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Stakeholders in the West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP), one of West Africa's most successful agricultural programs, will gather in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, from November 13 to 22, 2017 to highlight details of a more ambitious iteration of the program.

The new intervention aims to significantly step up the adoption of climate-smart technologies, improve job creation and expand access to regional markets for targeted speculations.

"This program has set itself some very ambitious targets, because West and Central Africa deserve it. At least 40% of the beneficiaries must be women, and the technologies disseminated must relate to crucial areas such as climate change, nutrition, mechanization and processing. And it will be judged on the number of permanent and seasonal jobs created", according to Dr Abdou TENKOUANO, Executive Director of the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF).

The PPAAO was launched in 2008 with the mission of boosting productivity, reducing hunger, improving nutrition, creating jobs and supporting collaboration across borders.

Ten years on, the program has reached almost nine million people directly , and some 49 million indirectly.

In 2016, the World Bank ranked the WAPP as the second best project financed by the World Bank in Africa.

"This rating is not only recognition of the effective management of the program across the West African region, but also recognition of the development results achieved by the program," said CORAF's Executive Director.

"However, we still have a long way to go, which is why we need to get back to work immediately to not only lead efforts to find new, smarter solutions to emerging challenges, but also to ensure that existing solutions are scaled up."

What's new?

The West African Agricultural Transformation Program (WAATP) to be discussed in Abidjan aims to transform the agricultural industry in a sustainable way by scaling up replicable innovations, technologies and crop varieties through the use of ICT tools and geo-mapping.

The geographical scope of coverage will extend to Central Africa. Cameroon and Chad are preparing to join the program.

"Despite the progress made, agricultural productivity in the West and Central African sub-region is still lagging behind the rest of the world", explains Dr Niéyidouba LAMIEN, regional coordinator of the WAPP program.

"The focus must go beyond productivity to solve the global problem of improving the food system to meet the demands of a growing population, tackle youth unemployment, climate change, migration, gender and nutrition."

Scheduled for launch in mid-2018, the PTAAO will focus on four mutually reinforcing components:

• Strengthening the new innovation delivery model in West Africa
• Accelerate technology adoption and job creation using demand-driven market approaches
• Supporting policies, markets and institutions
• Project management, learning, monitoring and evaluation.

What has the WAPP achieved?

Over two hundred technologies have been disseminated and adopted by almost 4.5 million growers and processors on around 4.8 million hectares. These technologies are available at www.mita.coraf.org

PPAAO has supported masters and doctoral scholarships for 1,021 young people, 72% of them men and 28% women. These young researchers will have to replace most of the researchers who are about to retire.

The 9 National Centers of Specialization (NCoS) in the countries participating in the program have benefited from the renovation of their infrastructures, and new research laboratories have been built. Two of the NCoS have been upgraded to Regional Specialization Centers (RSC). These are the NCoS for dry cereals, based in Senegal, and the NCoS for roots and tubers, based in Ghana.

By increasing yields of the main crops from 30% for dry cereals to 150% for rice, fruits and tubers, the program has had a considerable impact on food security and calorie intake. Caloric consumption rose from 2,777 kcal to 2,964 kcal, and the "hunger period" was reduced by between 28% and 55%, depending on the crop. The PPAAO has also improved the economic situation of producers by 34% and transformed communities.

The WAPP is an initiative of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It is financed by the World Bank and technically coordinated by CORAF.