In response to a recent call by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and West African Ministers of Agriculture and Food, CORAF is making considerable tweaks to its programmatic priorities to support smallholder farmers, seed businesses, and seed cooperatives that are being increasingly hurt by COVID-19.
Vulnerable farmers, businesses, and decision-makers are central to the CORAF COVID-19 Emergency Seed Support Initiative. With the help of national seed systems in ECOWAS-member countries, the CORAF intervention would be implemented through an online system. The digital system will garner, store, and disseminate critical seed related information on the availability of breeder, foundation, and certified seeds in each country, the access points, accessibility, the quality, traceability and market related information.
Individual countries have adopted stringent measures in a bid to contain the Coronavirus. This ranges from partial or total containment of populations, limiting the mobility of people, closing borders, and closing urban, peri-urban, and rural markets, thus disrupting the food supply and demand chain.
“While these measures have had positive effects on slowing down the spread of COVID-19, the unintended consequences have included an increase in prices for basic commodities, inadequate access to food for vulnerable people, a drastic drop in the marketing of perishable products, higher transport costs, difficult access to seeds, fertilizers, plant protection products, and rarefaction and high cost of agricultural labor,” says His Excellency Sekou Sangare, the ECOWAS Commissioner of Agriculture, Environment, and Water Resources.
Stemming the Hunger Crisis Lurking on the Horizon
With its track record of delivering on quality seeds, CORAF has developed this emergency measure which primarily ensures there is updated information on the availability of breeder, foundation, and certified seeds. The system will contain information on the available quantity, where it is found, with what businesses or cooperatives and the challenges of taking them to the market or where there is demand. The overarching objective is to stem the hunger crisis lurking on the horizon.
More than 15 million people were already affected by the difficult food situation, according to the Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA), an initiative of the Sahel and West Africa Club. Even before COVID-19, the food system in West Africa was already affected by a challenging climate, a security crisis, the fall armyworm, and locusts attack.
This figure could, in a context without COVID-19, exceed 17 million people during the period between June-August 2020, according to the RPCA data.
The RPCA comprises the leading players of the West African food and nutrition system. It tracks the food and nutrition situation in West Africa and the Sahel, and Cameroon and publishes critical information for decision making and action by policymakers and program implementers as well as the private sector.
What is in CORAF’s Intervention?
CORAF’s intervention is designed to effectively link quality seed producers with farmers desiring such seeds by developing an up-to-date information system on seed systems.
The system will not only enhance farmer’s access to improved quality seeds and planting material but also help farmers understand better the impact of COVID 19 crisis on lives and livelihoods.
The information will initially involve cereals such as maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cowpea, and groundnut to be expanded to roots and tubers like cassava, yam, and potatoes.
The emergency seed and planting materials support initiative will cover all 15 ECOWAS countries, plus Chad and Mauritania. It will be aligned with and complement the products designed for the West Africa COVID-19 Fertilizer Watch led by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).
This COVID-19 response is to ensure that there are no restrictions on the imports, distribution, and use of quality seeds by farmers, producers, and other users. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the resilience of the sub-region’s agricultural system and to prevent a food crisis.
“Early generation and the certified seeds should not be banned or subject to any restriction on their production, distribution, and use by producers during the duration of the pandemic and beyond,” says Dr. Yacouba Diallo, a seed expert with decades of experience on the seed sector in West Africa.
IFDC is already serving farmers, producers, decision-makers, and other key actors with critical information on fertilizers. CORAF intends to work in close collaboration with other inputs actors to ensure the integrated delivery of inputs.
The Partnership for Agricultural Research, Education and Development, a quality seed delivery intervention led by CORAF and funded by USAID West Africa, will be responsible for data collection, clearance, and dissemination to farmers, seed businesses, government officers, and other key partners.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) ex-Pillar IV Africa Regional and Sub-regional Organizations for Agricultural Research and Innovation project (CAADP XP4), is funded by the European Union (EU) under the Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA) initiative and administered by IFAD.
Programme goals and objectives
The programme which brings together the major continental and sub-regional organizations AFAAS, ASARECA, CCARDESA, CORAF and FARA, aims at contributing to Agenda 2063 and to the climate-relevant CAADP goals as set in the 2014 African Union’s Malabo Declaration in advancing Accelerated African Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods.
The objective is to enable agricultural research and innovation, including extension services, to contribute effectively to food and nutrition security, economic development and climate mitigation in Africa. This will be achieved by improving the capacity, effectiveness and positioning of the Regional and Sub-regional Agriculture research and extension organizations as well as National-Agriculture-Research-Systems, and by promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing among the organizations and relevant European institutions.
