Sustainability Report <SR> 2020

Siguiri cashew project: creating sustainable livelihoods

After extensive consultation with the community of Siguiri to address high levels of unemployment and looking at what was available as a source of income for the community, a decision was made to construct a semi-mechanised cashew processing plant. The plant will generate approximately 570 permanent jobs and over 2,000 jobs for seasonal farmers.

While this project is aimed at creating sustainable economic livelihoods for Siguiri communities, it will also form part of the mine’s closure plan and rehabilitation programme by planting productive trees on waste-dumps for restoration purposes.

The project will be implemented by the mine over a period of five years from 2020 to 2024. In November 2019, Siguiri signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the USAID for organisation and development of local farmers to the value of $3 million. Following the sign-off of the partnership agreement, the cashew plant project was successfully launched during the second quarter of 2020 and ACDIVOCA was appointed as the partner responsible for farm organisation and development of local farmers.

ACDIVOCA subsequently conducted baseline studies to analyse gender and youth involvement in agricultural activities in Boure communities and in 10 sub-prefectures of Siguiri. Four groups were selected and started with the production of cashew nurseries and have since planted over 36,000 trees. The project attracted more than 2,000 farmers and currently employs 50 community members. 133 farmers, including 21 women and 47 young people, have received project management training and over 8,700 cashew trees have since been sold to producer organisations.