Int. Conference on the West African Food Security Storage System: Professional Organizations as the Centerpiece of the System

The second day (April 29^th, 2021) of the International online Conference being organized by the ECOWAS Commission from April 28^th to May 10t^h, 2021 to share the experience of its regional food security storage system with its partners and other regions of the world, focused discussions and experience sharing on the achievements, lessons learned and current challenges and prospects of the regional food security storage strategy. The question of the impact of the regional food security storage strategy on the governance and management of local food stocks led professional agricultural organizations to remind participants of their vision of the importance of the Regional Food Security Reserve as an instrument for the sustainability of local storage.

In his April 29^th, 2021 statement and speaking on behalf of agricultural producers, El Hadj Mamadou Cissokho, Honorary President of the Network of Farmers’ and Producers’ Organizations of West Africa (Roppa), strongly supported the West African Food Security Storage System. He then invited the ECOWAS Commission to re-focus on the objectives of ECOWAP, the Regional Agricultural Policy, which they consider as the soul of regional integration. ECOWAP must remain the heart and soul of integration, and benefit from public support commensurate with the issues and challenges it faces.

According to Roppa, the creation of the Regional Food Security Storage System was a request from professional agricultural and livestock organizations as it allows to articulate and federate local stocks, national stocks, and the Regional Food Security Reserve.

Supporting local food storage therefore contributes to the concrete realization of an ECOWAS of People. In view thereof, regional professional organizations (RPOs) call for strengthening the collaborative work and co-construction of the regional food security storage mechanism, with both national and regional levels, to strengthen the effectiveness of the whole system.

The Regional Agricultural Policy concerns 60% of the region’s 400 million people in 2021 and 50% of the 800 million West Africans projected for 2050. It is fundamental to job and income creation, natural resource and ecosystem management, and the defense of the West African populations identities and their representation worldwide.

He ended his call by insisting on the fact that ECOWAP concerns all the agro-forestry-pastoral and halieutic value chains contributing to food and nutrition security and recalled that storage must simultaneously constitute a link in the structuring of these value chains and in the management of food crises.

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