Sahel and Lake Chad: EU Trust Fund for Africa has assisted over 57,000 people in developing income-generating activities and nearly 499,000 people have participated in co

Thanks to the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa in the Sahel and Lake Chad region, more than 11,700 jobs have been created and nearly 15,000 individuals have benefited from professional training or skills development since the launch of the EUTF in November 2015. Approximately 42% of the jobs created have been benefitting women. These are some of the main employment-related results under the first Monitoring and Learning System (MLS) report, presenting results for the Sahel and Lake Chad window until 31 December 2018 for 7 out of 12 countries of the region (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal). Upcoming reports will include additional countries covered by the Sahel and Lake Chad window.

Resilience activities have also contributed to significant results. More than 603,000 people have received nutrition assistance (screening malnutrition, awareness raising activities on nutrition best practices and support to health centres) and nearly 489,000 have benefited from improved access to basic services such as health, sanitation, education. Around 206,536 people, from which 44% women, have received food security-related assistance: they were supported in the creation of income-generating activities enabling them to raise their household livelihood and support their family needs.

In the area of migration management, information campaigns on migration and risks linked to irregular migration have reached at least 174,000* migrants or potential migrants. More than 26,700 migrants have benefitted from voluntary return and nearly 27,800** have benefitted from post arrival and reintegration assistance. Together, Nigeria and Mali account for 78% of reintegration assistance beneficiaries. Niger is the Sahel and Lake Chad country from where most voluntary returns have been observed, reaching 90% of the total figure.

Significant figures are also observed under governance and conflict-prevention activities. While 499,000 people have participated in conflict prevention and peace building activities, more than 130,500 staff from governmental institutions, internal security forces and relevant non-state actors have been trained on security, border management, countering violent extremism, conflict prevention, protection of civilian populations and human rights. One of the main country beneficiaries of these trainings has been Niger, with 395,415 people participating in awareness raising activities related to conflict prevention and peace building. The number of institutions and non-state actors benefiting from similar trainings in the region reaches 1,429.

As the Sahel and Lake Chad regions faces a number of pressing challenges such as extreme poverty, frequent food and nutrition crises, conflict, irregular migration and related crimes such as human trafficking and migrant smuggling, the EUTF team is striving to timely deliver quality results on the ground, answering the needs of the population in the most remote and neglected areas of the 12 countries covered by the EUTF in the Sahel and Lake Chad.

*This figure represents only partially the total number of beneficiaries for EUTF common output indicator 3.3 until 31 December 2018 and will evolve in upcoming reports.
**This figure only reflects the results gathered in 7/12 countries up to 12/2018. A more comprehensive overview should be available in the next MLS report.

To know more: MLS report and executive summary are available