Support project for the promotion of youth employment for the development of the local milk sector in Forest Guinea (PAPEDEL/GF)

Today, dairy industry players, the majority of whom are close to the poverty line, have a comparative advantage in a context dominated by urbanization. At the same time, soaring demographics are increasing demand for dairy products. The involvement of the local milk sub-sector is part of the extension, intensification and diversification of trade. Despite the encouraging results achieved by previous programs, this comparative advantage is limited by a number of constraints which today represent real challenges to be overcome in order to improve the development of dairy production systems.

This project is based on four main levers for action:

• Strengthening beneficiaries' institutional, organizational and technical capacities: This will enable the development of an organizational and institutional dynamic at the level of each player, with a view to promoting a mode of operation based on basic principles defined collegially by the members and deemed legitimate. It is strategically based on training and support/advice on the themes of best practices, sanitary and processing standards, and internal governance of the organizations to ensure control of the local milk sector.
• Strengthening the operational capacities of project beneficiaries in both the production and marketing of local milk: This will involve providing beneficiaries with appropriate equipment to enable them to develop their professional activities. It mainly involves setting up mini-dairies and their equipment, and a marketing network.
• Development of interactions between the players involved in the project: This involves interactions between groups of breeders, dairy farmers, collectors, transporters, processors, traders and those involved in fodder crops, technical services for livestock farming and players in the value chain (UREBV unions, etc.). It will highlight the need to interact and support interactions through collaboration agreements that these players will establish between themselves to improve the development of the local milk value chain. Mastery of this lever will enable local milk chain stakeholders to take greater ownership of the system as a whole.
• Capitalizing on the project's achievements: This covers the entire system for monitoring and evaluating indicators and capitalizing on the project's successes. This lever will enable the direct effects of the project on the improvement of the dairy production system to be collected, and the impact of the action to be monitored once it has been implemented.