More than 150 participants from West African states and their partners took part in the first General Assembly (GA) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Rice Observatory, held on 21 and 22 May 2024 in Abuja, Nigeria. During two (02) days of discussions, the GA took stock of the activities carried out and approved a roadmap to accelerate the growth of the rice sector in West Africa.

Established in 2021 to operationalise the ECOWAS Rice Offensive, the ECOWAS Rice Observatory (ERO) coordinates rice sector-related programmes, public/private investments and follow-up policy recommendations for key decision-makers. The main objective of Rice Offensive is to help West Africa achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2030 through profitable, resilient and environmentally sustainable agricultural enterprises that contribute to rural economic growth, poverty reduction and equity for women.

After two (02) years of intense work in the countries and at the regional level, the ERO presented the main achievements and the strategy documents to be approved to its main stakeholders, which are farmers' organisations, processors and millers, traders and distributors, input suppliers, research institutes, government agencies and ministries, development organisations and NGOs, financial institutions, ERO national sections and members of the rice working groups of the ECOWAS Member States.

Discussions focused on the situation of the rice sector in each country, the main initiatives underway to develop the rice value chain, the policy measures adopted in this area, and recommendations for regional action in support of Member States.

At the end of the discussions, the General Assembly approved the regional roadmap for the development of the rice sector in West Africa, while calling for it to be aligned with the national rice development strategies of the countries concerned, taking into account their respective priorities.

The West African sub-region produces around 17 million tonnes of milled rice a year. According to the FAO (2023), per capita rice consumption in West Africa is one of the highest in the world, ranging from 100 to 200 kilograms per person per year, depending on the country. In view of this importance, and to ensure sustainable self-sufficiency in rice production, the GA recommended strengthening and involving the private sector, with a synergy of actions between agri-dealers and input distributors in the countries, as well as the involvement of national and regional banking institutions.

On the sidelines of the GA, the conclusions and recommendations of the ERO's first GA were examined by the Board of Directors, which met on 23 May 2024 to draw up an action plan for their implementation. The Board, chaired by Mr Alain SY TRAORE, ECOWAS Director of Agriculture and Rural Development, includes representatives of scientific partners, development partners, the private sector and countries.

The holding of the first ERO GA is an important milestone in the implementation of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive, which is itself a major framework for the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP).

"Communication is essential to contribute to the mainstreaming of gender in activities at regional and country level" is one of the main conclusions of Dr Mariame MAIGA, Regional Gender and Social Development Adviser at CORAF and the PRSF, who led the webinar on gender-sensitive communication held on 18 January 2024.

The West African Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP), whose development objective is to increase preparedness against food insecurity and improve the resilience of food systems in participating countries, has made gender a major focus.

With this in mind, all activities carried out both in-country and at regional level must be gender- and youth-sensitive, addressing and responding to the specific needs of disadvantaged groups such as women and young people, as well as other vulnerable groups such as people living with disabilities, widows, orphans, the elderly, climate refugees, and so on.

The FSRP aims to enable vulnerable groups to benefit from the potential of agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries value chains as a way of escaping poverty and meeting food needs in the face of climate change.

To achieve this, all FSRP stakeholders are currently being trained in the approaches and mechanisms for taking gender into account in activities.

Some fifteen communications specialists from countries and regional organisations gained a better understanding of the importance of gender-sensitive communications. They were provided with practical tools for integrating a gender perspective into communication plans and activities, while being encouraged to create inclusive and egalitarian messages to promote the FSRP's gender-sensitive branding in the programme's regional institutions and implementing countries.

Using very specific examples and real-life situations, Dr Mariame MAIGA and Ms Adèle KOUASSI, a journalist specialising in gender issues in rural Côte d'Ivoire, began by identifying the obstacles, stigmas and challenges faced by vulnerable people in society and in rural areas.

