Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

98 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

• Developing agricultural value chains and promoting markets (development of the different
  food value chains including peri-urban, export crops, short-cycle breeding, agro-forestry products,
  non-industrial fishing and aquaculture; development of product processing; and promotion of
  national, regional and international trade;


• Preventing and managing food crises and other natural catastrophes (early warning systems,
  crises management systems, support for the rehabilitation of zones after crises, and development of
  compensation mechanisms/insurance against catastrophes);


• Institutional strengthening (integration of a standard approach, support for the agricultural and
  rural policy and strategy formulation capacities, sustainable financing of agriculture, communication,
  steering and coordination capacity building, monitoring and evaluation capacity building).

3.1 Scope and limits of national investment plans

Several West African countries have completed their national agricultural investment plan as part

of ECOWAP/CAADP’s implementation. These plans, that stem from national investment programs,

are meant to reflect each country’s agricultural development priorities. They are designed to boost

agricultural production by an annual growth rate of at least 6 percenta, a percentage that is considered

sufficient to reduce poverty by half by 2015.

Investment programs have the advantage of covering all aspects of the agricultural sector in the broad

sense of the term. Although national investment programs incorporate the six ECOWAP/CAADP

intervention components, they deal with agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry and sometimes

the environment. Cross-cutting issues that are critical to agricultural development such as i) rural

infrastructure, market infrastructure, funding, stakeholders’ capacity building, coordinating the activities

of the different institutions, research, etc., are often at the forefront of the proposed priority actions.

The participatory approach that characterized the program formulation process has resulted in this

broad coverage. All actors involved in agricultural development – POs, the private sector, technical and

financial partners – participated to varying extents in the development of national programs.

Developing the different agricultural sectors is given much prominence in these programs. Structuring

the different sectors is emphasized in addition to planning activities to improve agricultural productivity

and competitiveness. This means that the program will mainly consider:

a. Developing provision of local services for producers that are adapted to their needs (supply of

inputs: fertilizer and improved seeds, access to adequate financing, including seasonal loans,

advisory services and other logistics requirements, etc.),

b. Strengthening the structure and role of POs and farmer organizations through the professionalization

of farmers,

c. Establishing multi-actor consultative frameworks around strategic sectors, following the model of

either inter-branch organizations, or the one of “sector panels”,

d. Creating new value chains (transformation, norms and standardization and implementation of

traceability tools) to take better advantage of regional and international market opportunities.

e. Promoting public-private partnerships by establishing multi-stakeholder contracts: POs, financial

institutions, processors, credit distributors and other service providers in rural areas.