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CORAF is an important organization working to improve food and nutrition security in West Africa. CORAF's recent initiatives are a promising sign of its determination to meet the challenges facing West Africa.

"CORAF needs the support of donors to meet the pressing needs of the population".

Published on: 28/11/2017

Alex Deprez, Mission Director for West Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), called on development partners to support CORAF in renewing itself to meet the urgent and pressing needs of the people of West and Central Africa.

 

The senior USAID official was speaking in Dakar on Monday, November 27, 2017, at an engagement meeting between development partners and staff of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF).
"Our collective responsibility as development actors is to help CORAF renew and reorganize itself to better carry out its mandate in the West African region, where needs have become more complex and pressing."
CORAF is currently in the midst of a major reform to better address pressing climate change, growing food and nutrition challenges, gender disparities, the massive migration of the continent's young people and the employment difficulties faced by African states.
Since early 2017, CORAF has consulted widely with Ministries of Agriculture, farmers and farmers' organizations, seed producers, the private sector, women's groups and input suppliers to develop an agricultural research agenda reflecting the new needs of nearly 430 million people living in West and Central Africa.
The resulting Strategy 2018-2027 and Operational Plan 2018-2022 are expected to be discussed and adopted by the Institution's Board of Directors, which is being held in Dakar from November 28 to 30, 2017. And thereafter, the General Meeting should be held in the first quarter of 2018.
Five other key donors were present at the Dakar meeting. They included the World Bank, theIslamic Development Bank, Global Affairs Canada and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
USAID's head of West Africa said that CORAF's partners should be expanded to include other major donors operating in both West and Central Africa.
"It's about working together to expand our group to other partners, to increase support for CORAF," said USAID's mission director for West Africa.
"The new strategic and operational plans are essential tools for achieving this. That's why they must be relevant, attractive and capable of mobilizing support."
According to USAID, donor support is essential in two areas.
"Firstly, by providing technical expertise to implement coherent tools to meet the needs of the region's population."
"Secondly, we need to support CORAF to equip itself with the human and financial resources to implement the plans once approved and adopted."

CORAF is the largest sub-regional research organization in Africa. Founded in 1987, CORAF now comprises 23 national agricultural research systems in 23 countries of West and Central Africa. Over the past 30 years, CORAF has improved agricultural production and raised the incomes of millions of entrepreneurs and farmers.

Working with key players in the agricultural value chain, CORAF is at the forefront of scaling up smart science, innovation and technology solutions to achieve agricultural transformation. Climate, gender, migration, nutrition, youth, monitoring and evaluation are at the heart of its delivery approach.

Tag : News,Climate change,Uncategorized

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