Collaboration and partnership for working towards rice self-sufficiency in West Africa

Low yields, weak processing and poor value chain linkages characterize the rice value chain in Africa. These are obstacles for overcoming the import dependency of many African countries and becoming self-sufficient. Rice yield growth does not match the growing population. At the moment, it only meets about 60% of domestic demand.

“Nigeria imports rice worth 5 million US$ per day.” (Hon. Chief Audu Ogbeh, former Minister of the Federal Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (FMARD) of Nigeria)
It is insufficient to only link farmers to markets, work towards food security by continuing to implement single and delimited projects. Instead, holistic value chain approaches are required while considering multidimensional perspectives and thinking in food systems (improving nutrition and livelihoods while sustainably managing natural resources) which are to be scaled up collectively to allow a broader population to benefit. While national investments in infrastructure are needed, a regional approach for coordination and collaboration as well as good governance at all levels is key to elevating poverty. Real transformation is needed that requires shifts and rethinking.

* Intraregional trade/re-exports within the ECOWAS region not considered such as e.g. Benin trading to Nigeria or The Gambia trading to Senegal
** Weighting of regional self-sufficiency is based on the countries‘ share of overall consumption in the ECOWAS region

A multi-actor approach with the involvement of various different stakeholders groups, like CARI, the Multi-Actor Partnership MAP4Rice and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) brings together different expertise and resources.
The ECOWAS region has high variance in rice self-sufficiency and is highly depend on foreign imports from Asia, which lead to the inception of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive.
The ‘Rice Offensive’ was launched in 2015 and aimed at a sustainable and sustained revival of rice cultivation in West Africa while supporting the National Rice Development Strategies (NRDS) of Member States to achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2025 in West Africa. Its objectives contribute to ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) in:

The ‘Rice Offensive’ was planned as a 10 year programme with a target of a 5.6% annual rate of increase in rice production to outstrip an anticipated 4.4% annual rate of increase in consumption. Further, four areas of intervention were identified to address the main challenges facing the regional rice economy.

In a nutshell, the aim is to reduce imports to zero until 2025 by expanding the four areas of intervention. In order to achieve this main goal, the increased demand needs to be met by local and/or regional production. Therefore, the increase in rice production and yield, the promotion of regional local rice markets and the improvement of the (public) rice environment and policy is going to be strengthened by ECOWAS and its Member States.