Opportunities Industrialization Centers International  |
Guinea: Food & Livelihood Security
Promoting sustainable and more productive farming practices, enhancing rural household income, and improving health & nutrition in rural Guinea
SITUATIONGuinea's rural population is highly vulnerable to food insecurity, unsustainable farming practices are widely used, and most do not have access to basic health, water and sanitation services
The poverty in Guinea is concentrated in the rural areas where poverty indicators are twice those of the urban population. The most vulnerable, at-risk groups include resource-scarce farmers, youth, and most especially women.
Roughly 55% of subsistence farming households are considered very poor, contributing to 68% of national poverty. Middle Guinea suffers the highest level of food insecurity because of its high population density, intense competition for natural resources, less favorable climate conditions, and relatively poor soil soils. Malnutrition is at dangerously high levels, doctors and midwives only assist in 22% of childbirths in rural areas, less than half the population has access to safe water, and only 6% of women in rural areas are considered literate. Over the past two decades, there has been widespread deforestation and a steady degradation of soil. Pressure on the land has reduced fallow periods to the extent that soil fertility has declined along with crop yields (and food access).
Poor health in Guinea also constrains productivity and compromise overall food security. OICI’s Food Security Assessment (FSA) mission found that their was an urgent need to address health and nutrition deficiencies in the region. The FSA found that, for example, 30% of children under the age of five were chronically malnourished. The FSA also found that in the poorest regions of the country, virtually none of the households had access to safe, potable water or to adequate sanitation facilities. As a consequence, water-borne diseases (diarrhea, skin infections, parasites) are the leading cause of death in children under the age of five. Household labor in Guinea is often constrained due to these health issues thus causing even greater household food insecurity.
Another emerging threat to public health in Guinea is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Given the high levels of rural-to-urban migration within Guinea, HIV/AIDS has begun to spread rapidly. The great majority of Guineans have heard of HIV/AIDS, but only a small proportion (9% of women and 4% of men) reported that there is anything that can be done to prevent transmission of the disease; only a small percentage of the population regularly uses condoms.
RESPONSEImprove farmer productivity, teach rural households how to add value to their produce, improve health, nutrition and sanitation services, and provide HIV/AIDS education
With funding from USAID, OICI is working in the prefectures of Telimele and Pita in Middle Guinea, as these both rank in the bottom half of the poorest prefectures in the country in terms of food insecurity and malnutrition. OICI implements activities to improve agricultural production, development and rehabilitation of productive infrastructure, and water and sanitation in order to improve health. Gender and development and the strengthening of civil society are essential crosscutting themes that ensure the sustained benefit of our program. Women-headed households in particular are being assisted with improving food-security and household health.
Improving Food Security - To improve crop yields, thus improving household food security in the Telimele and Pita regions, OICI is:
- Providing technical assistance to households involved in subsistence farming, including promoting crop diversification and sustainable farming practices
- Improving household and community post-harvest storage systems to reduce post-harvest losses
- Supervising the construction of terraced hillsides to prevent further erosion
- Improving soil management techniques to ensure the land stays productive
- Developing water conservation infrastructure
- Providing packages of agricultural inputs, including staple crop seeds, vegetable seeds, and agricultural tools
- Forming community farming associations so that assistance can be targeted to large groups and a repository of local knowledge is created
Enhnacing Household Incomes - To increase farming household incomes, with female-headed household targeted in particular, OICI is:
- Teaching women about the potential profits they can earn from implementing simple value-added processes to their harvests
- Introducing cost-effective and simple technologies, such as solar-drying to produce dried fruits and vegetables, and pressing machines to produce oils, all of which can be sold in markets
Improving Health - To improve the health, sanitation and nutrition of women and children in particular in Telimele and Pita, OICI is:
- Promoting safe water through training in water treatment practices and safe forms of storage
- Supervising the construction and rehabilitation of wells; training communities on how to maintain them
- Increasing the use of latrines
- Building community capacity and technical expertise to regulate of waste disposal
- Improving hygiene and sanitation behaviors and practices through education
- Training local volunteers to work as village health promoters
- Educating women about the importance of pre– and post-natal nutrition, breastfeeding, and the prevention and treatment of water-borne diseases in children
- Providing supplementary meals to at-risk women (pregnant women, lactating women, and women with children under the age of 36 months)
- Providing malnourished children with de-working medication and vaccinating them
- Training mothers how to prepare oral rehydration salts to battle diarrhea
HIV/AIDS Awareness - To raise the awareness and bring about behavioral change with respect to sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, OICI is:
- Training volunteers to disseminate messages regarding high-risk sexual practices to their local villages
- Building coalitions with religious leaders, community leaders, women’s groups, and government authorities in order to deliver unified messages at OICI-sponsored community meetings
- Providing life skills training to women and adolescents
- Selling condoms through a volunteer network at a minimal rate
- Partnering with other international NGOs to socially market condoms
- Disseminating manuals and other visual aids (educational videos, slide presentations, etc) to semi-literate and illiterate populations
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