Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The mission of the Sahel West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC) is to be an instrument of monitoring, prospective analyses and pursuing dialogue aimed at improving the effectiveness of all stakeholders in regional co-operation in West Africa.

The key objectives of the 2021-2022 Programme of Work and Budget are:

* Strengthening of the regional governance of food and nutrition security in West Africa

* Increasing the resilience and sustainability of food systems in West Africa

* Strengthening urban and territorial planning in West Africa

* Increase commitment to integrate multi-scalar and territorial approaches into West African human security strategies.

Expected results

• Better coordinated and aligned Food Nutrition System (FNS) interventions, based on the provision of relevant information and support for the strengthening of the leadership of regional actors.

• Improved capacity of African decision-makers to achieve their food and nutritional security ambitions with regard to the populations of the Sahel and West Africa.

• More effective regional policies and better co-ordination of policies at the regional level.

• The use by FNS decision-makers and actors of relevant and diversified information facilitating the planning and moderation of policy dialogue on co-ordination, alignment and the effectiveness of interventions.

• More effective deployment of FNS interventions by West-African decision-makers, based on innovative instruments that integrate gender dimensions and that are tailored to match the growing complexity of food and nutritional challenges.

• Better coordination of humanitarian responses to food and nutritional crises.

• Improved account taken of the different dimensions of food systems in public policies and international co-operation strategies.

• A growing commitment on the part of African decision-makers and main stakeholders in the sector to integrate a more systemic approach to food issues in their resilience strategies.

• Account taken of the analytical approach and methodological elements proposed with regard to urban transformations and their economic, social and territorial impacts.

• Greater account taken of spatial and cross-border dynamics in stabilization strategies.

• Increased interest in, and support from, the international community for the West African region.

Target group / Beneficiaries

850 participants to the bi-annual Meetings (total direct beneficiaries; Austrian financed proportion 4.37% = 37).

6,000 recipients of corporate communications relative to this project (almost 100,000 interactions as a result), 2,000 Twitter followers.

4,000 recipients of corporate communications relative to this project, 7,000 unique users of the Africapolis website, 100 attendees of the SWAC Week thematic sessions.

1,000 recipients of Cross-Border publications, 4,000 recipients of corporate communications relative to this Project.

400 attendees of the Sahel and West Africa Week, 3,000 visitors to the SWAC website.

4,000 recipients of corporate communications relative to this project. 100 attendees to the proposed conference.

Activities

Bi-annual meetings, policy briefs, studies and the construction of appropriate frameworks for consulting with civil society organisations. Implementation of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for the implementation, a forum for both national and regional policy dialogue and the writing of specific studies and policy briefs.

Context

West Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world. Its population – which is expected to double in the next 25 years – has very high rates of illiteracy, chronic diseases and malnutrition. In addition, the region is facing growing insecurity combining Islamic terrorism, trafficking, ethnic militias and self-defence groups. Governments are finding it increasingly difficult to cope. The risk of collapse of some states is real.

Regional governance of food and nutrition security has been strengthened in recent years. Regional food crisis prevention and forecasting instruments as well as the solidarity promoted by the Food Crisis Prevention Network are now a reality. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the precarious situation in which West Africa and especially the Sahel already found itself. It could plunge millions of additional people into a food crisis situation due to major disruptions in the region's food supply chains. Health measures, such as restrictions on mobility or market activity, have in turn affected the livelihoods of informal workers. Fiscal trade-offs in the countries concerned, between security, food and health emergencies, are increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

The international community has made this region – particularly the Sahel – a priority. A great number of initiatives have been launched in recent years: military or peacekeeping operations, but also Alliance Sahel, Coalition for the Sahel, etc. The last G7 devoted a joint declaration to it. A recent ministerial round table on the Central Sahel, organized by Denmark, Germany, the EU and UN-OCHA, highlighted the unprecedented humanitarian situation.

The work of the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) of the OECD is more necessary and appreciated than ever. In particular, it provides the countries of the region and their partners with more knowledge and analysis to inform policy. Moreover, this work has the particularity of being based on a regional cross-border rather than national approach. Indeed, the realities of West African and Sahelian challenges are essentially cross-border. The SWAC/OECD is also recognised as a space for consultation and policy dialogue in the service of stabilization and the attainment of sustainable development objectives (SDGs), which makes it particularly well placed to propose appropriate consensual responses to the multi-sectoral challenges that need to be urgently put in place with a high degree of coherence of action.