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A regional workshop to review and plan project activities under the UEMOA - CORAF/WECARD Convention was held from January 10 to 13 in Abidjan, the Ivorian capital. The meeting, chaired by the Deputy Director General of CNRA Côte d'Ivoire, was attended by the Director General of CIRDES, the regional and national coordinators of the VATICOPP and PROGEVAL projects, and representatives of the project teams from the 8 UEMOA countries.

Presiding over the opening ceremony, Pr Abdourahmane Sangaré, Deputy Director General of the CNRA of Côte d'Ivoire, expressed his delight at the holding of this important workshop, adding that " it is a great pleasure for me to take the floor on this happy occasion on behalf of the CNRA to welcome you all to this workshop".

The Deputy Director General of CNRA Côte d'Ivoire also thanked the CORAF/WECARD Executive Secretariat for placing its trust in his institution to support the organization of this workshop.

The head of the CORAF/WECARD delegation, Dr Mariame MAIGA, concurred. Ms. MAIGA spoke to workshop participants about the priority areas defined in the cooperation agreement between her institution and the WAEMU Commission. These include"improving the performance and competitiveness of the cotton sector, and improving the performance and competitiveness of the livestock/meat, poultry and aquaculture sectors".

The Abidjan workshop was attended by some 33 participants, representing national project coordinators, accountants from national institutions, Convention project monitoring and evaluation officers, and a number of resource persons. The meeting provided an opportunity for participants to review the activities to be implemented, to learn about the state of progress of projects at the level of each institution and each country, and also to plan and budget activities for the current year, taking into account the gender approach to improve care for the most vulnerable groups in the concrete implementation of projects.

Referring to the results of the UEMOA-CORAF/WECARD convention, Ms. MAIGA, who is also in charge of Gender and Social Development at CORAF/WECARD's Research and Innovation Department, said that " the relevance of this workshop, the second of its kind after the one held in Lomé in February 2016, no longer needs to be demonstrated in view of the results obtained in terms of improved performance in implementing VATICOPP and PROGEVAL ".

The workshop, she says, will "enable us to address various issues and orientate activities according to the results obtained, the difficulties encountered and the lessons learned", adding that"CORAF will draw on all the workshop's conclusions and recommendations to take appropriate action". The VATICOPP and PROGEVAL projects are in line with the priority areas defined in the cooperation agreement between UEMOA and CORAF/WECARD, namely improving the performance and competitiveness of the cotton sector, and improving the performance and competitiveness of the livestock/meat, poultry and aquaculture sectors.

The quarterly reports for 2016 showed the successful results achieved during the implementation of these projects. For VATICOPP, the baseline study on the particleboard sector and the valorization of cotton stems has been finalized in Benin, Mali and Togo. In addition, 337 cotton growers (16% of whom are women) and 28 technicians/extension agents (7% of whom are women) have been trained in best practices for the collection and conservation of cotton stalks to be used in the production of particleboard (PP), and three Innovation Platforms are currently operational. Finally, the optimum parameters required for the manufacture of PP from cotton stems (TC) in terms of polymerization time, pressing time and binder content are known.

As for the PROGEVAL project, status reports on the characterization of animal and aquaculture genetic resources are available for seven of the eight UEMOA countries; five Innovation Platforms on the management of animal and aquaculture genetic resources are operational, and two M1 and M2 markers have been validated on 12 Kou individuals in Burkina Faso and on the Manzala species at CIRAD.