Social Issue

The Kolda Region is the poorest in Senegal. It has a very young population, most of them without access to basic education, health services, drinking water, roads or the electricity grid infrastructures, and with high unemployment rates that lead to a very high rural exodus to urban areas.

The illiteracy rate can reach 79% of the population in small villages. 80% of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. Despite having great agricultural potential, it has to face numerous difficulties at the production, conservation, and marketing levels.

Our Response

In collaboration with the Guné Foundation, which has carried out similar projects in more than 120 villages in the area in recent years, the aim is to consolidate a process of nutritional food security. Besides, we incorporate a gender approach, for the effective exercise of the human right to food of the rural population of the Kandiaye commune.

The project is articulated around three axes:

• Access and availability of food in sufficient quantity and quality, through the sustainable management of natural resources (land, water, and seeds).
• Strengthening of rural women’s organisations, enhancing their technical capacities, including literacy.
• Adoption of nutritional practices to influence the proper use of food and to contribute to the eradication of child malnutrition.

The project runs from November 2019 to October 2020, in 5 villages in the Kandiaye commune, located in the Kolda region (Senegal).

Expected Social Impact

At the end of the project, it is estimated that, in the intervention municipalities, 150 women and their families increase the yield of their crops an average of 40-45%. In this way they can benefit from a diversification of diet, reducing the cases of malnutrition of their sons and daughters.

Women participating in the programme are expected to acquire notions of literacy and numeracy, increasing their economic autonomy and their self-esteem and confidence.

According to the results of previous projects, there has been an increase in agricultural marketing, especially among women, increasing their income by 80% thanks to the sale of surpluses in local markets.