November 14, 2007

New Project Won – West Africa: African Union-Funded Farmer Organizations and Trade Associations Activity

ACDI/VOCA has won a new activity funded by the African Union (AU)—a first for ACDI/VOCA—to provide expert support in the development of a framework by AU’s New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to better support farmer organizations and trade associations in West Africa. ACDI/VOCA’s Managing Director for Africa Agribusiness Paul Guenette will provide technical support to the general coordinator of the November 2007 Conference of Ministers of Agriculture for West and Central Africa. Guenette will present his recommendations at the conference to help facilitate AU’s effort to increase the emergence of operational and sustainable farmer organizations and trade associations in Africa. Through this initiative, AU aims to ensure that African organizations and associations have the capacity to provide high-quality technical and commercial services to their members and serve as credible actors in public and private sector partnerships and business-to-business ventures, in order to support the development of agribusiness enterprise in Africa.

ACDI/VOCA’s work will be important in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program, which was established by AU’s NEPAD and has been endorsed by African heads of state and governments as a vision for the acceleration of agricultural growth, food security and rural development in Africa. NEPAD has developed the following goals for Africa to be achieved by 2015:

• attaining food security
• improving agricultural productivity to achieve a 6 percent annual growth rate
• developing dynamic regional and subregional agricultural markets
• integrating farmers into a market economy
• achieving more equitable distribution of wealth

For more information on ACDI/VOCA’s long history of working with farmer organizations and associations click here.