Component 1 of the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FRSP), under the coordination of AGRHYMET CCR-AOS/CILSS, organised two regional technical meetings from 1 to 6 July 2024 in Accra (Ghana), with the French-speaking and English-speaking beneficiary countries : Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Chad, Togo, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Around fifty people took part in these two meetings.
The two regional meetings reviewed the implementation of component 1 of the FSRP, which concerns digital advisory services for the prevention and management of agricultural and food crises. At the official ceremonies of these meetings, the Head of the "Climate, Water and Weather" department of AGRHYMET CCR-AOS emphasised the importance of these frameworks, which provide an opportunity to meet both the PRSP coordinators (regional and national) and, above all, the technical services responsible for implementing the project. "These meetings will enable the PRSP coordinations to better understand the needs of the technical services and to take them into account in their planning", said Dr Abdou Ali. The host country's PRSP National Coordinator, Osei Owusu Agyeman, stressed the need for all stakeholders to work together: "We must all join forces to combat food insecurity. This is why we have come together".
Through plenary sessions and group discussions, these meetings enabled countries to share their experiences. It emerged from the presentations that some successes have been achieved, but that there are still challenges to be met. The discussions also provided an opportunity to learn more about the activities of AGRHYMET CCR-AOS through the presentation of the "Guide to services" brochure by the Coordinator, Dr Agali Alhassane. The discussions provided a common understanding of the programme's monitoring and evaluation indicators.
In addition, the FSRP Component 1 mission team collected the institutional needs of participants by country. These needs focused mainly on tailor-made or long-term technical training courses on the themes covered by the AGRHYMET CCR-AOS/CILSS offers. Before the end of each meeting, participants made a number of recommendations. One of these, addressed to AGRHYMET CCR-AOS, concerned the regular organisation of regional technical meetings with the beneficiary countries.
