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The Programme de Productivité Agricole en Afrique de l'Ouest (PPAAO) has been distinguished as the second best project in Africa in the 2016 World Bank 'sAfricaregion vice-presidential unit team award . The WAPP was recognized for its outstanding contribution to the enhancement of the West African food system, innovation, dissemination and adoption of improved technologies, as well as for its leading role in creating favorable conditions for regional cooperation in 13 beneficiary countries.

The WAPP coordinated by CORAF/WECARD moved up 11 places in the ranking, just 5 years after its first nomination by the World Bank. In 2013, the WAPP was ranked thirteenth. This progression is explained by its great capacity to transform West African agriculture by boosting productivity by more than 50%, reducing hunger and improving nutrition thanks to improved, drought-resistant crops, creating thousands of jobs and facilitating technology transfer between countries in the sub-region.

Estimates show that the WAPP has already boosted food production in West Africa by over 3 million tonnes, and increased beneficiaries' incomes by an average of 34%. Today, the West African Agricultural Productivity Program, coordinated by CORAF/WECARD, is seen as one of the main responses of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the 2006-2008 food crisis that hit the region. The region's food situation would have been worse without the intervention of the WAPP.

To date, the WAPP has generated over 160 technologies that directly benefit more than 7 million farmers, processors and small businesses in West Africa, 45% of whom are women, and nearly 30 million indirect beneficiaries. Our technologies have enabled the planting of more than 4 million hectares in West Africa.

On the other hand, the PPAAO stood out from the 80 other projects considered continent-wide in the competition for its high capacity to propose rapid response strategies to emerging local and global challenges and to build farmers' capacities on resilience to food and natural disasters. In 2015, WAPP provided 10,500 seeds to 200,000 farmers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra-Leone to boost these countries' recovery from the Ebola epidemic.

The World Bank's Vice President's Office has praised the efforts of the WAPP Coordination Unit at the World Bank. The unit is coordinated by Dr Abdoulaye Touré, Senior Economist and WAPP Team Leader at the World Bank: Amadou Alassane, AbimbolaAdubi, HardwickTchale, Kadir Osman Gyasi, Erick Herman Abiassi, SheuSalau, Elisée Ouédraogo, Amadou Ba and AifaFatimata Ndoye Niane.

At regional level, the West African Agricultural Productivity Program is coordinated by the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD).