PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Ketline Adodo; kadodo@ifdc.org
DATE: February 27, 2003
Symposium
on Policy Reforms Stresses Need to Advance Regional Integration to
Support Agricultural Market Development in West Africa
A
Symposium on Policy Reforms to Promote the Marketing of Agricultural
Inputs in West Africa was held in Lome, Togo, throughout December
2002. This symposium was the first of a series of events organized
by the Africa division of IFDC, the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA), and the African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA).
These
events marked the end of the African Trade and Investment Program (ATRIP),
a two-year program that covered six West African countries:
Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Togo.
ATRIP’s objectives were:
-
To
facilitate access to agricultural inputs, especially seeds and
fertilizer.
-
To
promote national and regional trade association and networks.
-
To
develop market information systems.
The
ATRIP Symposium attracted 88 participants from 10 countries: Benin,
Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal,
Togo, and the United States. Several
international/bilateral aid institutions were also represented.
“This
two-day symposium should provide a forum to verify priorities,
validate recommendations, and draft a framework for policy reforms
that each country could adapt to its own needs and circumstances
within the context of the regional integration,” said Micah
Rosenblum, an international affairs specialist at USDA.
The
policy reforms deal with priority areas that had been developed from
a set of proposals based on country reports assessing the current
policy environment for seed and fertilizer trade in six ATRIP
countries. Four working groups were appointed to treat the priority
areas:
1.
Fertilizer and seed tariffs, duties, and taxes.
2.
Fertilizer quality assurance.
3.
Intellectual property rights and variety registration.
4.
Seed certification and crop protection product management.
The
working groups drew up a list of important conditions that needed to
be met to create a favorable environment for private sector
investments in agricultural inputs markets and develop local
industries.
Three
conditions drew special attention:
1.
Regional integration cannot occur if free movement of people
and goods across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
countries is not guaranteed.
2.
Quality control standardization that applies to regional and
international trade.
3.
Harmonization of trade laws and regulations to facilitate
trade and help to control fraud in cross-country trade.
“Harmonization
of laws and regulations is the most difficult task on the agenda,”
said Baba Dioum, chairman on the Symposium and general coordinator
of the Conference of West and Central African Ministers of
Agriculture. “This means giving up comfortable ideas and
practices. We need to build trust among stakeholders and among
countries in West Africa through dialogue, and this has been an
outstanding achievement of the Symposium.”
Dr.
Henk Breman, Director of the IFDC Africa Division, said, “I’ve
been impressed by the high level of commitment that emerged from
this Symposium and especially by the identity of views on key
issues. ATRIP has come to an end but the work must go on. Indeed, a
project had been designed with the aim to implement the objective of
a regional inputs market in West Africa.
This five-year project would start where ATRIP has
stopped.”
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