ECA, partners brainstorm to practicalise cross-border agricultural value chains between Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana

An inception workshop to strengthen the capacity of ECOWAS member states to develop regional agricultural value chains to enhance diversification and intra-African trade has ended in Accra, Ghana.

It was organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), ECOWAS Commission, other UN Agencies and supervised by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).

In an opening interaction, Dr Joan Kagwanja, in-charge of Land and Agricultural Transformation of ECA said the launch was to present to stakeholders, the methodology and results of pre-analysis of the potential crops/products for cross-border value chains analysis in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana as well as discuss and agree on the selected crops/products and the way forward.

She believed this partnership would broaden the scope of Regional agricultural value-chains and strengthen member-states capacities to develop crops/products towards achieving economies of scale adding “We are focused on looking beyond our boundaries in terms of processing, trade and value addition and self-sufficiency.”

She said African Union member states have created the largest free trade area system formation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to accelerate African Continental integration under the umbrella union, AfCFTA with agriculture being an entry point.

Again, in 2019, guidelines for the development of regional agricultural value-chains were developed, which provided tools for member states to inform the reform of policies, strategies and programmes that could help promote value chains across the region, she added.

The Guidelines serve as a framework that provides policy makers in the Member States, as well as Regional Economic Communities (RECs), principles and tools to inform and guide during the formulation of policies intended to promote a viable and sustainable agricultural development process in Africa through the fostering of regional agricultural value chains.

“The value chains would allow us to attain efficiency and also allow for enterprises to move along regional agricultural value chains towards enhancing employment, leveraging on the contribution of women and the youth and tapping into AI.”

Kabore Lassane, Director of Industry, ECOWAS Commission emphasized the project would be implemented within the context of the Common African Agro-Parks (CAAPs) programme, which was adopted by the African Union as a programme associated with the AfCFTA in October 2019.

He said the CAAPs initiative is part of a larger strategy to create regional agro-industrial hubs, aimed at increasing the supply of domestically produced and locally processed foods and goods.

He said agribusiness should adapt to more efficient agri-value-chains, to expand on existing industrial capacity and diversification of products, which is expected to create the needed jobs for the teeming youth of the continent.

Mr Daniel Sowah, Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry said the Ministry pledged and promised to support all the efforts to ensure that the projects whose inception was witnessed brought the best for all.

The Ministry and partners measured their success by how much food they produced in the past without considering other factors including post-harvest factors.

The partnership now was to work with not only stakeholders within the sector but others including the Ministry of Trade and Agribusiness and many other chain actors.

The workshop would provide opportunity for other commodities aside cocoa to be settled on that ensured consumption from the conception of production by the farmer or producers up to the consumer.

The chain could be taken advantage of to create job opportunities and employment for many youths in the sub-region.

Mr Richard Tweneboah-Koduah, Director, Research and Innovation, National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) urged all to bring their expertise together on how to connect farmers to equipment and technologies, finance, inputs and how to integrate agricultural producers in Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire as well as transport of goods across the continent.

He bringing experts together to brainstorm the concept would help build capacity to create a stronger and resilient African market.

He announced that NDPC in 2026 is expected to roll out a new development planning and therefore the inception workshop as a leveraging point for the impending work.

Mr Paul Siameh, Chief Director, Ministry of Food and Agriculture said the aims of the present phase of the project include assessing cross-border value chains for two strategic commodities, including cocoa; and examining relevant policy, regulatory, and institutional frameworks in support of promoting cross-border value chains of identified commodities.

He pledged full support of the Ministry to the project and was glad to add another product to the agribusiness value chain to stimulate growth, efficiency and progress.

He said In the past agricultural success was measured by how much food was produced after harvest but over 10 years now we cannot measure success on how food is produced, who is the ultimate consumer and the many chain actors in the space because this initiative is apt to consider other players in the chain.

Toward developing Africa’s second common agro-park, and based on the experience in supporting the development of Africa’s first envisaged common agro-industrial park (CAIP) between Zambia and Zimbabwe, ECA, is intended to develop a fully-fledged capacity building project, within the context of the CAAPs programme, to support Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana in developing a common agro-industrial park with the aim of contributing to building a case for the development of a common agro-poles as a transformational development mean for the 2 countries, as well as to fostering related institutional and policy innovation at the national and regional level.

The one-day dialogue was attended by participants and institutions including, Ghana COCOBOD, Ghana Coffee Board, Ministry Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Universities, Private Sector, NGOs, CSO’s, international organizations including IFAD, FAO and development partners.