Programme outputs and outcomes
The five outputs of the programme are:
1. Strengthened Capacity of African regional and sub-regional agricultural research organizations to perform their individual mandates and to better work together; 2. Multi-stakeholder Partnerships for Innovation established and in operation;
3. Strengthened national policies, regional institutional arrangements, and market access;
4. Knowledge Management & Communication for decision support, sharing innovation and advocacy related to climate-relevant agriculture transformation; and
1. improved capacities of countries to; prioritize, plan and use climate-relevant technologies and innovations, advocate and mobilize investments in agricultural research and innovation, formulate and implement policies; and
2. improved collaboration amongst institutions to; enhance the coherence of actions, advance a common vision and agenda and to strengthen Africa’s voice in global platforms on research and innovation.
Ben Moses Ilakut: As the novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) continues to spread rapidly across the globe, countries across the world have shut down major socio-economic functions, putting livelihoods in a precarious situation.
A genuine fear that the worst is yet to come in regards to food and nutrition security is looming. The months of April, May and even the proceeding ones could pose some of the worst disruptions in food supply chains ever since the Global Food Crisis of 2007-2008 sparked off by rising food prices. The crisis reached an unprecedented peak in 2011 prompting ASARECA in partnership with the CGIAR to undertake evidence-based advocacy to curb food prices. The approach then was to keep policy-makers well informed of the food trends and their implications to avoid ad-hoc policy actions, which could have worsened the situation.
Policy options
Some of the recommendations given to the leaders at the time included: Working collaboratively as a region to allow food to move from production zones and areas of surplus to areas of deficiency; and making efforts to turn the crisis into a stimulus for domestic production, regional trade and integration. The arithmetic of doing this in the face of the Coronavirus is complicated since a balance has to be made between stopping the spread of the disease through restricted person-to-person contact on one hand, and ensuring emergency movements to provide families with food on the other hand. But the balancing act can be done.
A good example is the approach taken by Uganda. In his regular briefings, on measures to contain the spread of the disease, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has literally shut down all functions that could compromise social distancing. He, however, has consistently been careful not to extend restrictions to cross-border and internal cargo movement, especially the movement of food supplies. Inbound and outbound cargo has been spared the travel ban, just as internal deliveries have been. This is a move that Governments across the world could exercise since, according to FAO, “there is still enough food to feed all people.”
Open markets like this in most African suburbs get supplies from rural farms
Where things are going wrong
The CGIAR, the largest global AR4D grouping, has highlighted key areas where things could go haywire if not addressed. They include The food systems which have been significantly affected, and whose impacts will grow if processing enterprises cannot restart production in a near future; production of staple food crops if the outbreak continues into critical planting periods; domestic and international trade disruptions, which may trigger food price panics; restrictions on mobility which may lead to labour shortages, among others.
Resourcing the rural food baskets
Luckily, the African rural areas are not as vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19 as are the cities. Many Governments have already taken measures to stop the urban populations from transferring the virus to the rural areas, which are naturally the food baskets. However, there is a danger that restrictions of movement could affect farm productivity due to shortage of fertilizers, veterinary services and other inputs, while the closure of food cooking businesses could curtail fresh produce and fisheries products, affecting producers and suppliers. The Governments should, therefore, move to ensure that the rural areas are resourced with agricultural inputs and resident extension services to encourage them to produce more to feed the urban populations. Given the currently favourable rain patterns, this could turn out to be an opportunity for farmers to reap big from their urban folk who have been grounded and are requiring more food supplies.
Logistics for movement of food
There is also a need to put in place logistical systems including storage, transport and protective gear, to move food from places of production and surplus to places of deficiency. Noting that the Corona pandemic could escalate before it calms down, governments could besides securing lives from the virus, invest in postharvest facilities to store, and move food where it is most needed.
Areas for emergency action
According to the CGIAR, action now needs to focus on: Increasing support for production entities; ensuring the smooth flow of trade and making full use of international markets to secure food supply and demand; ensuring smooth logistical operations of regional agricultural and food supply chains; monitoring food prices and strengthening market supervision; explaining issues related to wet-markets and livestock-wildlife interface and how to mitigate future zoonotic disease and supporting one-health approaches; increasing resilience and mitigation of social disruptions by increasing local food productivity and water access. It is clear from this list that coordinated regional action towards production and keeping food circulation has an important place in pushing back the impacts of COVID-19.
It is arguable that if policy leaders desist from interrupting food exports and imports, the impact of Corona Virus on food and nutrition security will be minimal
Finally, as the world grapples with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FAO has attempted to answer critical questions in the face of the pandemic globally. Some of the key questions posed and answered by FAO are:
Will COVID-19 have negative impacts on global food security?
Whose food security and livelihoods are most at risk due to the pandemic?
What are the implications of the COVID-19 situation – now and in the future – for food production, agricultural and fishery/aquaculture supply chains and markets?
How will the pandemic affect food demand?
What is the connection between COVID-19 and animals?
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) advances the systematic adoption of science-led solutions towards addressing Africa’s food insecurity challenges by promoting fundamental societal change. A necessary element in this respect is addressing youth unemployment, which constitutes a significant security risk in Africa. Unfortunately, the African youth are the key actors in conflicts while Africa imports nearly $50 billion net of food annually despite holding 60% of the world’s arable land. (Michael, 2019)[1] However, the increasing number of youth in Africa presents both challenges and opportunities for the growth of the agricultural sector, obviating the need to redirect the continent’s youthful energy and the [2], to drive economic transformation predicated on Agriculture Research and Development (ARD).
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of all farms are small-scale with varied production of subsistence crops and a few cash crops on small plots of land. They rely majorly on family labor, with women playing a vital role. Investment priorities should, therefore, focus on supporting smallholder farmers and especially in the rural areas to become profitable considering 60% of Africa’s youth live in rural settings. (BBC, 2019)[3] Tangible actions are needed by the development community, national governments, and private sector partners to create the right conditions and policies to fast track this.
Beyond changing policies, their enforcement at all levels within the society is critical. This would include a concerted effort to deepen the understanding of barriers such as skills, access to resources, decision-making power, discriminatory norms, care obligations, security concerns, etc., which often hamper their implementation. In particular, the roles and priorities of women and youth, who often constitute the marginalized groups of the society, are important. These groups, therefore, need to be included in research in a meaningful way. For example, offering child-care support options, flexible schedules and proximity to the home when targeting (young) women; and affirmative actions, to ensure inclusion of women and youth. Investing in capacity development and agri-preneurship for gender and youth inclusions are very critical as research has shown that if women had the same access to agricultural resources as men, about 150 million fewer people would go hungry.
Social protection is also important for addressing economic and social risks, yet women and youth often face restricted access to, or exclusion from, social protection and social security. Some key suggestions for AR4D practitioners include; 1) encouraging national governments to commit to and invest in enhancing the collection, dissemination and analysis of data on youth and women, disaggregated by age and sex, education, qualifications, competencies, capacities, occupation, employment situation, and skill level, as well as country of origin; 2) building capacity for national governments to apply this data to meet age-sensitive, and equity-focused approaches to youth in agriculture and development; 3) promoting investment in Science, Technology and Innovations (STI) to provide conditions that make investment viable and sustainable in rural contexts and 4) expanding access to education, apprenticeships, finance, business and employment opportunities for young women and men in Agricultural Research for Development across the continent, and empowering them to expand access to their peers.
Operationally, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), provides an opportunity to increase youth and women’s participation in agricultural food enterprises. Women constitute 70% of the workforce in the agricultural sector in Africa and 10% in basic food processing. They also carry out 60 to 90% of the total rural marketing, which is mostly through informal channels. According to GrowAfrica’s analysis while celebrating the success of women in Agribusiness in 2018, women’s capacity to organize and mobilize while taking charge of their own issues provides great chances of them accessing the support they need in order to grow their businesses. As Africa prepares to silence the guns and end conflicts across the continent, there is a need for bold actions both in policy and investments to increase food security by strengthening critical mass and large numbers of youth and women to successfully and sustainably participate in AR4D.
The threat to food and nutrition security in Africa has increased with the reemergence of desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) in Eastern Africa at a scale not seen in the last 7 decades. “In the Horn of Africa, the worst affected area, there is an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods as swarms increase in Ethiopia and Somalia and continue to move south to Kenya where they have spread to 14 northern, central and southwest counties, reaching within 200 km of northeast Uganda and southeast SouthSudan.” Ground and aerial control operations are ongoing in the affected countries, including Oman, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Yemen.
Triggered by changing climate, the locusts have been breeding in large numbers and projection indicates that the threat will persist especially due to newly introduced varieties of crops. With swarms advancing across the region, active oviposition portends significant danger with the development of hopper bands and subsequent emergence of even higher number of swarms in the coming days and weeks and if left unchecked, could grow 500-fold by June (Nature 2020).
