Creation of farmer associations, provision of training for farmers.

• Sensitization of farmers to encourage them to form organizations and to participate in all phases of their community's development.

• Identification, with the farmers, of obstacles to the development of their community.

• Prioritization of problems and search for solutions.

• Development of intervention strategies defining individual areas and action procedures for all the stakeholders in community development.

• Monitoring of actions and evaluation of their impact.

In the Porédaka RDC, the SNPRV is currently handling the following issues:

• Integration of agriculture and stockraising in the village tapades.

• Association of forest tree and fruit tree nurseries.

• Selection of private forest program beneficiaries.

• Introduction of high-performing plant material and construction of stalls with manure pits.

• Encouragement of fallow management through natural regeneration in those village lands [terroirs] where the farmers have no alternative except the hillsides.

• Widespread use of divider strips to protect soils from erosion and enhance their fertility.

• Organization of inter-farmer visits to exchange experiences.

• Intensification of farming through bottomland development as a means of reducing extensive cultivation practices.

• Continual sensitization of farmers to the serious consequences of bush fires.

Comments: The numerical data concerning all of these actions are given in the 35-page general report, which will be available at the workshop.

From the information available on the various aspects of community-based natural resource management, it appears that a number of lessons have been learned from the various projects:

• The participation of women, who used to lack the creativity or the necessary effort to gain access to available resources or to the possibilities of income generation, is now a priority in SNPRV's extension programs. A large number of women's groups have been established and have already proven creditworthy, especially when their focus is a purely female-oriented activity such as dyeing.

• The deployment of technical assistants focusing on the different farming landscapes appeared more likely to meet the needs of the local communities than to be effective at the broader sectoral level. In the tapades, for example, the introduction of improved agricultural and forest plant material and the construction of stalls with manure pits within the same tapade unit, with the possibility of subsequent expansion, resulted in a definite increase in the tapade's overall yield and encountered sufficient enthusiasm on the part of the communities.

• Also, given the range of distribution of certain sectoral initiatives and the fact that none of them were adopted by the farmers, it would appear that their cost was prohibitive for the farming community or that the farmers found the manpower demands too high, even though the initiatives did meet their specific needs. These examples demonstrate the complexity of sectoral actions when they are incompatible with the farmers' own strategies and with their availabilities in terms of both time and manpower.

• The development of synergies among the sectoral technical assistants, based not on a massive contribution of external resources but on the farmers' existing strategies, has an enormous and as yet untapped potential. All the stakeholders agree that the rural inhabitants are not exclusively farmers, forest operators, or herders, but all three at the same time, and that their strategies consist of combining available resources in their individual family operations and increasing the interactions among their different subsectors of production.

• It should, however, be noted that the introduction of such activities as poultry-raising has enabled the rural communities to secure new niches in their local markets.

• Any type of community development specifically targeting rural households will today need to involve farmer participation at all stages of the process.