There is substantial evidence that policy actions taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 have led to disruptions in food supply chain in Africa. Such actions, including road blocks and sanitary checks have led to losses of in quality or to complete damage of perishable products and to the accumulation of non-perishable products, closing slaughterhouses also resulted in losses. As countries enter into harvesting and post-harvest handling season in Eastern and Southern Africa and into planting season in Central and Western Africa, it is of paramount importance to ensure the timely access by smallholder/ family famers and produces to productive assets including land and water, both input and output market, as well as finance and agricultural extension services, while ensuring the safety and social distancing measures of agri-food value chain actors.
Farmers Organizations/ Cooperatives, Rural Institutions, and Civil Society will play indispensable roles
- to provide necessary support and above-mentioned services to the members, in particular, smallholder farmers, youth and women;
- to advocate and bring up voices of millions of smallholder/ family farmers/ producers to policy makers, monitoring situation, identifying bottlenecks and proposing solutions and also to share best practices which could be replicable, adaptable to the contexts and scale-up across the countries.
Building on the discussions during the Africa Regional Civil Society Consultation organized autonomously and independently by the Civil Society in Africa with support by FAO last February 2020, as well as the CSM Webinar: Learning about the COVID-19 crisis in the CFS held on April 15, 2020, this webinar will provide an opportunity to bring the Civil Society in Africa and discuss challenges and opportunities for smallholder/ family farmers/ producers in Africa during and post COVID-19, as well as share the best practices to respond to the crisis and beyond.
- Mr. Abebe Haile-Gabriel, Assistant Director-General/ Regional Representative for Africa, FAO
- Mr. Lisandro Martin, Director of the West and Central Africa (WCA) Division, IFAD
Challenges and Opportunities for Smallholder/ Family Famers in Africa during and post COVID-19
- Ms. Fatma Ben Rejeb, CEO, Pan African Farmers Organization (PAFO)
- Mr. Ibrahim Coulibaly, President, (Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) ROPPA
- Mr. Naseegh Jaffer, General Secretary, World Forum of Fishers People (WFFP)
- Mr. Adoum Djibrine AHMAT, Secretary General, Confédération des Organisations Professionnelles des Pasteurs et Acteurs de la Filière Bétail au Tchad (COPAFIB –TCHAD)
- Mr. Elom Zogan, Secretary General, La Coordination Togolaise des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs Agricoles (CTOP), Togo
- Moderated by Ms. Racheal Kalaba, Pan Africa Coordinator, Mouvement International de la Jeunesse Agricole et Rurale Catholique (MIJARC)
Resources:
As part of the United Nations Decade for Family Farming (2019-2028) and in order to support the promotion of digital for agriculture, the FARMTRAC project supports the development of the regional platform “Farmersconnect”.
- This platform will help millions of farmers, professional agricultural organizations and the private sector to effectively use technology in their daily lives.
- It will allow small farmers to be better known and to be easily accessible through their peasant organizations and directly through the Internet.
The project targets:
- Beneficiaries of IFAD-funded projects in West and Central Africa;
- 100,000 development practitioners;
- Private sector actors (farmers’ organizations and cooperatives, unions of transporters and traders, etc.);
- The key players involved along the main value chains and trade corridors in West and Central Africa.
YenKasa Africa is a regional platform promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Farm Radio International (FRI), and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) to enhance knowledge and experience sharing in communication in support to agriculture and rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- YenKasa Africa intends to promote the creation of a dynamic and interactive platform of communication bringing together local community radios, media professionals, communication and development practitioners, academicians as well as civil society organizations in order to strengthen local capacities and collaboration.
- The main goal of YenKasa Africa is to further in regional communities the role of communication for agriculture and rural development, with special attention given to issues related to family farming, sustainable natural resources management, climate change adaptation and mitigation, disaster risk reduction, food security, gender mainstreaming, agricultural innovation and remote access to the information via ICTs.