In a continent that is already slammed with the heavy toll of climate change, largely desertification and water-stress scenarios, the ravaging menace of anything vegetative by the desert locust scourge is the least Africa needs today. The implications for food and nutrition security in the medium to long term will be colossal.
As the custodian of agricultural research for development in Africa, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) the current onslaught by the gregarious locusts calls for concerted and coherent efforts to leverage science and technology to address this problem.
Earlier in December 2019, the Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa (DLCO-EA) had warned of the presence of immature and mature swarms around northwest Somalia and eastern Ethiopia (1109N/4242E and 1147N/4242E). However, the eventual outbreak in the region and beyond underscores the need for strengthening Africa’s capacity for the development of anticipatory strategies of containing and mitigating biological menaces.
FARA calls for stronger institutional alignment among key stakeholders in this respect, by leveraging science and technology to confront the biological menace and strengthen the ecosystem for developing joint response mechanisms to emerging technology and innovation issues, including threats by desert locusts.
The new year 2020 marks the beginning of a promising decade for Africa. Through at least the first half of the decade, economic growth across Africa will continue to outperform that of other regions, with the continent continuing to be home to seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. Collective action among African and global policymakers to improve the livelihoods of all under the blueprint of the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 is representative of the shared energy and excitement around Africa’s potential. With business environments improving, regional integration centred around the African Continental Free Trade Agreement progressing, and the transformational technologies of Fourth Industrial Revolution spreading, never before has the region been better primed for trade, investment, and mutually beneficial partnerships. The recent, unprecedented interest of an increasingly diversified group of external partners for engagement with Africa highlights this potential. Despite the continent’s promise, though, obstacles to success linger, as job creation still has not caught up with the growing youth labour force, gaps in good and inclusive governance remain, and climate change, as well as state fragility, threaten to reverse the hard-fought-for gains of recent decades.
This special edition of Foresight Africa highlights the triumphs of past years as well as strategies from our experts to tackle forthcoming, but surmountable, obstacles to a prosperous continent by 2030.
1. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
The state of play and policy options
In Chapter 1, our experts discuss how the next 10 years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will shape policy priorities for African governments and their partners. Progress has been uneven both across countries and across goals, often hindered by a lack of coordination across national and local governments as well as the global system at large. Given that financing continues to be the biggest hindrance to global success, our authors explore resource mobilization strategies that can push Africa over the finish line. Read more
2. Deepening good governance
Inclusion, democracy, and security
For Africa to accomplish the ambitious but laudable SDGs, strong institutions and good governance must be in place. In Chapter 2, our experts discuss not only how African countries can build and sustain peace and end corruption, but also how the global community can support institution-building efforts. More broadly, good governance must be inclusive, so our experts share how support for widespread democracy as well as the empowerment of women can and will bring gains for all. Read more
3. Leveraging demographic trends for economic transformation
Job creation, skills development, and urbanization policies
Among the top challenges facing the continent continues to be the mismatch between demographic trends and job creation. With rapid population growth and urbanization, African leaders must fashion and implement policies to encourage job creation and maintain service delivery. The authors in Chapter 3, then, offer strategies for governments to invest in sectors primed to grow and create jobs, prepare young people for the jobs of the future, and improve the quality of living in Africa’s rapidly growing cities. Read more
4. Combating climate change
An urgent call for comprehensive global and local action
Overshadowing all of these challenges is the threat of climate change. Food security is particularly in the crosshairs as climate change threatens means of production and the nutrition of the continent’s people. At the same time, the perils of increasing and strengthening natural disasters loom over the millions of people living in low elevation coastal zones. As the authors argue in Chapter 4, without aggressive and comprehensive global and local action, other reforms addressing economic growth and human development will be for naught. Read more
5. Capturing the Fourth Industrial Revolution
A regional and national agenda
Many leaders see the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its accompanying technologies as a pathway for many solutions to the challenges facing the continent. Progress toward goals such as education access, climate change mitigation, and service delivery can all be enhanced by digital tools both already available and on the horizon. In Chapter 5, the authors explore how groundbreaking technology—such as artificial intelligence—can, hand-in-hand with enabling and empowering policies, improve business, health care, and the livelihoods of all. Read more
Bolstering Africa’s role in the global economy
The importance of regional integration
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already ushering in a new, empowered future for Africa as it steps out on to the world stage. Bolstered by the newly implemented African Continental Free Trade Agreement, policies to encourage innovation and integration can propel the continent into new frontiers of business and human development. In Chapter 6, our experts explore the new commercial and diplomatic opportunities Africa is creating as it empowers itself from within and suggests how the continent might respond to new foreign partners looking to tap into this potential. Read more
