Centre d'Appui au Développement Intégral/Mbankana (CADIM)

The Centre d'Appui au Développement Intégral/Mbankana, or CADIM for short, is an NGO incorporated under Congolese law, whose main activities are aimed at improving farming systems with a view to food security and reducing poverty through education and awareness-raising.

CADIM was set up in 1996 at the end of the Hanns Seidel Foundation's Kinshasa farmers' settlement project (1981-1995).

Its core competencies are training, extension and research and development. The technical and methodological training activities that CADIM organises, which are generally of short duration, are aimed at family farmers and farmers' associations, with the aim of supporting the emergence of rural entrepreneurship and the sedentarisation of agriculture. It also targets government and civil society players.

CADIM's activities to intensify production and diversify resources on the Bateke plateau include:

• Introduction and dissemination of an agrarian system dominated by manioc/cowpea/acacia and manioc/corn/acacia. A combined cropping practice in an agroforestry system for soil fertility management using a participatory approach,
• Introduction of bovine traction into the farming system,
• Multiplication and dissemination of improved varieties of cassava cuttings and seed legumes.
• Management of germplasm (programme carried out under the auspices of the French Ministry of Agriculture).

Focus Area(s) of Work

CADIM has implemented various initiatives on agroforestry, integrated water resource management, agriculture, food production, and road saftey, among other topics.

Since 2002, CADIM Mbankana has been one of the first experimental sites in the DRC to use the farmer field school approach, funded by the European Union and the FAO.

Method(s) USed to Achieve Objectives

• Capacity building;
• Awareness raising.

Project(s)

• Youth Entrepreneurship in Agriculture and Agri-Business Project (Projet d’Entreprenariat des Jeunes dans l’Agriculture et l’Agro-Business)
• Agricultural project, multiplication of cuttings of improved varieties (Projet Agricole, multiplication des boutures des variétés améliorées)

Project Partner(s)

• Ministère de l’Agriculture/Banque Africaine de Développement
• Hanns Seidel Foundation DRC

Funding

Banque Mondiale; Banque Africaine de développement (BAD); Ministère de l’Environnement, Agriculture, Développement rural/ RD Congo; Fondation Hans Seidel FHS/RD Congo; Programme d’Investissement Forestier/RD Congo.