Chapter 3. Analytical review of national investment strategies and agricultural policies in West Africa 103
3.2 Scope and limitations of Regional Investment Plan
The Regional Agricultural Investment Program is in sharp contrast with programs and national investment
plans, given its contents. It aims to provide answers to the main obstacles to agricultural growth and
food security by simultaneously addressing production issues, trade issues, the overall environment of the
agricultural sector and also food access issues.
It differs from other earlier major programs in the Region, by the fact that it:
- “brings national and regional priorities together in a common vision: NAIPs have priority programs
that incorporate regional dimensions that exceed national institutions’ prerogatives and the re-
gional investment plan takes these on. - federates and articulates the investment approach and the policy instruments approach (regula-
tions, incentives, etc.). - federates common approaches developed in the various sub-programs of the RAIP around key is-
sues”.
The Regional Agricultural Investment Program is structured around three objectives:
a. Promotion of strategic products for food sovereignty. The plan gives priority to three food
sectors considered strategic in terms of security concerns and food sovereignty in West Africa: firstly,
rice, maize and cassava, secondly, livestock, meat products, and thirdly fish products.
b. Promoting an overall environment conducive to regional agricultural development. This specific
objective aims to build a commercial, physical, informational and institutional environment that will lead
to a massive transformation of production systems and agricultural sectors in West Africa.
c. Reducing vulnerability and promoting sustainable access to food for the population at
large. This objective’s target is to help “ensure the food needs of vulnerable populations and reduce
the structural vulnerability of populations in both rural and urban settings”.
A. Agricultural policy initiatives: intensification instruments
The agricultural policy is reinforced by defining three types of instruments aimed at creating incentive
conditions that are essential to agricultural development. Two of these instruments deal specifically
with promoting agricultural sectors: i) production intensification instruments, and ii) instruments for
regulating agricultural markets.
They aim to ensure sustainable input and small innovative equipment availability at incentive prices for
producers, which implies, among other things, easy access to credit. To do this, the plan envisages,
among other incentives, implementing a mechanism for co-financing subsidized inputs and small
agricultural equipment, through a tripartite partnership between: 1) countries, 2) ECOWAS’ Agricultural
Development Fund, via financial institutions selected in each country and 3) farmer organizations.
This is an optional action, left at the discretion of governments, with the possibility of wide modulation
by each state, within the design and implementation conditions defined at ECOWAS level.
- Opportunities for national modulation focus on: