NAN-H-110
Roadmap
By Temitope Ponle
Abuja, Dec. 14, 2016 (NAN) ECOWAS member states have been urged to speed up the development of a roadmap to facilitate efforts at preventing food insecurity in the sub-region.
The Director, Agriculture and Rural Development, ECOWAS Commission, Mr Alain Sy Traore made the call at a session of the Senior Experts Group of Global Alliance for Resilience (SEG-AGR) in Abuja on Wednesday.
The session was held during the ongoing 32nd annual meeting of the Food Crisis Prevention Network (RCPA).
Traore told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that it was important for member states to develop working documents towards addressing the challenges to food security.
“The National Resilience Priorities (NPR) plan came up in a process that we have established at the global level called Global Alliance for Resilience.
“It means that basically, we need to build the capacity of vulnerable people and also institutional capacity to be resilient to upcoming shock or any emergency issues.
“If this has to be done, each country has to have programmes aimed at tackling food safety; countries need to have national resilience programmes as priorities which would be included in the agriculture, health, social development sectors.
“We are looking at prevention of food crisis and the resilience aspect is one of it, and we are here to sensitise member states, to tell them that NPR is a pertinent approach we are developing.
“We need to speed up the process and develop a new roadmap so that by mid-2017, we will have this document ready.’’
He recalled that an initial roadmap was developed by the SEG-AGR in 2013 aimed at channeling efforts of regional and international stakeholders towards achieving common results in food security.
The director said that due to challenges being faced in member states, only six member states had achieved the NRP.
“We put a roadmap in place so that at the end of this year, all 15 member states should have developed their own NRP programme.
“But for several reasons, this could not be achieved.’’
Trore added that funds had also been made available to member states to facilitate the development of the document.
“The funds we made available for countries was from the EU and they made €2.5 million available which we used to pay salaries of experts coordinating the mechanism and shared among member states.’’
He said that 300,000 dollars was made available to each member state through the commission to help in the process of developing their NRP.
The director, however, urged leaders to enhance their provision of resources towards achieving zero hunger in the sub-region.
The Global Alliance for Resilience (AGIR), Sahel and West Africa was launched in Dec. 2012.
AGIR is a framework that helps to foster improved synergy, coherence and effectiveness in support of resilience initiatives in the 17 West African and Sahelian countries.
The Alliance is placed under the political and technical leadership of ECOWAS, West Africa Economic and Monetary Union and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel.
It is a policy tool aimed at channeling efforts of regional and international stakeholders towards a common results framework. (NAN)
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Edited by Ese E. Ekama