The first meeting of the Steering Committee in charge of reviewing the regional food security storage strategy and adjusting the Regional Food Security Reserve (RFSR) opens today 20 March in Abuja, Nigeria. This meeting constitutes the formal launch by ECOWAS of a key process aimed at adapting the regional food security storage strategy to the new challenging context of food, nutrition and pastoral security in West Africa and the Sahel.
The ECOWAS regional food security storage strategy, in place since 2011, is based on three main pillars: i) food security storage to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in the event of cyclical food crises ii) interventions to improve the functioning of markets and reduce price volatility iii) food security social safety nets for populations with structural livelihood deficits.
In less than ten years, significant progress has been made, through the capitalization of good practices in the management of local stocks by producer organizations, the development of national storage strategies by Member States and the structuring of the RFSR, which has supported 22 interventions since its creation, benefiting 4.3 million vulnerable people.
However, the challenges persist in the context of increasing deterioration in food and nutrition security, marked by conflicts, economic shocks, pandemics, climatic crises and weakened access to public services. The revision of the regional food security storage strategy aims to strengthen the region’s capacity to prevent and manage food, nutrition and pastoral crises in a sustainable and coordinated manner.
The task of the restricted steering committee is i) to guide the work and validate the main guidelines, ii) to ensure that they are included in the ECOWAP review process (ECOWAP 2035, Post Malabo) and iii) to validate the proposals submitted to the ECOWAS statutory bodies.
In addition to clarifying the role and mission of the Steering Committee, this first meeting aims to present the objectives and methodology of the review process and share a detailed assessment of the first phase of implementation of the regional food security storage strategy. Discussions will also focus on specific concerns that will guide the future work of the Technical Review Committee.
To recall, the main objectives of the review include: i) adapting the regional storage strategy to the new priorities of ECOWAP@2035, ii) adjusting the RFSR’s areas of intervention, its crisis response instruments and its operating rules and procedures, and iii) optimizing the institutional and financial arrangements to ensure the coherence, efficiency and sustainability of the regional strategy.
Speaking on behalf of Mrs Massandjé TOURE-LITSE, ECOWAS Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, the Executive Director of the Regional Agriculture and Food Agency (RAAF), Mr. Mohamed Zongo, encouraged the members of the Committee to take an active part in the discussions and to share their thoughts and recommendations so that the process leads to concrete and beneficial results for the region as a whole.
Through this review, ECOWAS is reaffirming its commitment, alongside its regional partners (UEMOA, CILSS, RESOGEST) and international partners (European Union, AFD, AECID, World Bank, etc.), to strengthen food and nutrition security for vulnerable populations in West Africa and the Sahel.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
