Food, Agriculture et Environment

Affordable access to high quality agricultural and livestock products is a major issue of concern in the West African sub region. Not only are farming products often either too expensive or too poor in quality to be of use to farmers, but the general availability of these products is such that farmers frequently have difficulty replacing their old equipment and livestock.

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During the fourth People’s Forum held in December 2006 in Burkina Faso, a thematic working group was organized to provide recommendations on how to improve the level intra-regional trade and access to agricultural and livestock products in West Africa. The working group put forward two recommendations: 1) ECOWAS should implement policies that promote access to high quality agricultural inputs in order to support the African Green Revolution Initiative; and 2) ECOWAS should put in place policies that facilitate intra-regional trade to ensure food security and agricultural development.

The working group will form an ad hoc committee (to be ratified at the next People’s Forum) to work with the Secretariat to identify key stakeholders and ensure the implementation of a number of activities identified in connection with the above recommendations. In addition, the committee will also provide support to WACSOF in addressing these issues at the national and sub-regional levels.