As the program builds infrastructure requested by the residents themselves, it also boosts cultural, educational and economic opportunities for local youth and women.
 
To assist the residents of Sédhiou, in 2006 the development arm of the Italian Foreign Ministry (Cooperazione Italiana alla Sviluppo) and Senegal’s Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Water and Food Security (MAHRSA) joined forces to create a local development fund – Fonds de Développement Local de Sédhiou, or FDLS.  The Government of Senegal asked UNOPS to administer the fund and provide quality control.
 
With some $3 million from the Government of Italy the three-year effort is combating poverty by improving agricultural production and commercialization, encouraging sustainable use of natural resources, and promoting communal and private access to basic services such as education, water, and healthcare.
 
During the first phase of its work the FDLDS has funded 94 ‘micro-projects’ in Sédhiou, distributed among three towns and 20 rural communities.  These micro-projects range in cost between $10,000 and $25,000, of which the recipients pledge to fund 10%.  Community interest in the effort has far exceeded expectations, and improvement in the quality-of-life of the rural poor brought about by these micro-projects has been confirmed by community leaders and representatives of civil society organizations.  
 
"Local steering committee management of the project has been highly effective," said Marco Platzer, Director of the Development Cooperation Office of the Italian Embassy in Dakar.  "And thanks to timely, efficient administration by UNOPS, active participation of local government service-providers and beneficiaries, and appropriate technical and logistic assistance from Cooperazione Italiana, by the end of 2008 more than 90% of the micro-projects had been completed, and popular demand has prompted an official request for a second phase of the project."
 
Selected through a participatory process involving all segments of the community – a process that builds local confidence as much as it ensures local support – these projects are boosting agricultural production, increasing incomes, upgrading essential services, and addressing the needs of youth and women. 
 
The specific uses of the grants vary according to the priorities of each community.  Some have chosen to renovate their bazaars or fish markets.  Others have asked for new chicken coops and grain mills.  The FDLDS has helped construct and refurbish primary schools, moving students out of straw classrooms and into simple but modern concrete school buildings.  It has built modest guesthouses to promote local tourism.  Grants have rehabilitated town drainage systems, graded rural roads, helped dig village wells and re-equipped pump houses on banana plantations.
 
A primary FDLDS goal has been to address the needs of women in particular.  In several communities the fund has built and equipped multipurpose centers to train local women as artisans and promote their social awareness.  Since Spring of 2008 micro-grants have been used to fence off and irrigate communal gardens for the cultivation of cash crops exclusively by village women.  These typically involve up to 150 women per market garden, each of whom gets a share of furrows to cultivate.  They can produce some 150 kilograms of carrots, haricots, lettuce, onions, and cabbages over three seasons annually to supplement their household incomes.