Document Type: Progress Reports

This quarter was marked by the introduction of administrative policies and procedures that effectively strengthened internal control systems. These included setting up a weekly financial and logistic field reporting system, a field mission reporting system, the strengthening of fuel and inventory controls, and the completion of a PRADD CAR Code of Conduct based on the Tetra Tech ARD policies, USAID regulations, and the CAR Labor Law, which was signed by all employees. PRADD CAR now has sufficient internal controls in place.

This quarter was marked by several important events that impacted project administration and management. The termination and/or resignation of six local employees during Quarter 2 hampered the implementation of project activities briefly. Nevertheless, PRADD has now recruited and replaced all but one of the positions. The office manager position was filled by an experienced senior-level administrator with strong project management and previous international donor experience; the project identified a new rural animateur for Nola who will begin work in August contingent upon reference verifications and salary negotiations. This candidate was deemed to have the relevant skills and experience as his educational background is in rural development, he has previous PRADD experience working on the PRA, socioeconomic survey, and mapping in Nola; and he scored the highest in the practical test simulating a rural awareness-building exercise, as evaluated by the PRADD technical team.

Quarter 3 activities for the SECURE Project focused mainly on better understanding the challenges of securing land and resource tenure in the pilot communities and commencing the development and plan for the subsequent land rights formalization process to be piloted by the MoL. Tenure assessments have now been completed for all four project pilot communities, and individual reports are being finalized. The SECURE team and the staff from the participating agencies and partner organizations have learned a tremendous amount about the land and resource tenure arrangements and situations in each community, and have drafted specific recommendations for moving forward. The following quarter will see the commencement of significant implementation activities.

During this reporting period, PRADD made several notable advancements in the project work plan. Most significantly, a multidisciplinary team comprised of PRADD team leaders, technicians from the Ministry of Mines, and students from the University of Bangui conducted a two-month analysis of customary property rights in Nola, the second project pilot site. As a result of this participatory analysis, the project identified and mapped an additional 1,122 diamond mines, customarily held by 665 small-scale miners. In the next quarter, the project will map the remaining mines identified in Nola and will seek to incorporate approximately 200 new entrants from Boda (the original pilot site) into the Geographic Information System (GIS) property rights database. Furthermore, through lessons learned in the Boda and Nola participatory rural appraisal (PRA) activities, the project will finalize tools, such as the PRADD property rights manual (in progress), for wide-scale replication of the PRADD property rights model.

During the current quarter, PRADD successfully recruited and hired nine additional technical positions including field office managers, rural “animateurs”, and three technical coordinators. The project also opened two permanent field offices in the towns of Nola and Boda.

A summary of activities conducted in October – December 2008 under the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development Pilot Program (PRADD) in Guinea.

A summary of the activities conducted in June – September 2008 under the Guinea Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond (PRADD) pilot program.