Some twenty experts on food safety issues responded to an invitation from the ECOWAS Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Development (DADR) to review progress and pre-validate the first version of harmonised health inspection and risk-based decision-making guide. From 3 to 6 July 2023 in Dakar, the participants reviewed each section of the draft document to provide additional information and make the necessary corrections.

The guide to harmonised health inspection and risk-based decision-making is a key document in the regulation of the food system in West Africa to harmonise inspection methods and scientific decision-making in ECOWAS member countries and in the Sahel. It will help to ensure the safe trade of agricultural products, increase the transparency of health inspection, the collection and recording of data and speed up the availability of safe products.

Its availability and above all its use will make it possible to meet the recurring challenges of food safety issues in relation to Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also the Agreement on Trade Facilitation (ATF), promote better coordination, collaboration and cooperation and strengthen capacity building as well as increased mobilisation and harmonisation of resources in the West Africa and Sahel region.

The ECOWAS Commission and its partners intend to provide the region with this guide before the end of 2023 through a drafting process that began in May 2023 and will be completed in September/October 2023. The final document is expected October, once it has been approved by the Convergence Committee on Food  Safety. 

The regional coordination of the West African food system resilience programme (PRSA/FSRP) has invited all the programme's monitoring and evaluation specialists to a workshop to design tools for monitoring and collecting data on the programme's results and activities, as well as training on the MESECOPS platform, from 19 to 23 June in Agbélouvé, Togo.

The twenty or so participants from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Togo, Ghana, Chad, CORAF and CILSS harmonised their understanding of the PRSP's planning, monitoring-evaluation and reporting system, focusing on the MESECOPS platform and the roles of the players involved.

For five days, the PRSP's monitoring and evaluation specialists worked on developing the data collection tools that will serve as evidence of the implementation of the activities and the beneficiaries affected, and familiarised themselves with the methods for integrating the annual work plans and budget (PTBA) into the MESECOPS platform for monitoring and reporting on their implementation in real time.

Through practical exercises preceded by specific examples, the key concepts and main indicators of the PRSP were explained and experiences were also shared, with the aim of "facilitating effective and high-quality monitoring and reporting of PRSP results and activities, thus documenting the multiple interventions in the field and capitalising on the results of activities for the evaluation of the effects and impacts of the PRSP", emphasised Maty BA-DIAO, Regional Coordinator of the PRSP, who chaired the meeting. She encouraged the monitoring and evaluation specialists to put into practice all the knowledge acquired in order to provide the programme with a robust monitoring and evaluation system to ensure the collection, processing, analysis and sharing of information at national and regional levels.

This workshop is the first in a series of meetings to be organised as part of the programme's monitoring and evaluation system. It enabled monitoring and evaluation specialists to gain a common understanding not only of the indicators but also of the data collection and processing tools.

They drew up a joint roadmap with clear actions enabling them to document the FSRP's interventions at national and regional level. 

The regional coordination of the Food System Resilience Programme invited rice sector stakeholders from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Togo, Chad and Sierra Leone to a meeting to discuss the ECOWAS Rice Observatory. On 16 June, some thirty stakeholders and partners gained a better understanding of how the Observatory works, as well as the various activities planned to help countries set up multi-stakeholder platforms to boost the rice sector in West Africa.

Rice is the second most consumed cereal in Africa, after maize. In West Africa, where more than two-thirds of the cereals consumed in Sub-Saharan Africa are consumed, rice has seen the greatest growth, with consumption quadrupling over the last 30 years under the triple influence of population growth, strong urbanisation and increased per capita rice consumption. West African consumption has risen from 5 million tonnes in the early 1990s to more than 20 million tonnes by the end of 2021 (FAO, 2022).

In view of its importance in helping to combat food insecurity, rice has been chosen as the main value chain by all PRSP beneficiary countries. In these countries, with the support of ECOWAS through its rice observatory, the aim will be to build the capacity of stakeholders in the value chain and help coordinate investments from production to marketing of rice. The observatory will focus on mapping stakeholders and strengthening their capacity for coordination, data collection and regular communication on the development of the rice value chain. Platforms will be set up to better manage the various processes on the ground, with a strong involvement of the private sector.

Discussions with the countries highlighted the interest shown by players in the rice sector, but also the needs in terms of capacity building. The main actions underway in Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire, presented by Dr Boladalé, head of the ECOWAS Rice Observatory, provided a better understanding of the activities to be carried out in the field and, above all, the nature of ECOWAS support.

Better organised rice sectors in the countries with functional platforms will help to strengthen and make operational the West Africa Rice Observatory, which will thus coordinate investments in the rice sector at regional level and inform political decisions for better regulation of rice markets.

