ACTED rewarded for its actions in Eastern Chad

Last January, the Republic of Chad celebrated 50 years of independence. Another celebration also took place in the Ennedi region, on the Sudanese border, as local authorities rewarded ACTED's contribution in improving the local population’s living conditions in Bahai and its surroundings.

ACTED has been working in the area since 2004, after the creation of the Oure Cassoni refugee camp 25 km from Bahai. Displaced people were fleeing tension in nearby Darfur. Now, 32,000 people live in the camp. Part of ACTED’s assistance mission is running nutrition units, providing food and non-food items, supporting local food needs, or even planting wooded areas to fight desertification.

Easing the pressure on natural resources

ACTED has also been playing a social mediation role. Through its market gardening interventions, ACTED hopes to build mutual aid and solidarity between the local population and refugees. Because of rarifying natural resources, mainly wood, the last few years have seen rising tension between the two categories, though they belong to the same Zaghawa ethnic group. Some have to travel up to 10 km to collect dead wood, the most used source of energy by both local and refugee families.

Monthly fuel distributions and the use of alternative resources, such as solar energy, allow ACTED to ease the pressure on natural resources, and therefore contribute to calming the growing tension. The environmental aspect of ACTED’s intervention, that has been developed in the past 6 years, is an integral part of the big picture. Getting people accustomed to, and to use, energy-efficient cooking methods, mainly through improved cooking stoves, has contributed to decrease ligneous resource use.

A foreign NGO rewarded for the first time

The security situation has improved in the area since the Chad-Sudan peace treaty, signed on 15 January 2011. However, the desert climate, lack of infrastructure and uneasy access are everyday concerns for local inhabitants. A stone throw away from the Sudanese border, the Bahai sub-prefecture was nevertheless dapper in festive gear for celebrating fifty years of independence, and for rewarding local development actors.

The exclusive moment was a first since the arrival of humanitarian aid had followed the Darfur refugee overflow. Usually, a local organization is rewarded for improving local populations’ living conditions, but this year, an international NGO, ACTED, was honored. The certificate is a true testimonial of the local government’s recognition towards ACTED’s work in a harsh region.