Côte d'Ivoire/ Local development: towards the perpetuation and popularization of the PCN-CI model
The human resources development project to strengthen local administration in the central and northern zones of Côte d'Ivoire (PCN-CI), financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), aims to work towards its sustainability and popularization throughout the national territory.
The National Director of the PCN-CI project, Fidel Yapi, who is also Director General of Decentralization and Local Development, noted on Thursday, December1, 2022, at the 3rd meeting of the Joint Coordination Committee in Abidjan, the need to have tools to disseminate to all communities.He explained that this session, which takes place in Abidjan, is an opportunity to discuss the issue of decentralization and local development.
He explained that this session, which is one year before the end of the project, must decide on the objectives assigned, in particular to ensure that the procedure manual that allows the involvement of the populations in the development, construction and management of infrastructure built by the communities are done in a participatory manner.
"In the first phase, there were many difficulties with Covid, but this allowed us to do the mapping, to have a first experimentation. Now, at the end, we must have tools that we can disseminate to all communities. This is the most important thing for us. This meeting will allow us to refine these tools, so that we can eventually make them available to communities," said Mr. Yapi.
The deputy representative of JICA, Usui Yukichi recalled that the project entered its implementation phase from November 2013 for the benefit of the Gbêkê region ended in April 2017 with regard to phase 1. It is mainly focused on building the capacity of communities for better delivery of basic services, recalls.
According to him, JICA decided to promote it in two sectors, including the education sector, through the construction of an elementary school and then at the level of sanitation, through the construction of human-powered pumps, that is, village pumps.
"We will develop a model that can be duplicated in other regions of the territory. There are several challenges, including the sustainability of the project. Each local authority must be able to plan effectively and transparently. In our opinion, there is a need for technical support at the regional level. One year before the end of the infrastructure, we aimed to capitalize, to spread this model in other regions of the country", said Mr. Yukichi.
For the chief advisor of the PCN-CI project, the Japanese expert Mr. Kudo, despite some difficulties, the project is still on track. Kudo despite some difficulties related to the first phase, a level of satisfaction is to be taken into account, including the establishment of the scientific committee committee in the Gbêkê region, which is working to implement and replicate the NCP-IC model.
"We have implemented the first phase of this project in the Gbêkê region. In this second phase, we will repeat the same model and implement it in another region, in the Haut Sassandra. At the end of this second phase, we will implement the model throughout the country," said Mr. Kudo.
The successive crises that Côte d'Ivoire has experienced and the related unrest have weakened government institutions and undermined the functioning of its administrations. It is in this context that on the basis of the agreement between Japan through JICA and Côte d'Ivoire through its Ministry of Interior and Security was born the PCN-CI.
Source: www.aip.ci/