The ECOWAS Rice Observatory was set up to address the rice issue in the sub-region. Its main aims are to create a framework for dialogue between stakeholders; strengthen public-private partnerships; coordinate investments by the government, the private sector and technical and financial partners in market-based solutions to support the national rice development strategy; drive the transformation of the rice sector and facilitate access to finance along the entire value chain.

On 7 June 2023, the international community celebrated the 5th Food Safety Day on the theme "Food standards save lives", inviting everyone to make an effort to adopt healthy eating practices.
The ECOWAS Commission's Department of Economic Affairs and Agriculture used the day to "take stock of food safety regulations and issues in West Africa and the Sahel from the point of view of food standards and the challenge of ensuring the availability of healthy food in the ECOWAS region".
During a webinar open to the public (99 participants logged on, including 14 master's students in nutrition and food safety), the ECOWAS Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Development (DADR) presented the main existing regional standards and regulations and above all the activities underway to harmonise regional and national codes and regulations for food safety in West Africa and the Sahel. It is also an activity initiated by ECOWAS to raise public awareness, because "According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every year, According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every year around 600 million people - or almost one in ten people worldwide - fall ill after eating contaminated food, and there is a need to initiate and strengthen activities to raise awareness among the regional population of food safety issues and the measures that need to be taken in food systems", emphasised Septime HOUSSOU-GOE, Programme Officer at the DADR at the opening of this meeting on behalf of Director Alain SY TRAORE. 
Dr Gbemenou Joselin Benoit GNONLONFIN, Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Expert at the DADR, presented an overview of regulations and food safety issues in West Africa and the Sahel. Dr GNONLONFIN then outlined the prospects for implementing and harmonising national and regional regulations, which can be summed up as follows: i) Organise in-country training for sanitary and phytosanitary inspectors and the relevant competent authorities on harmonised guides and decision-making; ii) Support annual participation in Codex standard-setting processes on priority regional food safety issues: contaminants, food additives, pesticide residues and veterinary drugs, food hygiene and contribution to the establishment of limits/standards within the respective codex committee, support annual participation in the WTO SPS Committee meeting in Geneva to coordinate trade negotiations and provide updates on implemented SPS measures, iii) support the generation, management and use of data for regional and international standard setting (examples Gombo : Pesticide residues (carry out an assessment of pesticide residues and generate data for use in extrapolation (use in crop grouping), Cocoa: metalaxil concentration in cocoa), iv) Setting up a functional one-stop database. 
The national experiences of Benin and Ghana were also shared. Food safety actions and the implementation of the CODEX Alimentarius were presented.  Nutrition and food safety experts, students, teacher-researchers, journalists, private sector players and decision-makers followed the presentations and took part in the discussions. 
During this meeting, which was the first to be organised by the DADR, ECOWAP stakeholders and partners were familiarised with the issues and questions surrounding food safety, and were given a number of approaches for adopting appropriate behaviour in order to avoid illnesses caused by the lack of healthy food thanks to food safety. Above all, they were informed of the existence of regional regulations and codex standards in ECOWAS member states.
In view of the importance of the subject at the health and socio-economic levels, the participants congratulated ECOWAS on the initiative and suggested (i) continuing, supporting and strengthening the participation of ECOWAS Member States and Mauritania and Chad in the process of drawing up international standards, (ii) continue and strengthen the harmonisation of national and regional regulations, (iii) strengthen training leading to qualifications and diplomas in the field of food safety throughout the value chain, (iii) strengthen the capacity of analysis and control laboratories in accordance with international standards, (iv) strengthen cooperation between national and regional institutions.
After this first experience, which was appreciated by all the stakeholders and partners, ECOWAS undertook to make it an annual meeting, which will serve not only to take stock of the implementation of food safety actions in the ECOWAS region, but also to make projections for the future.
The webinar was held as part of the implementation of the West African Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP), financed by the World Bank and coordinated at regional level by ECOWAS in collaboration with CILSS, CORAF and other partners, with 7 beneficiary countries at present: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad and Togo.  
 

The SIHAM is defined as a Hydro Agro Meteorological Information System. It was initiated as part of component 1 of the FSRP Togo and aims to facilitate the dissemination of agro-climatic information in the form of voice messages and SMS to agricultural producers.

This system was born of the FSRP's ambition to offer an innovative, effective and viable digital solution aimed at improving the dissemination of rainfall forecasts to the beneficiaries of the services provided by Togo's National Meteorological Agency (ANAMET). SIHAM is therefore being set up using a 4-stage deployment approach, the first of which is the training of surveyors.

