RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES

Guinea
Full reports available from www.actionagainsthunger.org.uk January 2012

KEY MESSAGES
I Rural-urban linkages in Guinea are surprisingly strong even among poor households. Development planners must analyse urban and rural contexts as one unified economic sphere. I Rural-urban linkages are characterized by pronounced seasonality. Urban migrants send cash to rural relatives in the hunger season, and rural producers send food immediately post-harvest, as expected, but there are important exceptions to the rule. I Food insecurity persists even among households with strong rural-urban linkages. Both rural and urban households exercised a wide range of potentially harmful coping strategies. I Without stable underlying livelihood systems, strong linkages may only succeed in redistributing poverty. Strengthening livelihoods is an important complement to leveraging linkages for sustained food security. I Understanding that migration is not only driven by economic distress but also by intangible factors like the lure of the city for young people, is important in order to design interventions that work with the priorities and decisions of the poor, instead of trying to change them. I Key interventions for leveraging rural-urban linkages to improve food security include: providing information and skill training to new migrants; increasing the value and utility of transfers by taking advantage of the seasonal pattern of linkages; making flows of cash, food, and goods more efficient by decreasing the cost and providing secure means of transport.

Action Against Hunger | ACF International is an international humanitarian organisation committed to ending child hunger. Recognised as a leader in the fight against malnutrition, ACF works to save the lives of malnourished children while providing communities with sustainable access to safe water and long-term solutions to hunger. With 30 years of expertise in emergency situations of conflict, natural disaster and chronic food insecurity, ACF runs life-saving programmes in some 40 countries benefitting nearly 5 million people each year.

Action Against Hunger

www.actionagainsthunger.org.uk

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

The Republic of Guinea, a nation of over ten million people on the West African coast, is blessed with abundant natural resources. A long history of political and economic instability, however, has left parts of the country food-insecure. The aftereffects of conflicts in the neighboring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Cte dIvoire, as well as Guineas ongoing own internal struggles to establish democracy, have complicated policy efforts to maintain steady economic growth and create a strong social safety net. Both poverty and severe poverty (the percentage of people living under $2/day and $1.25/day, respectively) appear to be increasing over the past decade; in 2007, nearly 70% of the population was classified as poor. According to the United Nations Human Development Index, which combines indicators of education, life expectancy, and income into a composite index of well-being, Guinea ranks 178th out of 187 countries. More than two out of every five preschool children in Guinea are chronically undernourished.

FIGURE 2: MAP OF ACF ACTIVITIES

Legend
Research Location ACF Areas of Operations

Shiguin

Conakry Kissidougou

Kindia Conakry
Nzrkor

ACF has been working in Guinea since 1995 in Guinea Forestiere, the south eastern provinces of the country, implementing an integrated food security, nutrition and WaSH program. In 2007, ACF became operational in Conakry implementing nutrition and food security activities alongside a cholera prevention program.

FIGURE 1: CHRONIC UNDERNUTRITION IN GUINEA

50 45 40 35

Although undernutrition is widespread throughout the country, the situation is generally worse in rural areas, as figure 1 shows. The stunting rate the percentage of children whose height is well below what would be expected given their age has remained about one-third higher in rural Guinea, and the gap has narrowed only slightly in recent years. Furthermore, undernutrition is worsening in both the city and country. For decades, Guineas capital city of Conakry has been a magnet for rural people seeking a better life. Over one-fifth of the countrys population now lives there. Rarely, however, do entire families leave together for the city. Instead, certain members migrate to find work while others stay behind to cultivate farmland, keep livestock, and seek other opportunities in the rural economy or simply because they are constrained from moving by age or physical infirmity. However, the divided families often maintain strong links, exchanging cash, food, consumer goods, and

Percentage of Children Stunted

30 25 20 15 10 5 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 0 Rural Urban 2007 2008

Data from nationally representative surveys included in the World Health Organizations Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition.

