Investments

HIMO Investments in the Context of the CATALIST Project

Performing high labor intensive works (Haute Intensité de la Main d’Oeuvre – HIMO) is one of the means to achieve the overall objective of CATALIST to contribute to the peace and social stability process in the CAGLR.

The application of the HIMO approach to environmental stability and socio-economic development activities in countries of the CAGLR aims to promote stability, peace and poverty reduction.

Two types of investments are carried out to that end:

HIMO-Road investments which link zones with high agricultural potential to markets whereinter-communal and cross-border trade exchange exists. Increased access to markets meansincreased revenues in rural areas. Roads selected are located in places where various agricultural commodity chains could flourish if market access was improved.
HIMO-Environment investments contribute to the environmental stability of the soil resource base by producing seedlings and planting trees to improve production systems via agroforestry. These types of activities are on and around sites where agriculture is intensified with the assistance of CATALIST’s proximity operators.

HIMO investments also place particular emphasis on gender and vulnerable groups such as the demobilized, orphans, widows and widowers. The number of women employed in the CATALIST HIMO workforce is close to 50 percent.This was not the case before CATALIST.

Local populations make proposals on the types of trees they would like to plant in their area during meetings with the CATALIST staff. The landscape will soon change and will present a wooded park with a more important agricultural production – see our Sustainable Energy page for more information.

Additional information on the collaboration between Helpage and IFDC-CATALIST can be found here (in French). The Helpage website is http://helpagecrgl.org.