Dakar (Senegal), 22 June 2023 - The Government of Senegal, through the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation, launched, on Thursday in Dakar, the work of the Regional Forum of West African Intergovernmental Organizations on “Promoting Regional Value chains and food security for strengthening regional integration and sustainable development in West Africa”.
The meeting, which is held from June 22 to 23, is organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's Sub-Regional Office for West Africa (ECA/SRO-WA), in collaboration with the Senegalese Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the World Food Program (WFP).
The main objective of this Regional Forum is to strengthen the partnership for sustainable development between the United Nations system’s entities represented by ECA, WFP and other UN agencies, on the one hand, and ECOWAS, WAEMU, CILSS and the other intergovernmental organizations of West Africa, on the other hand.
In his opening address, Mr. Souleymane Diallo, Coordinator of the Directorate General for Planning and Economic Policies at the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation of Senegal, said that "Senegal is always committed to being at the front line to support the efforts for deepening regional integration, both at continental and regional level".
The Director of the ECA/SRO-WA, Ms. Ngone Diop, stated that "the warning sign triggered in April by the Food Crisis Prevention Network (FCPN), with nearly 42.5 million people concerned by the food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel and West Africa during the hunger gap (June-August 2023), is a call out for us to take both immediate and medium- to long-term actions".
To achieve it, continued the Director of the ECA/SRO-WA, "the ECA is recommending new financial resources mobilization and value chains development”.
According to the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Senegal, Ms. Aminata Maiga, "By providing appropriate responses to these two issues, namely the promotion of value chains and food security, we will be helping to speed up the implementation of the 2030 and 2063 agendas, particularly by reducing poverty, achieving food security, promoting decent work and sustainable growth, inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and sustainable production and consumption".
The WFP's Deputy Regional Director for West Africa, Ms. Evelyn Etti, believes that "In an increasingly complex context, we need to leverage our collective analytical capacity to provide lasting solutions to systemic problems hindering the development of sustainable food systems".
"We are committed to strengthening and broadening our collaboration by combining our evidence-generation efforts to better support governments and regional organizations, and co-advocating for the uptake of research results for policy-making," promised the WFP's Deputy Regional Director for West Africa.
The representative of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Abdoulaye Zonon, said that "the West African region continues experiencing the mere consequences of the COVID-19 and the Ukrainian crisis, which have been characterized by a considerable slowdown in economic growth, negatively impacting the well-being of the population while at the same time undermining the equilibrium of certain countries facing political instability".
"In this context, ECOWAS is called upon more than ever to fulfil its mandate of coordinating socio-economic development initiatives in the region", concluded Mr. Abdoulaye Zonon.
For more information, please contact: Tahirou Gouro, Communication Officer, ECA/SRO-WA Email: gouro2@un.org