“Farmers’ organizations play a crucial role in the eradication of poverty and hunger in the three regions” introduced Escipión Oliveira Gómez, Assistant Secretary General for the Department of Structural Economic Transformation and Trade of the Secretariat of the Organizations of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) at the virtual launch of the FO4ACP programme in the Caribbean. He added, “This programme is working to make linkages across the three regions. Linkages, that do not always exist among the Caribbean countries and that we hope to see created during the implementation of this programme.”
The Farmers’ Organizations for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific programme (FO4ACP) is a capacity development programme aimed at increasing income and improving livelihood, food security and nutrition of family farmers in the targeted geographical areas, through strengthening farmers’ organizations and better integration of family farmers in value chains. The programme builds upon a long history of collaboration between IFAD and farmers’ organizations and lessons learned from the implementation of several programmes such as the Support to Farmers’ organizations in Africa programme (SFOAP), MTCP II, FFP/Africa and FFP/ASEAN. Longstanding relationships have been built with the farmers’ organizations at national and regional level in Africa and Asia and more recently also in the Pacific. While Africa and the Pacific started implementing the programme late 2019, the activities in the Caribbean are about to start after the virtual launch event organized on 11 December 2020.
“What brings us together today, comes a long way”, testified Mamadou Cissokho, honorary president of the Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et des Producteus Agricoles de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ROPPA) and leader of the African farmers’ movement: “For more than 25 years, IFAD has been working with farmers’ organizations, strengthening them to become real agents of change and interlocutors of the national governments in charge of agricultural development. It took us ten years of work to create solid and strong national farmers’ organizations and cooperatives that became active actors of political processes. But we got there. Now, in West Africa, where I am from, no agricultural policy is developed without our inputs and public funds are available to implement activities under our responsibility.”
After looking back, Mamadou Cissokho also looked towards the future and called upon the other farmers and farmers’ organizations to take action: “This programme is our programme. So, I would like to say to my brothers and sisters in the Caribbean, this programme is there for you and you are responsible for its success. You can also create similar dynamics to strengthen organizations in your countries and aim at the creation of a regional network in the Caribbean. It is your responsibility; you need to take action. We, the networks of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, will be there to help you realize in the Caribbean, what we were able to do in our regions. Today we have strong farmers’ organizations and networks that can negotiate, that can implement and that can put in place what is important for us farmers. It is possible.”
Tamisha Lee from the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers reacted with enthusiasm: “The Caribbean is very happy to finally be apart of FO4ACP. We look forward to learn from our brothers and sisters in Asia, Africa and Pacific and look forward to sharing our experience. The Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers is committed to doing our part to ensure its success.”
FO4ACP also plays an important role in IFAD’s contribution to the UN Decade of Family Farming (UNDFF). Through its support to local, national and regional farmers’ organizations around economic initiatives, advocacy and policy and institutional strengthening of the organizations involved, the programme actively contributes to the development, improvement and implementation of public policies on family farmers and is at the same time IFADs largest initiative in support of citizens engagement in this context.
Within the context of the UN Decade of Family Farming, FO4ACP now also extend its activities in the Caribbean through a new operational partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations (FAO), also the co-lead of the implementation of the UNDFF together with IFAD. FAO in consortium with PROCASUR was competitively selected as the main implementation partner of the programme in the region. FAO and PROCASUR will implement the activities in Belize, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia. The second implementation partner that was selected is AgriCord, also part of the programme’s implementation in Africa and previously involved in the work with farmers’ organizations in Asia. The intervention of AgriCord will focus on the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
“Apart from specific activities in the countries of intervention of the programme we believe strongly that a regional component needs to be added to strengthen the work done at the country level and to strengthen the advocacy and policy work. We will therefore also consider regional structures such as the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA) and the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), Luis Beduschi, Regional Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean added.
For the implementation of the activities, FAO called upon PROCASUR for their methodological approach to build constructive dialogues with family farmers and organizations in the sector, with a special focus on women and youth and intergenerational dialogues and to build new effective and sustainable capacities and skills for the partner organizations, promoting organizational transformation processes, new practices and solutions, that improve their participation in value chains.
Yvonne Chileshe, Expert Commodities and Value Chain Development at the OACPs and focal point for the FO4ACP programme concluded: “For us, the OACPS and also for the EU, FO4ACP is a very important programme. Sharing experiences from Africa, Asia and Pacific is extremely important and the fact that we are able to do this in the framework of this programme, puts the Caribbean in a favourable position at the beginning of its implementation in the region. Ownership, sustainability and building synergies were at the core of the discussions during the launch, all elements of great importance that we need to continuously bring forward in our actions.”
While Africa, Asia and the Pacific count with inclusive regional farmers’ organizations networks, smallholder and family farmers in the Caribbean countries have not yet united in the same structured way at regional level. With many different countries, each with its own cultural, political and linguistical specificities, the landscape of farmers’ organizations in the Caribbean differs from what is known today in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The launch of the FO4ACP programme opens a new regional dimension within the global programme that will be an important asset to strengthen the activities in the countries with local and national farmers’ organizations. It is it is through the regional dimension that farmers’ organizations will be connected and opportunities to learn from each other will be created. The peer-to-peer support and knowledge sharing among the organizations are the greatest added value the programme creates.
Jean-Philippe Audinet Lead Global Technical Advisor, Rural Institutions at IFAD wrapped up the launch event with encouraging words for the participants: “We hope that today, we start a long journey together. Our objectives are not objectives we can achieve over night: zero hunger and zero poverty in rural areas. One of the major ways of achieving these objectives is uniting smallholder farmers in strong farmers’ organizations that can help farmers face the challenges in the markets, in the policy areas and in the society in general.”
Furthermore, the programme will ensure to make linkages with all IFAD country programs in the region, so that stronger farmers’ and rural producers’ organizations can both contribute to and benefit from larger investment projects funded by IFAD.
The FO4ACP programme is co-funded by EU, OACPS and IFAD. IFAD supervises and coordinates the FO4ACP programme.
For more information on the FO4ACP programme you can download the brochure here (EN, FR, SP) and join our community of practice on Dgroups to exchange with other farmers’ organizations.