Situated at the extreme South-East of the Central African Republic, in an isolated region between the Sudanese and Congolese borders, the Haut-Mbomou prefecture is witnessing a new enthusiasm for ACTED’s new strategy focusing on local development. While most of the humanitarian activities are taking place in the North and the West, the opening of this new area of intervention will allow ACTED to exert its influence on the western part of the territory, and to become an innovative actor in terms of sustainable actions on the field, by setting up a program supporting regional economic recovery.

It took almost 2 days by bike for Ibrahima to travel the 45 kilometres separating him from “the pretty Zémio”. Nicknamed as such in the thirties, the Haut Mbomou sub-prefecture attracted the breeder not so much because of its palm trees or its river where some hippopotamus paddle, but because he wanted to meet with ACTED’s team, located on the main street since the beginning of March 2009. Everything happened very fast: in two days, the office was opened; one month later, the team recruitment was finalized by Aurélie, the bubbly yet determined project manager. The needs are tremendous and pressing, the expectations as well. The core of the program aims at supporting local development actors, which is key to a better understanding of regional economic potentials and to the elaboration of a prefectural Development Plan.

As he was bringing his herd to graze, Ibrahima crossed path with Aurélie crisscrossing the prefecture in order to identify and mobilize associations, offering to help reinforce their capacities through organizational trainings, micro-credit provisions and budget management courses, hoping to support their markets’ reconstruction and to develop exchanges so far limited to subsistence. “An undreamed-of outstretched hand” he says, in this area neglected by the State’s services where very few international organizations are present.

For the prefecture’s 60,000 inhabitants, made up of mainly Zandé people and nomad breeders who have been suffering from aggravated pauperization and were, for parts of the population, victims of the Ugandan LRA militias’ violent acts, ACTED’s establishment represents a promise for a better future, especially when the main ethnic group’s cross-border profile predisposes them to business trades with their Sudanese, Ugandan and Kenyan neighbours rather than in-country trading. ACTED’s challenge is now to reorient their vision and trust toward the centre of the country and its capital, Bangui. The mission’s durability depends on the ability to restore this broken link between the population and the authorities.