GIZ & Toogga, a cooperation for more Green jobs and Revenues

TOOGGA, which has set itself the mission of promoting the natural products of the Sahel region while enabling sustainable developments and empowering local populations, focuses on manufacturing high value-added products to generate new jobs. In this framework, a tripartite partnership between the German cooperation and TOOGGA is set up. Two projects of the GIZ, NRMPro and PELIMIR, have already planned to get involved.

AGLC members getting a formation in handling organic harvests

The Natural Resources Management Program (NRMPro) and its partners partake in two agrosilvopastoral regions of Mauritania: Guidimakha and Hodh El Gharbi where they supported the creation of 39 associations of Local Collective Management (LCMA). In their approach, the exploitation of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as fruits, leaves, or resins is essential to generate long-term green revenues.

NRMPro, PELIMIR and TOOGGA work together to make better use of these natural products, to transform them locally to create jobs and to make them attractive for local and international markets.

To achieve this, the NRMPro:

• Supports LCMAs, especially women, in organizing, collecting, storing, processing, and transporting NWFPs
• Improves product quality and ensures a supply of raw materials and processed products
• Provides LCMA with necessary materials for harvesting, processing and transport.
• Assists LCMAs to improve their self-management and marketing skills (proximity monitoring)

The project “Promotion of Employment and Professional Integration in the Rural Environment (PELIMR)”, which started its activities in 2017, has, as its goal, to help young people to find a job in their native region. Once qualified, they will be solicited in several sectors of activities such as solar energy, services, but also and especially in and around agriculture.

Locals from the village of “Goudiowol” participating in a training in Financial and organizational management

TOOGGA will thus benefit from the support of the PELIMIR project through several trainings:

• In shopping, accounting and hygiene (for handling cosmetic products)
• In cooperative organization
• To organize work on plantations and increase local value chains of products

Though Toogga’s line of beauty products are the best known, food products based on baobab fruit, watermelon seeds or hibiscus petals are also very popular. Their quality will soon be validated by the quality standards established within the LCMA.

Participants from the village of “Goudjiwol” getting a training on how to store naturally harvested materials