Again! World Bank Invests Big In West Africa Food Security

 

World Bank has launched the second phase of the West Africa regional Food Systems Resilience Program (FSRP-2) with US$315 million financial backing from its International Development Association (IDA).

FSRP-2 targeting an additional 2 million people will support Chad, Ghana and Sierra Leone to increase their preparedness against food insecurity and to improve the resilience of their food systems.

This comes at a moment where it is projected that approximately 38.3 million people in West Africa are to be in food security crisis.

Across the targeted areas in the three countries, FSRP-2 will help to reduce food insecure people by 25%.

Access to hydro and agrometeorological advisory services will be extended to over 400,000 food system actors, while nearly 500,000 producers are expected to adopt climate smart agricultural technologies.

Moreover, about 12,000 hectares of land area will benefit from integrated landscape management practices, and intra-regional traded productions in selected value chains will increase by 30%.

Massandjé Toure-Litse, Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, ECOWAS said, “Multiple shocks, driven by climate change and environmental degradation, weaknesses of the food markets, conflicts and insecurity, Covid-19 implications, and the war in Ukraine have further deteriorated food insecurity and inflation across West Africa.

“FSRP-2 further expands cooperation across the ECOWAS region to ensure food security, now and into the future.”

More specifically, the new financing will help to increase the effectiveness of agriculture and food crises prevention and management and strengthen the capacities to adapt to climate variability and change.

Also, it seeks to boost the adaptive capacity of the food system’s productive base and make it sustainable, and support the regional food market’s integration by linking the beneficiary countries, consolidating their food reserve systems, and strengthening the development of strategic regional value chains.

Boutheina Guermazi, World Bank’s Director for Regional Integration for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Northern Africa said, ”The approval of FSRP-2 and incorporation of Chad, Ghana and Sierra Leone expands impacts not just of national activities, but of targeted spill-over effects from regional activities. We are eager for this innovative program to maximize its reach across West Africa.”

With FSRP-2, the multi-phase FRSP program now amounts to a total of US$645 million of IDA as the first totalled US$330 million undertaken in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Togo.

It is expected that both FSRP-1 and FSRP-2 will reach a total of 4.35 million direct beneficiaries (including farmers) across West Africa, with focus on women and youth.

The project is undertaken in partnership with the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS; the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, CILSS; and the West and Central Africa Council for Agriculture Research and Development, CORAF.