Projects by country

• Cote d'Ivoire
  • Support for the organization of the informal sector
• Senegal
  • Promotion of quality artisan woodworking in the slums of Dakar
  • Assistance in the social and economic integration of rural youth through education (with our partner, UGPM)
  • Individual and group assistance, and human rights work for 300 youth in the Mbeubeuss wasteland, near Dakar
• Democratic Republic of Congo
  • Support for establishing and developing women’s economic activity, in the Bukavu region
• Rwanda
  • Promotion of quality artisan woodworking

Directions of Involvement

Three dominant factors define the current situation on the African continent: bad government in many African countries, increasing poverty, and the accumulation of debt. For several years, Frères des Hommes takes action on the ground in Africa and lobbies in Europe, in order to respond to these problems and to prevent the entire continent from becoming totally marginalized.

Support for the emergence, strengthening, and coordination of participative democratic structures

• Frères des Hommes realizes that the best way of combating bad government is by promoting citizenship and democracy. We encourage our partners to organize to demonstrate their rights, as well as to set up networks for exchanging experiences and coordinating.

Supporting the planning and implementation of local development plans, within the framework of the ongoing decentralization process in the majority of African countries

• Frères des Hommes encourages and helps the organizations that it supports to become actively engaged in putting in place local development plans, which serve as a tool for establishing grassroots democracy.

Professional craftsmanship and agricultural professions as contributors to economic development

• For Frères des Hommes, the fight against poverty consists of generating sustainable and lucrative jobs, which allow people to go beyond meeting their basic needs for survival. The activity sectors through which we work are the crafts sector, and specifically artisan crafts, as well as the agricultural sector. Choosing the agricultural sector is motivated by the fact that a majority of the African population live in rural regions, along with the desire of FDH to show this sector’s potential.

Lobbying for debt reduction and conversion

• With an unmanageable debt for the majority of countries in Africa, Frères des Hommes is engaged several European groups that campaign for debt cancellation or conversion.

Africa Sector: Laurence Constantini – email: afri@fdh.org