The participants in a group photo after the opening ceremony
The Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food (RAAF-ARAA) under the auspices of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has organised a three-day capacity building workshop for stakeholders on mainstreaming social safety nets in agriculture to ensure food security and nutrition.
A regional workshop dubbed, “Training of Trainers Workshop for Potential Projects Backers on Social Safety Nets for Food Security and Nutrition in West Africa,” would allow national actors in ECOWAS member states to have a common understanding of the concept of social safety nets and its application to agriculture.
The workshop is expected to enhance the knowledge of potential project backers on the instruments commonly used in the design and implementation of social safety net projects, as well as allow national actors of ECOWAS member states to formulate and implement projects of social safety nets.
Thirty delegates made up of potential local and international project backers, NGOs, producer organizations and state actors from 15 ECOWAS countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are participating.
Opening the conference in Accra, Usseini Salifu, Executive Director of RAAF-ARAA, stressed the need for the sub-region to ensure food security through the integration of safety nets in the agricultural sector.
He said although the region is recording progress in agriculture, its malnutrition rate is also increasing, adding that that had come about as a result of the gap in the implementation of projects and programmes related to social safety nets in agriculture at the national level.
Mr Usseini Salifu said the countries, however, have an obligation to implement the ECOWAS regional agricultural policy (ECOWAP), which is also benefitting from the support of the Spanish International Cooperation Agency for Development (AECID) in financing innovations on the ground projects in the area of safety nets for food security.
“This is the reason in 2012 ECOWAS initiated a Regional Programme of Support to the National Social Security Nets in West Africa to promote preventive social safety net programmes targeted at people on the basis of vulnerability rather than on the basis of exposure to a shock. This is in opposition to reactive safety nets which aim at responding to shocks and crises,” Usseini Salifu recounted.
The Executive Director said the first call for proposals launched in January 2015 selected 10 projects on social safety nets for an aggregate grant of $2,146,789, adding that a second call for proposal would be launched by the end of 2016.
According to him, at the end of the training, the concept of social safety nets would be understood by all while the instruments of social safety nets, the conditions for their use, as well as a network of national actors would be established for the capitalization of projects on social safety net programmes.
In a speech read on his behalf, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, Ghana’s Minister of Food and Agriculture, said agriculture remains critical for rural development and associated cultural values, social stabilisation, environmental sustainability and serves as a buffer during economic shocks.
He expressed the hope that through the workshop, the region would make great strides in the agricultural sector, especially in improving the lot of vulnerable populations.
Berhanu Bedane, Country Representative of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), expressed the hope that participants would be provided with tools, approaches and practical methods to allow them to make good projects proposals on safety nets and to implement them with the most appropriate teams in the various countries.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri