Strengthening communities together - Integrated Community Recovery and Development
By Christy Murray, UNICEF Sudan. Dameek, South Kordofan. 3 December 2007.The area of Dameek sits in the Sudanese Nuba Mountains, home to some 3,000 people including returnees from the civil war, internally displaced persons from the current conflict in Darfur and pastoralist farmers spread across seven villages. Dameek is also the focus for integrated community recovery and development, an initiative spearheaded by UNICEF and its partners to tackle poor access to health, education and water supply while strengthening local capacity for income regeneration, skills development and community leadership. In the state of South Kordofan, which includes Dameek, 14 per cent of children born are not expected to survive to their fifth birthday. 40 per cent of the population does not have access to safe water supplies. Almost half of primary school aged children are not attending classes. Investing in vital services, managed and led by the community itself, is an urgent priority. Community elder Idris Gibreel Kafe is clear in his own mind what needs to be done. “Our priorities are developing agriculture, then education, then providing for health care. If these three were strong, plus security, then people could move ahead,” he affirms. “This is an ancient community and a community cannot be established in a day. It also must be maintained by its own people” Fellow elder 75 year old Abbas Kafe Atom is equally clear about how to tackle these priorities. “This is an ancient community and a community cannot be established in a day. It also must be maintained by its own people,” he says. This combination of service provision with leadership from within the community is the backbone of integrated community recovery and development. In Dameek, UNICEF has been joined by the UN Development Programme, the UN World Food Programme, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and Save the Children US, under the coordination of the state Ministry of Economy and Investment, to support a range of programmes led by the community itself – including reconstruction of the school and health clinic, provision of school and health supplies, development of food production, school feeding programmes, training in crop production, and even mine risk education. The people of Dameek have been quick to take on ownership and direction of these programmes, as UNICEF’s Mohamed Sulieman explains. “We discussed the needs of the community with their own Community Development Committee and agreed that we should renovate the school and health centre, install new hand pumps to provide water, and support the training of teachers and midwives,” he says. “But this agreement was based on a commitment from the community that they would build and upgrade classrooms for the school, finance the training of the midwives, and undertake a range of health activities themselves – including promoting immunization campaigns, and carry out spraying of houses against mosquitos, to limit the threat of malaria.”
This focus on shared responsibility greatly increases the potential for long-term sustainability. And the joint approach with different partners increases the impact of those programmes – for example, in education the improved physical infrastructure built by the community is enhanced by increased quality of learning through the training of teachers supported by UNICEF, while enrolment is boosted by the school feeding programme led by WFP. The results are clearly measurable – there are now 580 children attending Dameek’s school, compared to just 193 in 2002. The success of the school has encouraged members of the community to expand the recovery and development concept. Resident Anur Abdel Gadir has big plans. “We have seven other villages nearby and all of these need schools and water. When we look at the future we want to support them. As community leaders we look outside and see how areas can be involved,” he says. Future success will rely on the leadership of the community itself. But future success will rely on the leadership of the community itself, something which is recognized by Idris Gibreele Kafe as he explains the importance of the Community Development Committee. “Ten people are selected for the Committee; two children and eight adults,” he explains. “The whole Committee has undertaken training to learn skills such as how to plan, how to implement [projects] and how to monitor them. We have learned how to prioritize and plan for local projects.” And Dameek’s vision is not limited to traditional development partners. A new project has brought it together with the Greater Nile Petroleum company which has already finished construction of a new girls’ school and agreed to rehabilitate roads in the area. The people of Dameek have agreed to cover the costs of the raw materials for the roads. Abbas Kafe Atom believes that the future success of the community will be based on the goodwill and determination of its people. “With social wisdom we maintain the community,” he says. “Those who are coming to Dameek are coming because our people are good and peaceful. If you come next year you will find us with the same community, and the same conditions of peacefulness.” And probably with excellent roads.
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