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How can we ensure that we provide a package of inputs to producers in order to contribute effectively to increasing agricultural productivity? This question is at the heart of the workshop to review the Integrated Regional Strategy for the Sustainable Management of Agricultural Inputs, in West Africa, opened on Monday, June 10, 2019 in Dakar.

In 2006, the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government adopted the so-called Abuja Declaration, aimed at raising the level of fertilizer use in the region to 50 kg/hectare by 2015, compared with an average of 15% at the time. Four years after this deadline, it has to be said that this objective has not been achieved, according to observers.

Since then, regional institutions such as ECOWAS and theWest African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) have been working on an integrated strategy for the sustainable management of agricultural inputs, with the support of theUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID). The mission, which has been entrusted to the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), is working on an integrated regional strategy, the contours of which were reviewed at the Dakar workshop.

The main objective of the meeting, which brought together some thirty Task Force members, was to review the methodology of the regional strategy for the sustainable integrated management of agricultural inputs. The ultimate aim of this strategy is to ensure food and nutritional security in West Africa, reinforce the availability, accessibility and use of agricultural inputs, and create a favorable environment for input production and marketing.

Georges Oliveira, Senior Agricultural Policy Advisor at USAID's West Africa office, deplores the fact that the separate supply of agricultural inputs to farmers is not sufficiently adequate. According to the USAID representative, who supports this initiative, the regional strategy for sustainable input management needs to be rethought, taking into account small tools in the supply of inputs to producers, if the situation is to change.

For her part, Shirley Erves Kore, advisor to the USAID West Africa Mission, stresses that the success of the integrated regional strategy depends on the place given to the private sector, but also to women. This point of view is echoed by the representative of the African Development Bank, also present on the Task Force, who adds that "over 200 agricultural technologies have been identified by his institution, and are ready to be scaled up" for the benefit of agricultural producers.

According to data provided by the consultant team, agricultural productivity in West Africa has increased by around 3%. However, this increase is far from the 6% predicted in the Maputo Declaration of 2004, and would be the result of an increase in the area sown and the size of livestock herds, rather than the use of agricultural inputs in the region.

Following the Dakar workshop, the team of consultants plans to carry out investigations in several countries of the region in order to collect data on the issue of agricultural inputs. Following this work, a report will be drawn up, then a workshop to validate the regional strategy will be organized before implementation in the field.