Focus on Ivoire Développement Durable
Allow rural youth in trouble to become autonomous with gainful employment based on local plantations.
Luc Lamorille, Chief operating officer Accor Africa.
Manoël Parrent, Chief Marketing Officer, Accor Saharan Africa, Caribbean, Indian Ocean.
Ivoire Développement Durable, an NGO established in 2007, aims at promoting sustainable development and strengthen Ivory Coast capacity to document and complete viable economic projects. The NGO has supervised the planting of “10,000 trees for Ivory Coast” in 2007 and 2008 at the request of Accor Africa.
2009-2010 programme:
In 2009-2010, the Accor Foundation supported the subsistence farming programme of the association Ivoire Développement Durable. The aim of this programme was to develop an income-generating activity based on the cultivation of local and perennial plants (rubber trees, palm trees, etc.).
Organised into cooperatives, 10 young people per village were trained and supervised to cultivate these plants. The latter are highly productive but the first results will not be available for another few years (beginning of 2014). Until the products return a profit, the young people have developed intercrops (maize, yams, potatoes, etc.) for faster production and self-consumption in each village.
2012 programme:
Since the results of the first programme were positive, Ivoire Développement Durable is continuing its activity in the 3 villages that were supported by the Accor Foundation in 2009-2010 and extending it to 1 new village, the village of Ouele-Koumanou, where young people will grow cocoa. This plant may also show profit at the beginning of 2015.
This programme aims to give rural youth, and by extension the entire village community, an activity that will allow them to find new momentum and manage their own finances.
In each village, an Accor Group employee, native to the village, is the programme’s “ambassador”. He instigates, motivates and manages collaboration between the cooperative and the Group. He also assesses the programme’s progress every 2 months.
