Supporting Agricultural Productivity

Press Release—The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) will provide 100 million dollars annually to support agricultural productivity in West Africa as part of the region’s contribution towards resolving the ongoing food crisis.

This was part of the outcome of a one-day extraordinary meeting of the ECOWAS Ministers of Agriculture, Trade and Finance held at the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja on Monday, 19th May 2008 and preoccupied with the escalating cost of basic food items in the region.

The EBID contribution is part of the short-term measures agreed by the ministers who also directed the ECOWAS Commission to take the lead in mobilizing international support to raise the two billion dollars required in emergency food support for the most vulnerable group, the 44.4 million people living in abject poverty in the region.

Other short-term measures agreed by the ministers was the need to invest four billion dollars between 2008 and 2010 to boost agricultural productivity, mostly in the form of input support for small family farms who constitute the backbone of the region’s agriculture.

The ministers said the elimination of existing obstacles to intra-regional movement of persons and goods would also contribute towards easing the prevailing spiraling cost of foodstuffs by ensuring easier access of Community citizens to commodities produced in the region

In the long-term, Member States agreed to improve their budgetary allocation to agriculture, invest in local fertilizer production and seed multiplication, subsidize agricultural production, encourage the provision of concessionary credit to the sector as well as provide infrastructure that will support agricultural productivity.

The ministers suggested that ECOWAS assist in the coordination of the bulk purchases of basic food items for a group of Member States in the short-term, as this will enable the region get discount for such purchases.

They stressed the need to implement the provisions of the ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) that provides for the establishment of a regional information markets system, the creation of an efficient processing, storage and marketing value chains and the enhancement of food security stocks.

In addition, they called for a reorientation programme for Community citizens to change their taste for imported foodstuffs in favour of the consumption of locally produced foodstuffs while oil-producing Member States were encouraged to support the non-oil producing states in the spirit of regional solidarity

The ministers called on donors to support a fund for regional and national initiatives to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the short run while in the long run, they suggested that sensitive products be included in the negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to support regional food security.

These measures, the ministers said, would ultimately create food self- sufficiency and enable the region eat what it produces and produce what it eats.

At the opening ceremony, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, said the meeting was a response to the compelling need to complement the national efforts with a comprehensive regional response.

‘While we expedite action to address the emergency situation before us, the latter situation also provides us a window of opportunity to redouble our efforts in the implementation of ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy,” he added.

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