This training took place on Monday 6 May 2024 in Sokodé and was attended by around thirty people, including 15 surveyors from ICAT and 10 from CTOP. The latter received training in the use and appropriation of the data collection tools made available to them to collect information from the FSRP's target beneficiaries, mainly in the planned agricultural development zones (ZAAP) and at farm level.

For the investigators, this training is highly beneficial. According to them, it reinforces their skills in the use of IT tools in the field and allows them to discover new tools such as SIHAM. "We encourage the FSRP in this innovation", they said.

As a reminder, SIHAM is in its pilot phase and is being developed following an agreement between the FSRP TOGO and the IFDC on behalf of ANAMET. It aims to reach at least 1,000 small-scale farmers and covers the Savannah, Central, Eastern Plateau and Maritime regions, with a pilot phase lasting 04 months.

There are a total of 120 trainees, including 100 tractor operators and 20 maintenance technicians, all from the "Entreprises Cantonales de Travaux Mécanisés" (ECTM) programme, whose mission is to help increase the rate of mechanisation of cultivation operations.

This initiative, supported by the FSRP TOGO, aims to equip farmers with the skills and tools they need to boost their productivity and improve profitability.

Designed specifically for young people aspiring to become tractor operators with no previous experience, this training equips them with the essential skills to use cutting-edge agricultural technologies effectively and responsibly. Held from 28 March to 7 April 2024 at the Institut de formation agricole (Infa) in Tové, the training combines theory and practice, and focuses on: (i) tractor knowledge and operation, (ii) mastery of manoeuvring and maintenance operations, and (iii) safety and operating rules. According to the trainers, these different aspects will help to turn these aspiring tractor operators into key players in innovation, entrepreneurship and the skilled labour needed to drive forward agricultural modernisation in Togo.

This activity is part of the partnership between the government of Togo and the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP Africa), set up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development through an innovative training programme focusing on agricultural mechanisation.

Carried out by the Agence de transformation agricole (ATA), this training course is supported by the Ministry's technical departments, such as DAEMA and ICAT, to ensure successful implementation and maximum impact.

Through this training programme, the FSRP is contributing to a more prosperous Togolese agriculture, where mechanisation plays a key role in achieving food self-sufficiency and sustainable economic growth.

Raising poultry (hens and guinea fowl) is a common practice in the savannah region, formerly known as the "white gold" region. It is also the area par excellence of the roan tree and of harnessed farming, where communities live partly from the production and marketing of poultry to meet the basic needs of their families.

However, growing threats and pressure from armed terrorist groups have increased the vulnerability of people in the savannah region and had a significant impact on the activities and lives of producers, including livestock farmers. This situation has prompted the Government to take prompt measures to enable the people of this area to improve their resilience.

These measures include the establishment of the Emergency Programme to Strengthen Community Resilience and Security (PURS), under which the FSRP is implementing numerous activities to ensure sustainable food and nutritional security and strengthen the productivity system with a view to achieving effective resilience in rural households.

The FSRP produced and introduced into households a core of broodstock consisting of 2 roosters and 4 hens to serve 169 hen breeders, spread across the 7 prefectures of the Savanes region. A total of 1,290 broodstock, including 1,075 hens and 215 roosters, were distributed to breeders in the Savanes region.

This project aims to boost the productivity of livestock farmers by increasing the number of poultry, whose products (meat and eggs) are not only a source of animal protein needed to cover the food and nutritional requirements of households in general and children in particular, but also a source of permanent family income to meet other non-nutritional needs.

To reinforce the need for accountability in the implementation of its funding, citizen monitoring of activities by civil society has been integrated into the monitoring and evaluation mechanism of the Food System Resilience Programme in West Africa (FSRP-Togo). To this end, training was organised from 18 to 19 January 2024 in Kpalimé (West Plateaux region) for members of civil society organisations who are members of the Coordination pour le suivi évaluation par la société civile (COSESC) (Coordination for monitoring and evaluation by civil society), with a view to ensuring a real understanding of the FSRP's intervention strategies, the key concepts and principles of results-based management, and the monitoring tools for exercising citizen control.

In the space of two days, almost 25 Togolese civil society players, including 10 women, have been equipped to better monitor and control the actions of the FSRP in Togo.

This participative and interactive training session was also an opportunity to share the objectives, expected results, intervention strategy, monitoring and evaluation mechanism and tools, gender mainstreaming, complaint management mechanisms and gender-based violence within the framework of the FSRP. The concepts of citizen control of public action (CCAP) were also presented, with examples.