Above all, the trainers shared concrete examples and cases that advertising and social communications activities help to disseminate, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The Webinar also focused on the mechanisms and approaches for taking gender into account in communication activities, summarised in 6 stages: (i) collecting field data, (ii) formulating the objective of the activity, (iii) identifying target audiences, (iv) choosing the means of communication, (v) developing the message, (vi) planning and budgeting.

In view of the interest shown by participants in this subject and to enable them to carry out practical work, another face-to-face training session is planned for this year.

The Regional Coordination of the PRSF held a working session with a team from the Permanent Secretariat of the West African Association for the Cross-Border Trade of Agro-Sylvo-pastoral and Halieutic Food Products (AOCTAH/WACTAF) in Lomé on Friday 24 November 2023.

Exchanges on the collection of data on trade in agricultural products at border level in support of FSRP countries.

West Africa is characterised by a wide diversity of agricultural products, ranging from cereals (such as millet and maize) to food crops (such as cassava) and livestock products. This offers significant potential for intra-regional trade, which is an important aspect of the region's economic development.

It should be noted, however, that some countries in the region face food security challenges, which may limit their ability to participate fully in intra-regional trade. In addition, quality and safety standards for agricultural products vary from one country to another, which can hamper trade by creating technical barriers.

To help improve intra-regional trade in agricultural products in West Africa, ECOWAS is implementing component 3 of the FSRP to develop value chains and strengthen integration between countries in the West African sub-region by removing barriers to trade.

In order to operationalise the activities on the ground, exchanges have been undertaken with organisations with experience of intra-regional trade in agricultural products, including AOCTAH, whose mandate is to promote solidarity in food and nutritional security and trade in the CILSS and ECOWAS areas.

Areas of collaboration will focus on the use of AOCTAH country focal points to support data collection at borders in PRSP beneficiary countries. In-depth discussions will soon take place to make the partnership effective and to work with the countries.

ECOWAS-AOCTAH collaboration will facilitate trade between countries while promoting standards and rules at borders and in countries to facilitate the marketing of agricultural products within and beyond national borders. 

Stakeholders and partners in the West African food system met in Lomé from 14 to 18 November to launch the local storage memento and finalise the charter on the operation of local stocks in West Africa and the multi-stakeholder framework.

This regional meeting was part of the implementation of the ECOWAS regional storage strategy.  The storage of foodstuffs is a very old practice in rural areas to cope with lean periods marked by food shortages and famine, as well as climatic risks. In this storage system, local stocks are of major importance in the various dimensions of food security, and more particularly (i) in preventing and managing cyclical and cyclical food crises (in deficit areas), including pastoral crises (livestock feed), and (ii) in supplying the market and national and regional food security stocks (in surplus areas).

Despite this importance, the stakeholders and partners did not have any reference documents to guide the success of storage activities at local level.

Coordinated by ECOWAS, the stakeholders have joined forces to develop a local storage handbook, a charter of good practice for local storage operators and a multi-stakeholder intervention framework.

The Lomé meeting was therefore an opportunity to bring together the stakeholders in local storage and to submit the documents drawn up to them for validation and dissemination. That is why Alain SY TRAORE, ECOWAS Director of Agriculture and Rural Development, expressed his satisfaction at seeing this process move forward with significant results thanks to the involvement of everyone. In particular, he praised the involvement of producer organisations: "Producer organisations have taken the lead in the process, both at the political level, with the involvement of regional networks, and at the more technical level, with the considerable investment of their storage managers in the production of these reference tools on local storage.

Faced with the multiple shocks facing the region, leading to an impressive increase in the number of vulnerable people unable to cover their basic needs, ECOWAS is counting on the simultaneous deployment of local storage, national stocks and the Regional Food Security Reserve.

The representative of Togo's Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, Colonel AGADAZI Ouro-Koura, welcomed the meeting as a sign of the mobilisation of stakeholders and partners to curb the food crises facing many people in West Africa. In this respect, local storage is a solution to the fight against food insecurity.

