Programme description

Title: Programme for Decentralised Rural Development
Commissioned by: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Country: Chad
Lead executing agency: Ministère de l’ Economie, du Plan et de la Coopération (MEPC)
Overall term: November 2003 to 2016 (planned)

Context

The Mayo-Kebbi and Ouaddai-Biltine regions—with the Assoungha, Biltine, Ouara und Djourf Al Ahmar departments in the north-east, and Mayo-Dallah, la Kabbia, Lac Léré and Mont Illi in the south-west—are the priority areas for German Development Cooperation (DC) in Chad, according to an agreement between the German Government and the Government of Chad.

The available natural resources there are limited and in part already used up; there are not enough  roads, schools, health centres, markets, water supply and other infrastructure. The state contributes little to provision of essential services. The impoverished population itself is able to to participate in shaping the social and economic transformation to only a limited extent, not to mention planning, organising, or financing it in an active, self-determined way.

In the long term, then, the situation can be improved only if all national development programmes and international aid measures are closely coordinated and all economic, political, social and environmental circumstances and their interrelationships can be taken into consideration and influenced.

Since mid-June 2006, German Development Cooperation has pursued such an approach in this programme, jointly planned and implemented by the KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW development bank), the German Development Service (DED) and GTZ.  Previous individual approaches taken by the three institutions in this region have now been entirely integrated into this joint programme.

Objective

The living conditions of the population in the regions of Mayo-Kebbi and Ouaddai-Biltine of Chad are improved and the general poverty alleviated.

The region’s natural resources are sustainably managed and their potential is better used.

The economic and social infrastructure is viable and the population participates actively in planning and maintaining facilities such as markets, schools and health centres.

Political and social mechanisms are established which serve a regional development maintained with the help of the population according to the principles of democracy and self-determination. 

Approach

The programme consists of four closely coordinated components:

• Protection and valorisation of natural resources (GTZ): the population protects and sustainably valorises natural resources and derives economic benefits from this.
• Decentralised development fund (KfW development bank) to finance the economic and social infrastructure planned by the population itself (roads, schools, water supply)
• Local self-government (GTZ): Local actors steer development processes in the region transparently, with expertise and a sense of responsibility, and according to democratic rules of play.
• Policy advisory services (GTZ): The makers of national development policy improve the implementation conditions and updating of this policy.

DED’s contribution comprises the training of service providers and intermediary organisations advised by the programme (associations and interest groups, non-governmental organisations, consulting offices, governmental services) as well as of the programme staff themselves.

On the Chad side, the steering of the programme by a policy committee (Comité Technique de Suivi) is decentralised and participatory.

Within individual programme components, numerous activities, some of  them small in scope, pursue very specific sub-goals. Some examples illustrate this: 

• By 2016, a new awareness and new ways of using natural resources lead to an increase of income of at least 20 percent in a certain share of the population.
• Surveys show a certain level of satisfaction among the population with the work and services of the rural communities.
• By 2014, 20 percent of certain areas in Mayo Kebbi have become savannahs with trees and bushes.
• The number of fish caught in Mayo Kebbi before attaining breeding size decreases.
• In the Binder-Léré preserve in Mayo Kebbi, the number of large antelopes doubles by 2015.
• By 2016, in Ouaddai-Biltine, 40,000 hectares of farmland are under protection in previously overbuilt catchment basins, and the grain/hectare yield is at least 30 percent higher than that of previous rain-fed farming. Two thousand two hundred hectares of newly opened farmland are used for growing vegetables and orchard fruit. 

Downloads

• PRODABO. Programme de développement rural décentralisé d’Assoungha, Biltine, et Ouara
  12 pages
  fr-PRODABO-chad.pdf, 3.80 MB (French)
• PRODALKA. Programme de Développement Rural Décentralisé II
  12 pages
  fr-PRODALKA-chad.pdf, 1.62 MB (French)