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Many wondered what would happen once the West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) was completed.

Stakeholders are converging on a new program to support the regional food security strategy in the context of climate change.

The broad outlines of the program were presented recently in Abidjan by El Hadj Adama Touré, Chief Agricultural Economist at the World Bank, in the presence of Marianne Grosclaude, Head of Agricultural and Food Practices at the World Bank.

In collaboration with government officials from nearly 13 West African countries, the World Bank solicited contributions from the Economic Community of West African States, CORAF and other national players.

While the details of the new intervention are still under discussion, stakeholders agree that it should be highly selective and targeted, aimed at sustainably resolving one or a few intractable challenges to the agricultural and food system in West Africa.

Most of 2020 will be devoted to working out the details of the program, with the overriding aim of implementing it by early 2021.

The objective of the program is also being refined. But early indications are that the focus will be on strengthening the resilience of populations and communities across West Africa. This will involve accelerating the dissemination of climate-, gender-, nutrition- and youth-sensitive technologies.

More from WAATP

For most of 2017 and 2019, WAPP participating countries, ECOWAS, the World Bank and CORAF brainstormed a new intervention to succeed WAPP. The West African Agricultural Transformation Program was to accelerate the adoption of technologies generated under the WAPP while addressing other market and policy issues.

The World Bank has officially announced that it is ending this process in favor of a more selective and targeted program.

"We plan to complete the design phase by the end of 2020 and begin implementation by 2021," says El Hadj Adama Touré, Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank and head of the new project's task force.

Read also: Towards a more "ambitious" WAPP