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FIGURE 3: FLOWS OF CASH AND GOODS BETWEEN HHs

100

% of HHs sending or receiving in the past year

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
TYPE

3 Focus group discussions with selected subgroups of urban migrants and rural households who had sent migrants, including mothers of young children. Interviews with community key informants, NGO officers, and government officials on topics of particular interest were also conducted. The following pages look at the type of linkages that exist, how linkages affect livelihoods and poor households ability to cope in times of food insecurity, and the implications of these findings for organizations and policymakers fighting hunger and undernutrition in Guinea.

TYPES OF URBAN-RURAL LINKAGES

62.8 76.7 20.9 34.9 24.3 46.5

information. Many migrants return during the planting and harvest seasons to help on the farms, and rural households continue to send other family members to their urban relatives to seek schooling or employment. In this briefing paper, we present the results of a recent ACF study conducted in October 2011, during the early harvest season, on the relationship between these urban-rural linkages and household food security in Guinea. The methodology included three components: 1 A quantitative survey about the strength and types of rural-urban linkages with 86 households, 39 in neighborhoods around Conakry and 47 in the rural areas surrounding the smaller urban center of Kindia; 2 Participatory livelihoods profiling in both areas with members of various wealth groups;

Several forms of linkages between migrants and rural households are important in Guinea. Flows of cash and goods are especially dense, as the graph above shows. Out of 86 households interviewed, more than three-quarters reported sending food to or receiving significant quantities of food from their relatives in the past year. Although the majority of food transfer volume was in the rural to urban direction and as expected, mostly in the weeks immediately following the harvest season an equal number of urban migrants sent food as received it. This was largely due to the fact that rice and other grains are cheaper in Conakry during the saison de soudure (hunger season), the months preceding the new harvest when last years food stocks have begun to run out. Most of the migrants food shipments were sent during this time to cover their rural relatives shortfall. Cash flows are also important, with nearly two-thirds of households receiving or giving money in the past year (see box opposite). As in the case of food, the expectation that cash would predominately flow in a single direction in this case, from urban to rural, given the depth of income poverty in the countryside was supported by the research, but again with important qualifications. Those rural households who are economically able to do so send considerable amounts of money to migrant relatives who have

Interviews were conducted in the neighborhoods of Behanzin, Tombolia, and Wanindara in Conakry, and the villages of Sguya, Mamou, and Bamaya near Kindia.

Cash

Food

Inputs

Livestock

Durable Goods

Clothes

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

recently left, as well as those enrolled in school. This latter consideration is important; about half of all rural families reported that their relatives originally left the village to pursue better or higher levels of education, although, sadly, many are forced to drop out because of economic difficulties. In addition to food and cash, family members also send each other agricultural inputs (especially seeds and tools), poultry and small livestock, durable goods like radios and mobile phones, and clothing. Although sent less frequently than food or cash, the value of these transfers can be considerable. Many of these goods are sent as gifts around the time of Ramadan. Less tangible forms of links also persist between urban and rural households. Nearly half of all households surveyed reported visiting their relatives at least four times in the past year. Among urban migrants who still owned land back in their village, half returned home occasionally to help with agricultural activities, especially planting and harvest. Communication between relatives is frequent, with more than three

Conakry two years ago, after I came to died in the village. My father my mother and I were very poor; we had a few hectares of land, but little money to make it productive. I came to the city because I thought if I could get a few more years of school, I would be able to find a job and help my father back home. But life here in Conakry became very tough; there are few jobs available, and I had nowhere to turn. I had to drop out of school to try and find work sometimes Im able to send a few kilograms of peanuts, or seeds for planting, back to my father, but never cash. In fact, he had to send me a little money this year to help me.

23 year-old focus group discussion participant, Wanindara neighborhood, Conakry

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FIGURE 4: COPING STRATEGIES IN THE PAST MONTH

Urban

Rural

Go entire days without eating

Reduce the number of meals eaten in a day

Limit adult food consumption to let children eat

Reduce food portion size to save supplies

Buy food on credit

Borrow food or borrow money to buy food

Forced to eat less preferred foods

20

40

60

80

100

% of HHs doing this at least 3 times/week

out of five families contacting relatives at least once a week by telephone or text message. The majority of households reported frequently sending messages using more informal means, often through word of mouth, transmitted by other people traveling between the city and countryside. These same people often serve as couriers for cash and goods as well. The overall picture is thus one of surprisingly strong linkages between urban migrants and their rural relatives, especially given the prevailing poverty levels in the city and the villages, the insecure means available to send cash and goods, and the costs in time and money of maintaining personal contact. Development interventions are often planned with a view to either the urban or rural economy in isolation, but the two worlds are intimately connected, which

may offer opportunities for planners and policymakers to leverage interventions implemented in one context to produce results in the other.

