Changes Are in the Air, Local Chadians Say

FACIL has helped to build schools, water supplies and roads, offer micro-credit and provide various training to empower inhabitants and help them become more productive, self-sufficient and better informed.

Examples of FACIL funds include:

• Building schools in communities lacking adequate infrastructure
• Constructing bridges to connect isolated settlements with markets, health facilities and other transport routes
• Building a water supply system in Bébédjia to bring potable water to people who have long suffered from water-borne illnesses.

	New power generators, purchased with FACIL funds, brings electricity to this area.

Local inhabitants are beginning to reap benefits from these FACIL-funded projects, and are remarking on how these initiatives have already improved their lives.Hanging out in the school yard, Alexis M., a high school student, is pleased with his new school, where FACIL has helped build two new high school classrooms near the Doba oil fields in Miandoum in southern Bébédjia.

“We’ve been talking a lot about the oil project, but to us, being protected from the wind and the rain while in class is what matters most. Before, we sat in classrooms built with seko, and, at the end of the rainy season, they had to be re-built,” he said pointing to an old seko warehouse that used to be his old classroom. “We now have classrooms built with concrete.”

The area's new medical health center has decreased the pressure on the hospital.

FACIL funds have also helped build or rehabilitate bridges and roads, as well as improve other infrastructure that local communities needed. “The bridges built in Bengamian, Kiangara and Béyére make it easier to go to Békan or Béssao even during the rainy season,” says a villager in the Bekan district, a mountainous area near the border with Cameroon.FACIL initiatives have also helped improve health conditions in local communities.“We are the beneficiaries of two power generators and an urban health center built right outside of the hospital. [The health center] has taken away some of the pressure on the hospital,” says Dr. Miandjingar, health district manager, who also supervises the regional pharmacy.

Residents of Doba, Bébédjia point out that the funds have helped built a new drainage system, trash receptacles, water towers and new town-hall facilities. “These facilities will help jump-start development in our region,” concludes Betodjingar Nétoloum, the mayor of Bébédjia.

	The water tower in Bébédjia was completed in December 2003 with FACIL funds, bringing potable water to local residents.

The FACIL program has enabled local men and women to get micro-credits to start their own businesses and generate income. “I received a FACIL loan to help me start a business and, at the same time, have a surplus of wheat at my disposal,” says Deuroh E, a local farmer, adding that, “With the benefits from my business, I have been able to take care of my family.” Regarding the complimentary training, he says it “has made us more accountable.”

Another FACIL loan helped researcher Mbaiornom Isaac develop a “center for poultry marketing and production” in Bébédjia. The center’s mandate “isn’t limited to raising poultry and producing eggs, but it also provides training to local youth and anyone else interested in this type of activity,” he says.

Through its Small and Medium enterprise program, the International Finance Corporation, the Bank’s private sector-lending arm, has been supporting local enterprises as well.

An IFC loan is helping a 20-member “djakismadji” women’s association manage the poultry-house. “We can each have twenty eggs for our families and have one thousand CFA to buy tea,” states Lartoudji Sarah, the association’s treasurer. Dandé Elia, the association’s president, adds, “These are just some of the positive outcomes, until we finish paying off our debts, but each of us already earns approximately CFAF 3000 every twenty days.”

Overall, the acquired business experience has been valuable in itself, residents say. “[These projects] have allowed us to work closely with multinationals,” says Amir Artine, General Manager of Geyser, Water Works Enterprise, a company that has grown to 225 employees from initial 12 in 1988.

“At the beginning, we were a group of people trying to create an economic venture, but with little success. I truly believe that the four years we’ve spent working on the project have helped us become a company capable of meeting international standards. The know-how, the discipline, and the experience we’ve acquired will certainly enable us to compete at both the national and regional levels, and possibly bid on similar projects in the future,” Artine concludes.

Visit the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline official web site for more information.