Int. Conference on the West African Food Security Storage System: FAO announces the “1 million silos Initiative for West Africa and the Sahel”

The international online Conference being organized by the ECOWAS Commission, from April 28^th to May 10^th, 2021 to share the experience of its regional food security storage system with its partners and other regions of the world, continues to attract many participants and commitments.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in its political declaration of May 4^th, 2021, committed itself, through its sub-regional Coordinator for West Africa and FAO Representative in Senegal, Mr. Gouantoueu Robert Guei, to continue and consolidate collaboration with the ECOWAS Commission and its partners to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable West African populations and achieve food sovereignty.

For FAO, small farmers, as the first line of defense in the West African Food Security Storage System, are the first victims of the volatility of agricultural commodity prices on the market, due to limited food storage facilities.

FAO, therefore, calls on the International Community and all technical and financial partners to join forces to support the ECOWAS Commission in launching a major program to scale up family and community silos: the “1 million silos Initiative for West Africa and the Sahel”.

With its proven experience in food security storage, FAO renews its readiness to work closely with the ECOWAS Commission to achieve this ambition. Indeed, it is only by putting in place solid food storage systems that the Malabo commitments and the Zero Hunger objective in West Africa can be achieved.

Food sovereignty being about human dignity, FAO reaffirms the complementary role of food security stocks in global policies for the development of agro-forestry-pastoral and fisheries value chains for food and nutrition security.

To recall, the general objective of the International Conference is to lay the foundations for a renewed multilateral partnership towards strengthening warning, prevention, intervention, and humanitarian assistance mechanisms for the most vulnerable populations to food crises.

The Conference falls within the process of assessing the key achievements of the five-year implementation of the West African Food Security Storage Strategy, with the political support of the G20, financial assistance from the European Union, and technical support from the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development (AECID), in collaboration with the UEMOA Commission and CILSS.

Zoom link for registration: https://bit.ly/3v9SUw0

Info line: [email protected]

Web page: http://www.foodreserves.ecowas.int