Workshop Report: Advocacy Training for Value Chain Actors

The projects target six West African value chains, including maize, onion-shallot, and ruminant livestock-red meat, poultry, rice, and millet-sorghum, and are designed to contribute to achieving the 6 percent annual agricultural growth target set under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) of the African Union's (AU) New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The ATP and E-ATP projects support the promotion of the smooth functioning of the ECOWAS trade liberalization scheme (ETLS) by facilitating activities aimed at creating a more favorable business environment through the elimination of all tariff and non-tariff barriers. This includes assisting the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the improvement of regional policy provisions and enhancing the capacity of private sector actors to understand these policies and demand full compliance by all concerned. A practical training workshop on regional trade policies was supported by the ATP and E-ATP projects, which culminated in a high-level policy dialogue between representatives of regional professional associations and officials of the ECOWAS Commission and Parliament. The training workshop, sponsored by the ATP and E-ATP projects, took place in Abuja from March 7-10, 2011, and involved a total of 18 participants who were executive members and other representatives of the professional associations of the six value chains. The training workshop and the policy dialogue enabled the representatives of the value chain associations to increase their knowledge about the ECOWAS institutions and the regional integration policies and programs. The interactions between the two parties revealed different perceptions of the challenges to be overcome to achieve greater compliance with the regional trade and other policies. It became evident that there is much reticence or little demonstration of commitment of ECOWAS member countries to the faithful implementation of the ETLS policies. The participants believed that part of this problem stemmed from the lack of coercive power of ECOWAS institutions over the countries, as well as the weak arrangements for monitoring the implementation of regional policies. However, ECOWAS was favorably disposed to collaborate with the professional associations in carrying out activities in the field to correct these deficiencies. The professional associations accepted the advice of ECOWAS officials to strive to be more dynamic in their efforts at engaging the national authorities in advocacy and policy dialogue. The mission enhanced the advocacy capacity of the professional associations and provided proof of this through the seriousness and determination with which the four value chain associations embarked on the final exercise of identifying and planning activities as a follow-up of the four-day training session at Abuja. The participants were able to identify and plan activities aimed at addressing the challenges to achieving greater compliance with the regional trade and other policies. The ATP and E-ATP projects facilitated the creation of a more favorable business environment through the elimination of all tariff and non-tariff barriers, and assisted ECOWAS with the improvement of regional policy provisions. The projects also enhanced the capacity of private sector actors to understand these policies and demand full compliance by all concerned. The training workshop and the policy dialogue enabled the representatives of the value chain associations to increase their knowledge about the ECOWAS institutions and the regional integration policies and programs.