At the end of the Lomé meeting, the memento of local storage in West Africa was launched, the charter on the operation of local storage in West Africa was finalised with the involvement of stakeholders, and the process of drawing up a multi-actor intervention framework for local storage was launched.

About Proximity Standards

1. The memento of local storage in West Africa is a reference manual for the region, providing organisations involved in this activity with a clear codification of good practice in all areas relating to their activity, based on their own practical experience. It is written in a language that is easy for organisations to understand, illustrated with simple diagrams, and can be translated into national languages;
2. The charter of best practice for local storage operators is a reference tool produced by capitalising on best practice in the region. It is designed to guide the development of local storage based on accumulated and capitalised knowledge, and to contribute to the gradual structuring of local organisations and their unions, federations and networks. The charter is based on a set of standards that provide minimum guarantees of good management in terms of governance, as well as technical and financial management. The charter concerns all stakeholders involved in the management of food security issues in West Africa. If storage organisations sign up to the charter, it will be easier to mobilise external support and enter into contracts with the two lines of defence.
3. The regional multi-actor intervention framework defines a shared vision of local storage and its place in the overall storage system. It enables national and regional organisations to gain a better understanding of how it works, so that they can fine-tune cooperation arrangements and negotiate contractual relations with public and humanitarian institutions. It takes into account the food-livestock component

On 19 December 2024, in Akparè in the Ogou prefecture, the Governor of the Plateaux region, General Dadja MAGANAWE, on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Village Hydraulics and Rural Development, symbolically handed over market gardening tool kits to market garden producers.

     This symbolic handover marks the start of the distribution of input kits and small agricultural equipment acquired by the FSRP for the benefit of 5,500 market garden producers (including 2,475 women) identified in the country's six agricultural regions. Each producer will receive a kit comprising seeds (onion, tomato and chilli), a sprayer, 2 watering cans, a hoe, a wheelbarrow, biopesticide, biofertiliser, a shovel, a rake, a hoe and a daba. There are also plans to provide motor-driven pumps for the dynamic solidarity groups, to enable them to obtain a better supply of water to meet the needs of their crops.

This action by the FSRP Togo is part of the additional financing of the GAFSP and aims to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable agricultural populations by improving their productivity through the use of quality tools and inputs. In his opening remarks, the FSRP Togo's delegate operational coordinator said: "This support from the FSRP is a strong commitment from the highest authorities to support and strengthen the agricultural sector as a whole, and by extension, to help improve the living conditions of the population. This is therefore the ideal time to encourage you to make good use of this support, which should enable you to be self-sufficient from now on".

The authorities present in turn urged the beneficiaries to make good use of their kits. The handover was followed by a visit to a market garden production site in Nangbéto.

In Togo, agri-food processing is a sector that creates wealth and provides jobs for the population. Soya processing is dominated by small-scale and semi-industrial units, with large-scale units now gradually being installed throughout the country.

However, consumption of local processed products is lower than that of imported products, partly because of the hygienic conditions under which they are produced.

To remedy these weaknesses, the Food System Resilience Programme in West Africa (FSRP TOGO) is supporting the training of 200 soya processors in compliance with food hygiene standards, diversification of the range of processed products and packaging presentation. The aim of the training is to teach women about hygiene, quality, hazard control, packaging and good food processing practices, so that they can offer the public a diverse range of good-quality processed products.

Organised in conjunction with the Conseil Interprofessionnel de la Filière Soja au Togo (CIFS-Togo), this training targeted the family of processors organised within the Association Togolaise des Transformateurs de Soja (ATTS), and provided an opportunity to address issues of standards, hygiene, quality and packaging in order to correct shortcomings and offer the public products manufactured under good hygienic conditions.

As far as the FSRP's objectives are concerned, this training contributes to the adoption of nutrition-sensitive technologies by women processors and, in the short and medium term, helps to increase the proportion of nutrition-sensitive technologies and contributes to the implementation of the Togo 2025 roadmap, which itself aims to promote local processing through its third objective, that of strengthening agri-food processing industries and encouraging high value-added agriculture.

