Press Release

The Food System Resilience Program in West Africa (FSRP) held its first summary meeting of support missions for the year 2024. The event took place from 15 to 17 May in Lomé, Togo.

Over 70 participants from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo, as well as from regional institutions (CILSS, CORAF and ECOWAS) and the World Bank, took stock of the implementation of the Programme in line with its implementation principles. They shared and exchanged information on the various activities carried out over the last six months at national and regional level, while reviewing the challenges linked to the implementation of the FSRP before proposing possible solutions to meet these challenges.

Over 3 days of exchanges, the work focused on (i) parallel sessions between countries and regional organizations on specific subjects relating to digital services, integrated landscape management, strengthening regional trade and agricultural markets, the rice value chain and gender; (ii) plenary sessions to review common challenges and propose solutions that could contribute to the successful implementation of FSRP.

One of the innovations at this regional meeting was the exhibition of products and innovations by Togo’s stakeholders and beneficiaries. Some twenty producers from Togo’s main agricultural production zones shared the products generated with the support of the FSRP.

This first wrap up meeting of FSRP support missions for 2024 was a platform for promoting the sharing of knowledge, strengthening coordination between players and defining strategic directions for the future of the programme, as the first countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Togo) are halfway through the implementation of their activities.

On the ground, the PRSF’s activities essentially target the prevention and management of agricultural and food crises, the strengthening of the resilience of agro-sylvo-pastoral production systems, and the facilitation of trade in agricultural goods and inputs within and across national borders in West Africa. After two years of implementation, significant results have been noted and the actions carried out in the countries and at regional level have reached a total of 1,281,766 direct beneficiaries by 2023, 37% of whom are women.

At the opening ceremony, representatives of the World Bank, CILSS, CORAF, ECOWAS and Togo’s Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development praised the progress made by the FSRP, which bears witness to collective efforts to strengthen the resilience of the food system in our region, with tangible results in the countries and at regional level.

Overall, it was noted that FSRP is a unique tool that strengthens regional integration through the exchange of technologies and innovations and the mobility of researchers and stakeholders between countries, which will contribute considerably to the implementation of ECOWAP and thus accelerate the transformation of the agricultural sector in the sub-region.