During a recent visit to Togo, José Graziano da
Silva, director general, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO),
congratulated the nation's president Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé and
agriculture, livestock and fisheries minister Ouro-Koura Agadazi for the
progress made by it in the war against hunger. They also discussed a
cash transfer scheme to combat hunger. It would be launched in January
2014.
He praised Togo for being one of the eleven African countries that have already achieved the Millennium Development Goal of halving the population of hungry people between 1990 and 2015 three years before the target deadline, and encouraged it to work towards the goal set by the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 – to reduce by half the absolute number of undernourished people by 2015.
Da Silva also suggested that Togo should join Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal in the Purchase from Africans for Africa Programme (PAA Africa), which sources food for school feeding programmes from local family farmers. The initiative – inspired by the success of a food purchase programme in Brazil – is jointly managed by FAO and the World Food Programme in close cooperation with Brazil and the UK.
Regional Agency
FAO's director general also visited the recently-launched Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and met its executive director, Ousseini Salifou. The objective of the agency is to implement regional investment plans for agriculture, forestry and livestock, and has its headquarters in Lome, the Togolese capital.
Da Silva backed the creation of an ECOWAS regional food reserve that would permit West Africa to respond to food crises, particularly in the Sahel. FAO is collaborating with ECOWAS on the Hunger-free Initiative for West Africa, co-funded by the German government, and on a Spanish-funded project to support the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in the region.
Among other initiatives, FAO is working on a project to strengthen the role of producer organisations in the commercial processing of agricultural products in the country, where agriculture accounts for around 52 per cent of employment nationwide. Da Silva met representatives from the private sector, civil society and farmer organisations in Togo, the last port of call on his visit to West Africa (after Mauritania, Senegal and Benin).
He praised Togo for being one of the eleven African countries that have already achieved the Millennium Development Goal of halving the population of hungry people between 1990 and 2015 three years before the target deadline, and encouraged it to work towards the goal set by the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 – to reduce by half the absolute number of undernourished people by 2015.
Da Silva also suggested that Togo should join Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal in the Purchase from Africans for Africa Programme (PAA Africa), which sources food for school feeding programmes from local family farmers. The initiative – inspired by the success of a food purchase programme in Brazil – is jointly managed by FAO and the World Food Programme in close cooperation with Brazil and the UK.
Regional Agency
FAO's director general also visited the recently-launched Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and met its executive director, Ousseini Salifou. The objective of the agency is to implement regional investment plans for agriculture, forestry and livestock, and has its headquarters in Lome, the Togolese capital.
Da Silva backed the creation of an ECOWAS regional food reserve that would permit West Africa to respond to food crises, particularly in the Sahel. FAO is collaborating with ECOWAS on the Hunger-free Initiative for West Africa, co-funded by the German government, and on a Spanish-funded project to support the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in the region.
Among other initiatives, FAO is working on a project to strengthen the role of producer organisations in the commercial processing of agricultural products in the country, where agriculture accounts for around 52 per cent of employment nationwide. Da Silva met representatives from the private sector, civil society and farmer organisations in Togo, the last port of call on his visit to West Africa (after Mauritania, Senegal and Benin).
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