Our agriculture program supports the Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA), aimed at cutting hunger in half by the year 2015. Biodiversity, Water and Global Climate Change Initiatives are supported under the Environment program aimed at developing sustainable management systems for water and forest resources shared by different countries. Because USAID West Africa deals with issues that cut across borders, the mission collaborates closely with organizations that have regional mandates in agricultural development.
Our main regional partners are the:- Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
- Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (French acronym - CILSS)
- Sahel and West Africa Club (Club du Sahel)
- West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development
(French acronym - CORAF)
Our development strategy is aligned within the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), an integrated framework implemented in West Africa under the auspices of ECOWAS, that promotes agricultural development as a critical means to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty and food insecurity, and increase trade.
In addition to strengthening regional organizations, USAID West Africa has recently embarked on several new projects aimed at establishing a functional commercial seed industry, increasing regional trade in priority agricultural commodities and agro-processed products, and significantly increasing net income for approximately one million cotton farmers. These projects are:
- West Africa Seed Alliance (WASA)
- Trade and Agribusiness Promotion (TAP)
- West Africa Cotton Improvement Program (WACIP)
In the Natural Resources Management arena, we support several sub-regional transboundary natural resource management projects. One activity focuses on water and forest resources shared by Ghana and Ivory Coast. Another activity planned will target biodiversity and forest management issues between Guinea and one of its neighbors (either Senegal or Sierra Leone).
Finally, we will support ongoing efforts to improve water delivery systems and manage shared water resources in the White Volta River basin of Burkina Faso and Ghana.
- Improved Food Security Monitoring Systems
- This activity supports the region’s famine prevention and warning system. Implemented primarily by CILSS, the regional experts in food production monitoring, the program collaborates with other global leaders in food monitoring such as the World Food Program (WFP) and USAID’s Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) and with national governments. The system continuously tracks rainfall, vegetation growth, and food production in order to estimate crop production and identify potential shortfalls and vulnerable populations. Both national government and the international community can then develop targeted responses to prevent food crises.
- Improved Environmental Monitoring
- This activity monitors changing land use in West Africa, and the impact of land degradation, desertification, and human use on the environment. In documenting the changing landscape using satellite images and local knowledge, the program provides decision-makers with information to better manage the natural resource heritage which forms the basis of the livelihoods of the majority of the region’s people.
- Improved Policy Environment
- This activity addresses policy-level impediments to regional agricultural development and food security. By addressing these constraints at the regional level, multiple countries will benefit from coherent and shared policies that encourage regional trade. For example, the harmonization of pesticide policy and pesticide review protocols leads to the use of common standards and reduced costs. WARP will support the policy initiatives coming out of CILSS, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), and ECOWAS with respect to regional agriculture, biotechnology, pest management, and food security.