Programme description

Title: Rural economic development and biodiversity
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Côte d’Ivoire
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Agriculture
Overall term: 2007 to 2013

Context

The socio-political crisis that has gripped Côte d’Ivoire since 2002 has had a major impact on the national economy and local economies. The division of the country, disruption of supply and marketing channels and the suspension of government and international development activities in the north of the country have seriously affected agricultural production. In the south of the country, the crisis has also had an adverse impact on the economy. Local business cycles are stagnating and the region’s potential remains largely untapped. As a result, agricultural productivity is low, which in conjunction with a lack of alternative employment opportunities is leading to the impoverishment of the population.

Whereas food production in many areas has dropped to subsistence levels, value chains for perennial products such as cocoa, palm oil, rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) and cashews have survived the crisis relatively intact. Nevertheless, the intensification and expansion of these products is still hampered by the disruption in supplies of operating inputs. The country’s relatively strong private agro-industrial sector has a great interest in guaranteeing supplies of raw materials from outside the industrial plantations and the planters have an equally strong interest in securing a long-term income.

Biodiversity has been badly affected by the crisis and most of Côte d’Ivoire’s protected areas and state forests have been severely degraded as a result of illegal use. Since the mid-1990s, German development cooperation has been actively involved in protecting Taï National Park, which still needs long-term financing for its management tasks.

In the past, each of the three above-mentioned areas was funded through separate projects. Since mid-2010, they have been consolidated into a single programme entitled Rural Economic Development and Biodiversity.

Objective

The rural population exploits the economic potential of local resources while largely preserving biodiversity.

Approach

The programme builds on the success of the earlier German development cooperation projects in the field of agriculture and nature conservation. It is active both in the north-west and south-west of the country. Its first phase has shown that development measures are possible even during a crisis, provided adequate attention is paid to the specific context. On the one hand, existing potentials must be used to achieve fast results that have an impact on incomes. On the other hand, to achieve a sustainable economic upturn, results are needed that create stable structures. During times of crisis, nature conservation faces particular challenges because, as government structures become increasingly weak, people’s illegal use of resources tends to increase.

As a response to the context, and based on the experience gained during the first phase, the programme is now divided into two components.

1. Rural economic development – supporting income-generating micro-projects by making use of local resources and cooperating with the private sector to promote agricultural value chains for cocoa, rubber and palm oil
2. Conservation of Taï National Park

Results achieved so far

Rural economic development components

Micro-projects: By the end of 2010, the programme had financed over 600 income-generating micro-projects. These focused mainly on agriculture, but the programme also supported the reintroduction of the arts and crafts trade in the north of the country, where the products are famous throughout the region. Whether it is onion growing in the north, rice production, small animal husbandry (poultry and eggs, pig rearing, fish ponds) or arts and crafts, the same principle underlies all the projects: the project subsidies the first production cycle with operating inputs (seed, fertiliser, sundries etc.), and supports the producers groups with technical advice while helping them to build up their capital. The groups then have to finance the second production cycle entirely from their own resources, but the programme continues to provide technical and business advice. All the groups funded consisted of people from poor sectors of the population who have no access to credit; they receive support to develop organisational structures. The main focus is on women and young people, which in the case of Côte d’Ivoire means up to the age of 35. The project was able to use this successful approach to revitalise local business cycles.

Promoting value chains: The focus here is on two agricultural export products in the rainy south of the country: rubber and palm oil. The private sector has a strong interest in securing long-term supplies of both products, since their own industrial plantations are no longer adequate. At the same time, there is high demand among rural families for these products because they produce the best long-term business results for the individual farms. Rubber also has the extra advantage that the small plantations generate income on a monthly basis and farmers do not have to wait a whole year for sales revenues. The project forges links between private businesses and farmers’ organisations. The main technical concern is to encourage production of the high-quality seed stock necessary for long-term yields. To do this, the project has set up 90 commercial tree nurseries that meet high quality standards and are run by small local businesses. The rubber crop needs to be refined, and the new occupation of ‘refiners’ has developed as a result of the project, with women receiving special technical training for the work. Finally, this component also trains young farmers in planting methods to enable them to offer their services to the farmers who will ultimately buy the plants. This programme component works in the south-west and south-east of the country and is financed by the European Union.

Biodiversity component: Since the mid-1990s, German development cooperation has supported a project to promote conservation of Taï National Park, which is being implemented jointly by GIZ and KfW. This national park in the south-west of the country covers an area of over 5,000 square kilometres, which makes it one of the largest in West Africa. It counts as the most intact, continuous natural evergreen tropical forest areas in the region. Many rare, sometimes endemic, animal and plant species, such as chimpanzees, pygmy hippopotamuses, African forest buffalo and the carnivorous plant Triphyophyllum peltatum, are now found exclusively in Taï National Park. It has been classified as a world natural heritage site and biosphere reserve, in which nature conservation interests have to be reconciled with the development interests of the neighbouring communities. This component therefore aims to ensure that local communities, national structures and the international community join forces in the conservation of the park.

In the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire, not far from the border with Liberia, the park’s natural resources are under pressure from neighbouring communities in a number of different ways. Monitoring

Controlling the poaching of primates and small antelopes is a major problem for the park authority; to a lesser extent, people prospecting for gold or removing specific types of timber also present a problem. On the other hand, no forest clearance by coffee and cocoa planters has taken place since 2000.

In conjunction with KfW Entwicklungsbank, the project is working closely with the central Ivorian parks authority (OIPR: Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves). It supports the authority in performing its core tasks: organising surveillance, maintaining infrastructure, promoting ecotourism, economic development of the adjacent zones, and bio-monitoring to collect data on the state of the ecosystem. The last of these receives important support from the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF), which has been conducting research in the park for 30 years and is now an important partner. The local people are involved in measures wherever possible. The project maintains formal cooperation with development and park conservation associations, which have been formed in the adjacent villages on the initiative of the project.

The measures implemented by the project have brought about a significant reduction in pressure on the park’s resources. The local people now acknowledge and welcome the existence of the park and its protected status. An analysis of satellite images has shown that the vegetation has remained intact since 2000 and local people have cleared only a few isolated areas of forest on the park’s eastern boundary.

Aggravated by the crisis, poaching remains a problem. There are plans to tackle it by stepping up controls and instigating income-generating measures, especially for young people. This is carried out as part of component 1 (rural economic development), with about 80 micro-projects now running in the adjacent zone.

The continued crisis means that exploiting the park’s tourism potential is not expected to be an option in the near future and the park authority will therefore remain dependent on external subsidies in the long term. The project has supported the park authority in preparing a management and business plan. Achieving sustainable financing for this will be the key challenge in the next few years. The first step in this direction was the support provided by the Foundation for the Parks & Reserves of Cote D'Ivoire (FPRCI) which, as part of debt relief arrangements with Côte d’Ivoire, is scheduled to receive initial capital resources through KfW funding.

Downloads

• Plan d'amenagement et de gestion du Parc National de Taï
  fr-ci-Plan-amenagement-gestion-PN-Tai-2006-2015.pdf, 3.05 MB (French)
• Plan d’Affaires 2008 - 2012 du Parc National de Taï
  fr-ci-plan-affaires-PN-Tai-2008-2012.pdf, 3.34 MB (French)

Further information

• Parc National de Taï
  www.parc-national-de-tai.ci