As told by Jonas Nkono, AFAP Facilitator for the Association of Indigenous Pygmy Women (AFAP)
The below described project is part of a partnership with the Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI). CLARIFI's mission is to raise public and private funds to strategically extend flexible resources directly to Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities to advance their approaches and priorities when it comes to achieving land rights, conservation, climate change adaptation, and sustainable management of their territories, while supporting greater equity across gender, age, and ecosystems. Learn more about us by visiting www.clarifirights.org
I am a facilitator with the Association des Femmes Autochtones Pygmées (AFAP). As you all know, AFAP works with Indigenous Pygmy Peoples on a variety of projects. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Indigenous Peoples are the country's first occupants and inhabitants, who draw their natural resources from the forest and who live by hunting, herding and gathering. With the arrival of the Bantus in the country, the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples began practicing traditional agriculture in response to scarce food aid, which has traditionally been very low. (Based on their modes of subsistence, there are two principal kinds of inhabitants of the forest in the DRC, the Indigenous nomadic hunting and gathering peoples, often referred to as Pygmies, and the village-dwelling agriculturalists, most of whom are Bantu-speaking.)
The worsening political situation in the DRC has not spared these forest people in general, prompting them to leave their homeland in search of asylum. The recurring war in our country has also added to the poverty and vulnerability of the Indigenous Peoples here, making them dependent on their ethnic neighbors. When the military visits Indigenous villages, for example, they trap their agricultural crops, their chickens, their deer and their pigs. Sometimes, they take Indigenous women without their prior consent and Indigenous children are used as porters for their weapons and luggage.
The women from Pygmy communities are often employed by Bantu households for field work, which forces them to be away from their own homes. This situation makes them increasingly dependent on the Bantu community and accentuates their dynamics, which have since deteriorated further. Nowadays, the Pygmy women have become increasingly independent, because they have understood and realized that instead of working for their Bantu neighbors, they can now work in their own fields, which contributes to their self-sufficiency.
The Support Project for Indigenous Pygmy Women for Resilient Agriculture and Sustainable Development aims to support Indigenous Pygmy women in the DRC to increase their economic empowerment through resilient and sustainable agriculture. The project aims to address the twin issues of climate change and biodiversity conservation.
The project was successful for a variety of reasons, including because the seasonal calendar was respected, and that all stakeholders were involved, in particular Indigenous Peoples and local communities, traditional chiefs, agronomic engineers and the political-administrative authorities of the territory.
Through the project with RRI, which took place in 2022, we sowed 12 kilograms of shelled corn for an area of 15 hectares. We harvested 600 bags of unshelled 25-kilo maize, or 40 bags of husked 25-kilo maize for an area of 1 hectare. Similarly, 1,500 baskets of cuttings of improved cassava were planted and distributed to the community to take possession of this improved variety. Now, in 2024, we have sown 32 bags of groundnuts on a 5-hectare plot, and we have just harvested 200 bags of shelled groundnuts. Similarly, for plantain bananas, we have sown 2,500 plants which are developing well, and the first harvests will take place in a few months' time.
The project’s topline achievements so far include the adoption of resilient and sustainable agriculture by the targeted communities, significant improvement in food security due to a harvest of 600 bags of shelled corn, and availability of improved cuttings for current and future seasons. Agricultural practices are being changed to better conserve territories and combat climate change and in that process, women’s food sovereignty is also being improved.
The first difficulties were poor road conditions and the community's resistance to moving away from slash and burn agriculture to resilient and sustainable agriculture. There was also jealousy between the project beneficiaries and the neighboring communities, because the neighbors also wanted to be integrated into the project, but according to what we had worked out in the project, we were only able to target one village. We are currently working with RRI, who can help us extend the project to other sectors, and perhaps even to the whole province.
