SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 39th ANNUAL MEETING
Take urgent action to save 31.7 million lives and build a future without food and nutrition crises
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Held in Praia, Cabo Verde, the 39th Annual Meeting of the RPCA was opened by His Excellency José Ulisses Correia e Silva, Prime Minister of the Republic of Cabo Verde. The meeting brought together 230 participants in person and by videoconference to examine the provisional results of the 2023-24 agropastoral season, and the food and nutrition situation in the region, including the consequences of the security and socio-political crises.
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Cereal production for the 2023-24 season, estimated at 76.5 million tonnes, is down 1% from the previous season, but up 3% from the average of the past five years. Production of roots and tubers, estimated at 207.7 million tonnes, is up 2% on the previous season and 7% on the five-year average. Cash crops follow a similar trend, except for cocoa, where production is down from the previous year and the five-year average. Fodder availability and livestock watering conditions are quite good, despite pockets of shortages observed in some regions of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Cabo Verde and Chad.
Market supplies are satisfactory, except for insecure areas in Liptako-Gourma, the Lake Chad Basin and certain localities in the northwestern states of Nigeria. The border closures imposed by certain countries, as well as the sanctions imposed on Niger, are disrupting the smooth operation of markets in the country, as well as those in localities to the north of Nigeria and Benin.
Members of the Network would like to draw the attention of policy makers to the persistence of factors exacerbating food and nutrition crises in the West Africa and Sahel region:
The intensification of violence due to insecurity, including the risk of it spreading to the north of Togo and Benin, is responsible for the forced displacement of more than 8.3 million people, the majority of whom are living in precarious conditions. Added to this is the large number of refugees, mainly due to the conflict in Sudan. Insecurity severely restricts the free movement of people and goods, as well as access to populations in affected areas. In budgetary terms, it forces governments to increase their military spending to the detriment of structural investments in food and nutrition security.
Held under the auspices of the Commissions of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), the RPCA annual meeting connected the region’s key food and nutrition security stakeholders (ministers and other government representatives, high-level officials of regional organisations, civil society and private sector representatives, technical and financial partners). The Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD) organised the meeting.
The persistence of inflation reduces the purchasing power of households where the market plays a major role in food and nutrition security. Inflation on staple foods averages 20%, with peaks in Sierra Leone (54%), Ghana (35%) and Nigeria (27%). It is fuelled by the persistence of barriers to regional trade, rising transport costs, the depreciation of most currencies in the region, the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and civil insecurity in West Africa and the Sahel.
Lack of financial resources mobilised in the face of worsening food and nutrition crises. In 2022, six out of ten people in food crisis were unable to receive the assistance they needed; the remaining 40% was only 45% of the value distributed in previous years. As a result, current interventions provide only a tiny fraction of the needs and offer no prospect of lasting change in the lives of beneficiaries.
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Approximately 31.7 million people are in need of immediate food and nutrition assistance. If appropriate measures are not taken, 44.5 million people could be affected by acute food and nutrition insecurity during the lean season in June-August 2024, including more than 2 million cases deemed urgent. An additional 85.6 million people, currently under food pressure, could fall into crisis without appropriate measures. The nutrition crisis also persists in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, where nearly 16.5 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, with 4.8 million children suffering from severe malnutrition.
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Discussing the central theme of the annual meeting on food systems in the region, Network members noted rapid changes in diets due to population growth, urbanisation and rising incomes. They wish to draw the attention of the authorities to:
the exorbitant cost of nutritious food that 85% of the region’s population cannot afford. Poor nutrition leads to noncommunicable diseases that put pressure on public health expenditure, as well as productivity losses and reduced life expectancy.
insufficient investment in market information systems that severely reduces the ability of countries to produce regular, forward-looking analyses on market functioning and nutritious food options to guide consumer choice.
Members of the Network therefore urge States and their regional organisations to invest sustainably in the resilience and desired transformations of food systems.
In examining innovative initiatives and approaches to structural responses to food crises, the members of the Network commend Guinea on the investments it has made, while recommending that similar efforts be made in favour of post-production links in order to optimise the functioning of agri-food value chains and to ensure the sustainability of the gains made.
Regarding the governance of food and nutrition issues, members congratulated Senegal for the progress made in assessing its capacity to lead and manage food challenges, and encouraged it to validate the results of the exercise and implement the improvements recommended. They also encourage States to draw on the Ethiopian experience to further extend social protection programmes, including productive support for the sustainable transformation of the livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations.
They also congratulate and encourage parliamentarians and civil society organisations in their initiatives to monitor and call for the application of the Charter for Food Crisis Prevention and Management (PREGEC). The members welcome the expertise of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger, supported by the Spanish development co-operation and the FAO, and invite the region to draw from its experience in order to strengthen the call for and the adoption of laws favourable to the achievement of the Zero Hunger objective and, more generally, on food and nutrition issues.
During an exchange of experiences and good practices in strengthening food systems, participants commended the efforts of the Government of Cabo Verde in mobilising significant domestic resources to implement ambitious climate adaptation and water management programmes for agricultural intensification, extension of social protection and school feeding. Despite the difficult budgetary trade-offs, the members of the Network urge States in the region to draw inspiration from the experience of Cabo Verde, in order to strengthen the sustainability of food systems and the resilience of the most vulnerable people.
As a result of their work, the members of the Network will:
reiterate their recommendations made at the 38th annual meeting of the Network for States on the urgency of: (i) accelerating the mobilisation of resources for the financing of national response plans and facilitating access to areas of insecurity or difficult to access, in particular in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria; and (ii) strengthening instruments and policy measures to support people’s purchasing power.
recommend that ECOWAS, UEMOA and CILSS, and their Member States: (i) establish a sustainable financing system for national food and nutrition security information systems, including market-based information systems; ii) implement approaches and instruments dedicated to improving the effectiveness of the response to food crises, including synergies and co-ordination with social protection and the adaptation of response modalities to the current context marked by the spread of insecurity, an increase in displaced populations and high inflation; iii) continue to build the capacity of governments to manage food issues, as well as the capacity of civil society to monitor and raise awareness; and (iv) support the operationalisation of the humanitarian-development-peace approach, particularly in countries on the security front.
reiterate their recommendation made to States and their inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) at the 38th Annual Meeting on the need to invest decisively in inclusive structural responses, in order to reverse negative food and nutrition trends in the region;
reiterate their recommendations to ECOWAS and UEMOA on the urgency of (i) strengthening dialogue with their Member States, with a view to significantly reducing barriers to regional trade and cross-border transhumance; (ii) mobilising regional food crisis response instruments to support states in caring for people in need of assistance; and (iii) accelerating the strengthening of the intervention capacities of the Regional Food Security Reserve, including its sovereign financing.
invite partners to mobilise and commit to a long-term partnership with States and IGOs, in order to tackle the underlying causes of chronic food and nutrition crises, and to support the transformation of food systems, including the adaptation of communities and production systems to climatic and socio-economic shocks. They stress the importance of building emergency response interventions around existing instruments and mechanisms, including the regional storage strategy and its mechanisms for supplying the region’s agricultural producer organisations.
The participants agreed that the restricted meeting will take place on 3-5 April 2024 in Paris. The 40th Annual Meeting will take place on 3-6 December 2024; the host country and central theme will be confirmed at a later date.
Praia, 8 December 2023
Participants at the 39th Annual Meeting of the RPCA