LIVELIHOODS, LINKAGES, AND THE ABILITY TO COPE

The previous section suggested that strong rural-urban linkages could help protect families during times of stress. Yet the nearly one hundred low-income households with strong linkages interviewed for this study still faced serious difficulties in coping with both one-off shocks and chronic food insecurity. Figure 4 above shows the percentage of rural and urban families surveyed that were forced to exercise a range of potentially harmful coping strategies at least three times a week over the past month in order to meet their basic needs.

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

FIGURE 5: SEASONAL CALENDAR: CONAKRY

Not much work available for men Feb-Apr, search for casual jobs, use reserves and try to save for rainy season RAINY SEASON

Marketing increases around the time of Ramadan; women become involved in sales of clothes and durable goods

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

Some temporary work for men available as a mechanic, driver, or in construction; women market fish (year-round)

Women market peanuts, manioc, vegetables in May-Jul; fruits, sugar, rice and other grains are added in Aug-Dec; men work small garden plots

Diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, typhoid, and dysentry all increase greatly in the rainy season, especially among children

Return to the village for the harvest; some work in the city making salt and charcoal

FIGURE 6: HOUSEHOLD SOURCES OF EARNED INCOME

FIGURE 7: HOUSEHOLD ANNUAL EXPENDITURES

11%

39% Petty trade of foodstuffs

1% 6% 5%

36% 11%

13% 37%

Property rentals Non-food petty trade Casual labour

8% 14% 19%

Staple foods Other Entertainment Clothes Household items Education Health Non-staple foods

Interestingly, the results indicate that poor urban households were slightly worse off in the past month than poor rural families. This probably reflects the fact that the time of our survey, October 2011, was during the early part of the harvest season, when food availability in the countryside is better than at other times of the year. However, the percentage of poor

households forced to utilize coping strategies is high in both Conakry and in rural areas. This harmful coping behavior occurs despite the fact that all of the households in the sample maintained strong rural-urban linkages. So why are strong linkages unable to mitigate food insecurity to an adequate

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staples like rice and manioc. This high percentage suggests that little income is available for capital investments (e.g. property, machinery, education, land) or as a buffer against potential shocks. An additional one-fifth of income is spent on health care, mostly curative care during the rainy reason for diarrheal diseases, malaria, acute respiratory infections, and other serious illnesses. This latter point is very important. Based on our discussions with mothers of young children, health care is a constant source of worry for families. Chronic illness appears to be an important cause of poor child nutritional status, resulting largely from unsafe water and sanitation systems, weak access to preventative health services, and suboptimal hygiene practices. In fact, mothers expressed a much greater preoccupation with the ability of their children to stay healthy enough to have an appetite and not lose what they have eaten to diarrheal diseases than the households ability to obtain enough food for the children. While most households affirm that the access to and quality of health care in the city is better than in the village, high costs not only the price of medical care but also the time costs involved in seeking, waiting for, and receiving attention prevents many mothers from seeking treatment for their children. Social networks are markedly different, in both negative and positive ways, in the city than in the countryside. Our interviewees lamented the breakdown of traditional support networks in the city, where extended families are not present and neighbors are less likely to be close relations or friends. However, in one sense the city does offer a stronger type of safety net. According to our informants nearly every family in the village is likely to be affected in times of economic crisis, and thus the destitute have no immediate source of emergency support. In contrast, shocks are less likely to have such a uniform impact on city neighborhoods; there will remain some households that are able to support their neighbors in extremely dire circumstances.

