Dakar meeting focuses on regional integration, sustainable development and food security in West Africa
It is a well-known fact that regional integration holds great prospects for economic growth, food security and peace in the West African sub-region.
Among other factors militating against the region are the impacts of erosion, flooding and pollution. According to the World Bank, estimates show that the West African coast, including lagoons, loses over $3.8 billion a year to erosion, flooding, and pollution, as well as loss of human lives and destruction of livelihoods. However, with through regional integration and working mechanisms, these challenges and more can be addressed.
On Thursday, June 22, 2023, the Senegal government, through the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation, therefore, launched in the 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”.
In a press release copied to Ghana Business News, the organisers say, the main objective of the Regional Forum is to strengthen the partnership for sustainable development between the United Nations system’s entities represented by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), World Food Programme (WFP) and other UN agencies, on the one hand, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the other intergovernmental organizations of West Africa, on the other hand.
Speaking at the meeting, the Coordinator of the Directorate General for Planning and Economic Policies at the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Cooperation of Senegal, Mr. Souleymane Diallo said: “Senegal is always committed to being at the frontline to support the efforts for deepening regional integration, both at continental and regional level.”
On her part, the Director of the ECA/SRO-WA, Ms Ngone Diop, said, “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 that, Ms Diop said, “the ECA is recommending new financial resources mobilization and value chains development.”
The Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Senegal, Mrs. Aminata Maiga, said: “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.”
In her remarks, the WFP’s Deputy Regional Director for West Africa, Mrs. Evelyn Etti, noted 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,” she said.
Making his contribution to the conversation, the representative of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr Abdoulaye Zonon, said, “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”, he said.
The two-day meeting ended on June 23, 2023.