Italian Cooperation in the country

The Italian Cooperation has been present in Guinea for more than thirty years, with the aim of reducing poverty and promoting the participation of local actors in the development of the country. Using aid grants and the Guinean resources freed up by the cancellation of the debt in 2003, Italy has supported the development of the NGOs and associations scene by adopting an unparalleled participatory methodology in the country.

The decision to include Guinea among the priority countries over the 2013-2015 period has opened new opportunities of intervention for the Italian Cooperation. More recently, and in particular from the establishment of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation office in Dakar in 2016, also accredited in Guinea, funds have been concentrated on regional programmes carried out by international organizations and co-financed activities to non-governmental organizations, through specific budget lines.

 

Strategic development document in the country

The first "Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper" (PRSP-I) was elaborated and launched by the Guinean government in 2002. Both the first and the second PRSP (2007-2010) were unsuccessful, due to the serious political and institutional instability and the critical economic situation. The third PRSP (2011-2012), accompanied by the Priority Action Plan and the Government Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), set the objective of reducing the poverty rate, in order to improve the governance system, reinforce human resources and institutions, accelerate growth, create job opportunities, and ensure access to basic services.

In response to the encouraging results achieved, the Government has approved the "National Plan for Economic and Social Development" (2016-2020), which is currently the main reference document on development, and integrates the previous strategic documents - the third PRSP, the Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), as well as the Post-Ebola Recovery Program (2015-2017).

 

The Italian strategy and the areas of intervention

A distinctive feature of the programming action of the Italian Cooperation in Guinea is the participatory approach, developed especially after the positive experience of debt conversion, which gave rise to an Italian-Guinean fund (Fonds Guineo-Italien de Réconversion de la Dette) - FOGUIRED). The fund was created in 2003 within the Bilateral Debt Conversion Agreement signed on 22 October 2001 in Conakry by the Guinean Government and the Italian Government.

In general, the agricultural sector is considered a priority both for the impact on poverty and for the possibility to follow up on the FOGUIRED experience in involving actors who are unstructured but deeply rooted in the territory. Based of the main needs relating to the rural sector and food security, as indicated by the Guinean Government, starting from 2013 the Italian Cooperation has approved the financing of multilateral initiatives to support agricultural supply chains.

Furthermore, in synergy with the sectoral priorities of the Guinean government, Italy has strengthen its commitment in the health sector; a three-year initiative was approved in 2013 with the aim of improving women's access to sexual and reproductive health services, and the protection of women victims of violence, in line with the sectoral guidelines of the Italian Cooperation. Following the Ebola epidemic, and although Guinea had not been confirmed as a priority country of the Italian Cooperation, the "Supporting Programme to the National Health System of the Republic of Guinea" was approved in 2017. The initiative was intended to cope with the precarious state of most Guinean health facilities and services resulting from a lack of restructuring, equipment and human resources, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and therefore in need of urgent redevelopment. The general objective of the initiative is to improve the health status of the Guinean population.

 

Alignment with the local government strategy and harmonization with donor community interventions

Starting from 2010 there has been a significant increase and a stabilization of the flow of international aid. Italy has not directly participated in the processes related to the application of the Paris Declaration and the “Code of Conduct on Complementarity and the Division of Labour in Development Policy”. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of coordination between donors have proved effective, although they need to be consolidated and refined through a greater involvement of local authorities, in order to allow the collection of information, and implement planning and monitoring strategies.

 

Goals and expected results

The ultimate goal of the Italian Cooperation in the Country is to support the Guinean Government in the realization of its sustainable and inclusive economic and social development agenda. In line with the priority sectors, Italy intends to pursue these objectives:

• Agriculture and food security - Contribute to food security by increasing the resilience capacity of small producers, and improving the production, processing and marketing of agricultural products, through the dissemination of environmentally sustainable agricultural practices, and the promotion of the gender approach.



• Health system - Improve the health status of the Guinean population and the living conditions of vulnerable groups through the restoration and strengthening of the national health system following the Ebola epidemic and the strengthening of social protection mechanisms.

 

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