The World Bank's Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Robert Taliercio O'Brien, has praised the inner strength of farmers affected by this year's drought in northern Ghana and encouraged them to remain determined. He was visiting parts of northern Ghana to inspect sites of the FSRP (West Africa Food Systems Resilience Programme) project, where World Bank-funded projects are being implemented to increase the resilience of food systems in Ghana and the sub-region to climate-related agricultural crises.

During interactions with farmers and members of the media, Mr Obrien said that "as demoralising and heartbreaking as it may be, I am very motivated by the determination and resolve of the tireless farmers I have met, who are facing up to the situation and moving forward. I have come to deliver a single message: the World Bank stands with you in these difficult times and we pledge to continue to support Ghana and the sub-region to build and promote robust value chain systems to ensure that we emerge unscathed and even stronger during and after nature's unpredictable and inevitable trials."

Mr Obrien was pleased to learn that communities near the World Bank-funded irrigation sites had not been affected by the devastating effects of the recent drought, as the irrigation systems had enabled them to farm during the dry season. Working with the World Bank Ghana and FSRP teams, the Country Director inspected the Tono Irrigation Scheme facilities, which were rehabilitated with funding from the World Bank and the Ghanaian government under the former Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP). He inspected the dam wall, reservoir and spillway. At the water intake, he inspected the operation of the automation system used to open and close the valve that allows water to enter the main irrigation channel. In Zone B, he inspected the solar installation (including solar panels and solar pumps) that delivers the water to the farmland on the higher ground. They also drove through Zone A to observe farmers in their fields and chat with them. Mr Obrien then made a brief stop at the bifurcator, where the main canal divides into two canals, the Left Bank Canal (LBC) and the Right Bank Canal (RBC). They then crossed Zone C along the LBC to Lateral F14, where he spent some time chatting to farmers.

Mr Obrien emphasised that the World Bank and the Government of Ghana are ready to build on GCAP's achievements and strengthen them further through the PRSP. Key among these are the completion of work on the Vea Irrigation Scheme (VIS) and other interventions on the Tono Irrigation Scheme (TIS). Through the FSRP, the World Bank and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) are supporting production intensification by providing input credits to farmers in the scheme. Thanks to a Norwegian grant, farmers in Tono will receive inputs to grow 50 hectares of tomatoes using solar pumps in Zones B and O. The FSRP is continuing its on-farm demonstration activities to promote proven CSA (Climate Smart Agriculture) technologies in tomato cultivation and is setting up adaptive trials to assess the suitability of locally produced tomato seeds. Logistical support is also planned to facilitate the implementation of FSRP activities by agricultural extension agents.

Mr Robert Taliercio O'Brien assured the farmers that the World Bank would not be content simply to provide funds. "We will be with you on the ground, every step of the way, and we will not stop until our goal of credible food security is achieved".

Ms Ashwini Sebastian, Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank in Ghana and leader of the FSRP task team, said that irrigation is only one link in the agricultural value chain and does not alone achieve the expected quality and yields in food production. Other interventions in the value chain, including the adoption of innovative methods, the use of climate-smart seeds and other value-added interventions, need to be integrated; and this is exactly what the World Bank is looking to focus on and support in the future. 

Women in the agricultural sector, whether producers, workers or agricultural entrepreneurs, face greater difficulties than men in gaining access to productive resources, markets and services. Most women carry out their activities at family level, using low-performance technologies and on a small scale, both in production and in processing and marketing. They have fewer opportunities to farm and less chance of accessing land on a rental basis. Their access is usually limited to plots that are of poorer quality, smaller and further from their homes. These disparities between men and women are a constraint on the development of profitable productive activities and the eradication of poverty in rural households.

To make an effective contribution to overcoming these gender inequalities in Togo's agricultural sector, the FSRP has supported capacity-building for the national institutions and players involved in its implementation, on the strategy and tools for integrating the gender and youth dimensions into all the project's components and activities in order to make it more inclusive and sensitive to this disadvantaged group.

This training course, run by CORAF's regional gender adviser, Dr Mariam MAÏGA, from 5 to 8 December 2023 in Lomé, brought together representatives of technical structures, members of the ministry's gender focal unit, agricultural research centres, extension services, inter-professional players, the network of women farmers and civil society.

Over four days, subjects relating to the concept and tools of gender analysis, the impact of climate change, resilience, analysis of gender aspects in the agri-food system and the gender action plan were addressed.

Ultimately, this training will make it easier to take account of the specific needs of disadvantaged groups in accessing and adopting technologies that are sensitive to climate, gender, nutrition, access to developed land, inputs, quality seeds and extension services, among others.