extent? The answer is found in the fragility of livelihoods and health systems in both urban and rural areas. The figures opposite illustrate the activities of poor households in Conakry over the course of a typical year, as well as their income and expenditure patterns. As the calendar shows, families are engaged in diverse livelihoods, but nearly all of them are extremely unstable. The first pie chart opposite shows that close to 90% of earned income is derived from either petty trade, mostly of agricultural products, or casual labor. The small percentage obtained from property rentals refers to small plots of land or rooms in houses rented out on a temporary basis. Figure 7 opposite also hints at the vulnerability of urban livelihoods. The households we interviewed spent nearly half of their income on foods, mostly on

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

FIGURE 8: SEASONAL CALENDAR: RURAL AREAS SURROUNDING KINDIA

Preparation of fields for planting: cleaning, plowing. Prepare seedlings for transplanting. Find livestock who have been allowed to free graze for pasture and water in non-growing season

Weeding and pest control in fields. By late August, first harvest begins Chinese short season rice, millet, vegetables. Continues into Sep and Oct

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

RAINY SEASON Harvest of rice, millet, sorghum (major grains) Planting of manioc, millet, maize, sorghum, okra and other crops. Construction of barriers to keep livestock from fields As in the city, diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, typhoid and dysentry all increase greatly in the rainy season, especially among children Harvest begins; first peanuts, then traditional long-season rice in Dec

FIGURE 9: HOUSEHOLD SOURCES OF EARNED INCOME

FIGURE 10: HOUSEHOLD SOURCES OF FOOD

1% 3% 9% 19% 68% Agricultural product sales Other Casual labour Livestock product sales Petty trade 20%

2% 10%

1% Own crops Market Other Food aid Own livestock products Wild foods Food for work

32%

8%

27%

Livelihoods in rural areas are as tenuous as those in the city. As the seasonal calendar above indicates, there is generally one long growing season in the rural areas around Kindia, and so a single pest or disease outbreak or a prolonged dry period at the wrong time in the growing cycle can have devastating effects on year-round food security. The families in this agro-ecological zone are heavily dependent on rice. The traditional variety of rice has a long growing

season, with the harvest not beginning until December. To shorten the hunger season, families plant other grains as well as a short-season variety of rice (Chinese rice), which can be harvested as early as the end of August. However, this improved variety is heavily dependent on fertilizer and water inputs. As a result, many families borrow during the growing season to buy inputs and assure a viable harvest of Chinese rice, increasing the risk of debt should the crop fail. It is

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

My children are always sick. The worst illness is malaria; it strikes us almost the entire year-round. And often when the children get malaria or fevers, they also get other sicknesses, especially diarrhea. When a child is severely ill, we travel to the hospital in Kindia, but even there resources are limited; the doctor tries his best but sometimes the medicines dont work. And even if they do work, we cant stay in Kindia for long, we have to return to the village, and when we come back the children often fall ill again.

countryside around Kindia, and provide a variety of foods, medicines, and building materials. The health situation in the villages is even more distressing than in the city. The mothers of young children with whom we spoke told us of the ubiquity of diarrheal diseases, malaria, and respiratory infections, particularly in the rainy season (see box). Health facilities are difficult to access, with the nearest hospital in the urban center of Kindia, a half-days journey for many villages. The lack of health system presence is reflected in mothers lack of knowledge about optimal breastfeeding and hygiene practices, which contributes to the higher rate of child morbidity in the countryside, and likely has longer-term effects on child growth. The overall message of the preceding section is that livelihoods in urban and rural Guinea are fraught with a range of vulnerabilities. We now are able to theorize why strong rural-urban linkages are failing to mitigate food insecurity to a greater extent: because livelihoods are weak, strong linkages in Guinea have the effect of redistributing poverty across the urban-rural divide and across the seasons. For example, the significant cash flow from urban migrants in Conakry to their rural relatives is not drawn from savings or surplus income. Rather, sending cash even while lessening the hunger of rural families reduces the ability of the urban migrant to invest in building capital stocks to an extent that would prevent an escape from their own food insecurity and poverty. Importantly, this pattern of reduced investment applies also to the migrants human capital: that is, their health and knowledge, which could be improved by seeking medical care and educational services. Similarly, rural families may send their food surpluses to urban relatives following the harvest, but this comes at the cost of reducing their own marketable surplus, and thus their ability to consume and invest in, among other forms of capital, their agricultural system and the human capital of their families.