The training took place simultaneously from 30 September to 02 October 2024 in Tsévié, Atakpamé and Kara, and from 03 to 05 October 2024 in Sokodé and Dapaong.

This consultation, organised by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, provided a framework for an institutional and organisational self-diagnosis of existing and emerging cross-border agri-food inter-professional structures in West Africa, incorporating gender issues and environmental and social safeguards.

Some forty representatives of inter-professional agri-food organisations took part in the conference, held from 31 October to 3 November 2023 in Dakar/Senegal, to discuss the promotion of inclusive regional trade in agri-food products generated by local businesses.

Over four days of discussions, the players and partners in the intra-regional agri-food market used the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) and Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Ecological and Legal (PESTEL) tools to identify the current challenges facing inter-professional organisations, which are hampering their operation and impacting on the achievement of their objectives.

The Dakar regional meeting was part of the implementation of the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP), financed by the World Bank and coordinated by ECOWAS, CILSS and CORAF, which is currently benefiting 7 countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo). The ECOWAS Agricultural Trade Programme (EAT) also took part.

In West Africa, agricultural production has increased significantly in recent years, but marketing is still weak.

The representative of the ECOWAS Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Development at the meeting, Dr Bio Soulé GOURA, stressed the importance of agricultural markets in the West African economy: "The market ensures and facilitates access to food by transferring goods, products and services between producers, distributors, manufacturers and consumers. It is therefore the primary guarantor of food and nutritional security for populations".

In fact, in the sub-region, the functioning of the market, in particular trade in foodstuffs, both at national and cross-border level, is important, with enormous potential, but has many imperfections that prevent it from playing its role as guarantor of coordination of the economy, and guarantor of the food and nutritional security of the population.

This is why the results of the Dakar meeting are eagerly awaited, as underlined by the Secretary General of Senegal's Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty, Malick N'DAO. Malick N'DAO, Secretary General of Senegal's Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty. "The results of this consultation will fill a gap and enable countries to strengthen intra-regional trade in our sub-region, especially as official statistics show that trade in agri-food products only represents around 20 to 25% of the value of intra-regional trade, which in turn only represents around 15% at most of the region's overall trade transactions.

The partner actors present drew up priority action plans to strengthen the achievements and correct their weaknesses through key activities to be carried out in the short, medium and long term. The PRSF at regional and country level will take into account a number of activities in its 2024 Work Plan and Budget (WBP) to help strengthen these key partners in order to boost intra-regional trade in West Africa.

The Dakar meeting is therefore a first step towards meeting the many challenges involved in creating a genuine intra-regional market for the benefit of players and partners in the agri-food sector.

As part of its West African Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP), Togo is continuing its efforts to optimise the dissemination of agro-climatic information to agricultural producers. One of the programme's innovative strategies is based on the creation of groups of relay producers responsible for transmitting this information in local languages to farmers within the Zones d'Aménagement Agricole Planifiées (ZAAP) d'excellence.

This initiative, implemented in collaboration with the Institut de Conseil et d'Appui Technique (ICAT) and the Agence Nationale de la Météorologie (ANAMET), is designed to alleviate the constraints on access to information faced by producers, particularly in a context of increasingly pronounced climate change. Through these information relays, producers in the ZAAPs receive key meteorological data, enabling them to adapt their farming practices and thus limit losses linked to climatic hazards.

In Ountivou, in the Ogou region, and in Atifoutou, in the Moyen Mono, the feedback from producers on this initiative is generally positive. The President of ZAAP Katoré 2 said: "Weather information is vital for us producers. With the climate change we are currently experiencing, this information will help us to organise our farming activities better and limit any losses due to the effects of climate change.

This innovative approach by the FSRP has led to the creation of more than 40 sub-committees within the ZAAP management committees at national level, responsible for relaying agro-hydro-meteorological information. Thanks to these joint efforts, Togolese farmers are better equipped to face climatic challenges, thereby ensuring greater resilience in their farming activities.

