The project, designed for the residents of the rural towns near the M’Boundi, Kouakouala, Zingali and Loufika oilfields, includes several infrastructural interventions, such as the creation and renovation of schools, healthcare facilities, drinking water wells and the CATREP (Centre d’Appui Technique et des Ressources Professionnelles), a professional training centre for farmers. The project was structured in four phases:
- Phase 1: from 2012 to 2016
- Phase 2: from 2017 to 2021
- Transitory maintenance phase: 2022
- Phase 3: after 2023
In the first phase, we built and renovated infrastructures and activated local basic services to provide medical care, primary education and courses. In the second phase, we involved local associations, groups, authorities and institutions involved in local development, to enhance young entrepreneurship and start-ups, and strengthen the community’s management skills. Moreover, we launched awareness-raising, and health, environmental and pedagogical education campaigns. For instance, in December 2020, we opened three new drinking water wells in Tchitondi, Dionga and Bondi. With them, the number of drinking water wells powered by photovoltaic energy rises to 31, for the benefit of approximately 20 thousand people. The tanks have a capacity between 10 and 12 cubic meters, and they are equipped with 1250, 1980 and 3500 W pumps. To this day, 22 public facilities that had no access to water are connected to these wells. The CATREP project started in 2012, with the construction and renovation of farming and husbandry infrastructures. In 2017, we started organic farming activities, farm animal husbandry (poultry, goats, sheep and pigs) and provided technical support. In 2021, the activities of the second phase of the Hinda Integrated Project and the CATREP program continued, by applying innovative agronomic techniques to support the agri-biofeedstock Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2021. In 2021, within Eni Congo’s biofuel project, we started castor oil cultivation tests, which produced considerable results.
In the coming years, CATREP will sign Memorandums of Understanding with agricultural high schools in many parts of the Country, with the aim of welcoming students from different regions. Eni Congo wishes to support this vision, by building student hostels.
Lastly, in October 2022, during the official ceremony when the first stone was symbolically laid down to celebrate the beginning of the works, we began renovating the CATREP, the 11 schools (primary schools, preschools and school cafeterias) and the 12 healthcare centres, and we delivered two farming machines to help operators in the field.