25 year-old mother of two young children, Bamaya village

worth noting that nearly all of our informants stated that obtaining capital in order to increase input intensity is a greater constraint to agricultural productivity in this area than the availability of land, which suggests agricultural livelihoods are indeed a viable means to poverty reduction in this area (although, as discussed in the final section, more intangible constraints to pursuing farm-based development may exist). As figure 9 opposite shows, for poor families nearly 70% of earned income in rural areas is derived from crop sales, again illustrating the potentially severe impact crop failure can have on food security in this area. Households supplement this income by selling firewood, charcoal, and livestock products when possible, as well as seeking out daily labor opportunities. Figure 10 illustrates that much of the harvest is sold in order to purchase a more diverse range of foods from the market. In fact, more food obtained from the market than from the crop harvest itself. Wild foods are a surprisingly important source of food as well; patches of managed forest dot the

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RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

The overall point is that, among the households in Guinea we studied, livelihoods are too fragile to allow strong rural-urban linkages to create a safety net robust enough to adequately protect food security. Instead, rural-urban linkages are better described as an intra-family attempt to attain a more equitable distribution of poverty, and to prevent either the urban or rural sides of the household from enduring truly catastrophic levels of hunger and undernutrition. This latter point is important: links remain critically important for both urban and rural households. Redistributing income, food, and assets in crisis periods can mean the difference between a merely bad year and the kind of livelihood- and health-destroying asset erosion whose consequences will be felt for years to come. Among the group of urban migrants with strong rural links interviewed in this research, around 10-15% of total food consumed during the year came from their rural relatives. A similar percentage of total cash obtained by rural households was received from their urban family members. These links are thus a more important source of cash and food than assistance from the public sector or non-governmental organizations.

upon arriving in Conakry; the reality, as the testimony in the box shows, is quite different. Many parents, meanwhile, send their teenage children to study in the city, but lacking a steady source of income, many are forced to drop out. As straightforward as these varied motivations are, many development organizations design their strategies under the assumption that successful rural economic development which in practice usually means interventions to increase agricultural productivity can stem the tide of migration. A more effective approach may be to accept the reality that migration is an inexorable trend, driven as much by dreams as by poverty, and instead provide services for migrants and their families to ease the difficult transition.

IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVING FOOD SECURITY IN GUINEA

What are the implications of these conclusions for development organizations and policymakers fighting hunger and undernutrition in Guinea? First, it is critical to understand that there is a multiplicity of motives driving rural to urban migration. Economic hardship is of course a powerful driving force, but there are other important, less easily quantified factors underlying the decision to move to the city. Many of the young people we interviewed in the villages dream of leaving the manual labor of the farm. They are captivated by the idea of the city as a glamorous, exciting place filled with opportunity. Nearly every young man who talked to us thought they would find work as a driver or a mechanic immediately

My sons left for the city, each dreaming that they would quickly find a trade as a mechanic, as a driver, maybe construction. But they couldnt find anythingnow some of them want to return, but they dont have the means to do so. They have debts in the city and have to keep trying there.

Mother of migrants, village of Sguya

Migrants arrive in the city filled with unrealistic strategies for finding employment and without contingency plans. They are able to stay with relatives and friends for a short time, but these connections cannot support them indefinitely. Eventually, their lack of a strong social network makes weathering the transition into city life difficult. The result can be slow descent into food insecurity. NGOs could productively assist migrants by offering services to help integrate and protect, interventions such as: Job search and city economy mapping resources

RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

11

to help the migrant understand what employment opportunities are available in various sectors of the urban economy, and which livelihoods are likely to be fragile and which more robust in times of shock; Employment training that provides new migrants, who often arrive with little vocational knowledge, with skills that allow them to be competitive applicants in growing sectors of the urban economy; Cash transfers, perhaps conditional on school attendance, to prevent student migrants from dropping out of school. These types of interventions would not only help to prevent food insecurity and undernutrition among one of the most vulnerable population groups in Conakry, but, by strengthening urban livelihoods, provide the future means for migrants to assist their rural relatives without damaging their own ability to accumulate capital stocks. Even if development professionals are ideologically opposed to rural-urban migration as many government officials and NGO workers we talked to in Guinea are, due to a fear of rural decline and urban overpopulation there are still strategies available to ease the difficulties potential migrants face. For example, this research found that one-time severe shocks, in particular the death of a male breadwinner, are a major cause of migration. Lacking options, widows take the great risk of moving with their children to the city, hoping to find some form of work. Thus NGOs seeking to address the needs of exactly those who would otherwise become the migrants at greatest risk of food insecurity and undernutrition in the city could pre-emptively target households headed by young females in food-insecure villages for safety net interventions. Another major implication of this research is that seasonality strongly affects rural-urban linkages, and development organizations can leverage this fact to more effectively address food insecurity and undernutrition. For example, urban migrants send cash to rural relatives as cash becomes available. However,

Life in the village was filled with poverty, yes, but not absolute misery. I left also because I was pulled by the city, I was curious about what I could achieve here, what a better life might look like. We Guineans, we feed ourselves on hope (Les Guineeans se nourrit de lespoir).

Focus group discussion participant, Behanzin neighborhood, Conakry

the time of greatest need for farm households is clear: from the mid-to-late rainy season, when food stocks are running low, illnesses are rampant, and few sources of income exist. One idea to better utilize migrant resources, for example, would be to set up a remittance savings account into which migrants could deposit money at any point in the year. This account could be left to gather interest until a pre-chosen time in the hunger season, when it would be sent to rural relatives. Such a strategy would both ease pressure on migrants to find adequate amounts of cash at a specific time of year, and add value (in the form of interest) to a scarce resource. The problem for rural households wishing to support urban migrants is exactly the opposite as that noted in the previous paragraph: the main aid resource, food in kind, is available at a single point in time (after harvest), but the need extends throughout the year. In addition, the post-harvest season is when food prices are in fact lowest for urban residents as well, so the resource is being provided at the time when its value is most diminished. There are several ways that NGOs could amplify the worth of the resource. One would be to construct storage facilities so that the harvest could be sold later in the season when prices are higher. Another is to facilitate the creation of a community food bank to which families could sell

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RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN GUINEA

at a price level between that prevailing at harvest time and that at hunger season time; the cash value of the food sold could then be transferred by the NGO to urban migrant relatives, thus saving also on transport costs. Setting the price level as noted above would not only increase the cash value of the food sold for the individual household, but also make a cheaper-than-market source of food available for the community during the hunger season, provided the selling price is similar to the purchase price (if the NGO is willing to subsidize storage costs). Yet another idea is to create a voucher system between urban and rural traders whereby city residents could obtain food throughout the year at a given urban outlet up to the value sold by farm families to a partner rural outlet; this latter option would save both transport and storage costs for the household. Other projects like facilitating the set-up of a secure and efficient cash and food transfer system between food-insecure villages and migrant city neighborhoods would be even simpler and more straightforward to implement. Overall, this research affirms the importance of analyzing urban and rural economies as a unified whole. Policymakers and development organizations can usefully leverage existing rural-urban linkages to fight hunger and undernutrition in Guinea, but must keep the prevailing constraints in mind. Most importantly, strong linkages without strong underlying livelihood systems will only result in a more equal distribution of poverty which is perhaps more desirable than a catastrophic poverty on one side or the other, but certainly less than what could potentially be achieved by leveraging linkages through carefully planned interventions. Along with constraints, however, come opportunities. By understanding the motivations behind migration, as well as the importance of seasonality in shaping the relationship between urban migrants and their rural relatives, development professionals can design interventions like those suggested in the preceding paragraphs to bolster the efforts of family members to support each other.

Finally, we note that rural-urban linkages are an attempt by households to create their own safety net. By helping to improve this safety net, NGOs and other concerned groups affirm their commitment to a truly participatory development, a process in which the shape of policies and programs is determined not by ideas from above, but by the poor themselves.

By Bapu Vaitla