As part of the implementation of component 3 of the FSRP entitled "integration of regional food markets and trade", an ECOWAS agricultural trade and market scorecard (EATM-Scorecard) has been developed.

The Scorecard is an analysis tool that aims to better document intra-regional trade in agri-food products, identify gaps in agri-food trade policies and strengthen the implementation of regional policies by countries.

To make the Scorecard operational and regularly produce the information needed to monitor performance in the national implementation of regional policies and regulations, training for the focal points of the structures involved in implementing SCORECARD in Togo was organised from 21 to 25 May 2024 at the Woezon Hotel in Kpalimé.

The aim of the training was to enhance the skills of these focal points in data collection, processing, analysis and reporting methodology. It is organised in a hybrid format, with around thirty participants taking part in face-to-face and online sessions.

Chaired by the Policy, Planning and Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, the proceedings were opened by Mr Tawo O. Kodjovi, who welcomed participants on behalf of his director, before outlining the objectives and expected results of the five-day event. This was followed by a presentation by Mr NATOR Koffi Edoh, Head of Component 3 of the FSRP, on the SCORECARD programme, its implementation process and methodology.

Mr TCHADOUWA Abasse, who is responsible for component 3 at ECOWAS level, and Mr SUNDAY Odjo, Deputy Director of Operations for Akademyia 2063, took part in the training course.

It should be remembered that this training in Togo follows on from the training of trainers organised by the ARAA/ECOWAS from 19 to 22 February 2024 in Abuja, aimed primarily at teams from the FSRP countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Chad and Togo). Akademyia 2063 provided technical support for the organisation of this workshop.

This is significant support from the West African Food System Resilience Programme, Projet-Togo (PRSA/FSRP-Togo) to producers in the Maritime region.

On Thursday 1 August 2024 in the Moyen-Mono Vo, Yoto and Lacs prefectures, certified maize and rice seeds were distributed to vulnerable farmers in these areas in preparation for the ^2nd agricultural season in southern Togo.

"The selection of these small-scale producers took into account their degree of vulnerability, and despite the fact that they are in these conditions, the way in which they fight for agricultural production", says Kokou Guidigan, ICAT Bas-Mono Branch Manager.

He stresses that once the inputs have been distributed, his agency will continue its advisory support work so that farmers can follow the technical itineraries to ensure acceptable yields.

According to the distribution key, each grower was entitled to 10 kg of maize seed to plant half a hectare, for example. This quantity of seed will enable them to produce at least 2.5 tonnes of maize after production.

"This support comes at the right time, especially as we prepare for the next short rainy season. This second season will start in September and it's important for us to have these seeds available. We're currently harvesting the last crops of the first season, and as soon as we've finished, we'll be preparing the areas for the start of the second season", says Yawavi Kakpo Djakpata, a farmer at Afagnan Totamé in the Bas-mono prefecture.

It should be noted that in 2023, the PRSF received additional funding of USD 20 million from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP), with the aim of helping to extend the areas of intervention and the number of beneficiaries, and to take into account additional sectors such as market gardening, small ruminants, roots and tubers, and cowpeas.

For the 2024-2025 agricultural season, the FSRP has extended its activities to all regions of the country, enabling the project to acquire certified rice, soya, maize and cowpea seed and fertiliser for 28,362 producers, including 13,895 women (48.99%).

To date, 98% of certified seeds and fertilisers have been distributed throughout the country. For the 2024-2025 agricultural season, certified maize, rice, soya and cowpea seeds and fertilisers have been distributed to 28,362 vulnerable farmers in rural areas of the country.  

This support, which is an extension of the FSRP's intervention thanks to additional GAFSP funds, will strengthen the support provided in 2023 to around 22,746 producers in the Savanes region and the Kéran prefecture as part of the emergency programme to strengthen community resilience and security (PURS).