The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is organising two meetings devoted to the revision of the Regional Food Security Storage Strategy and the management of the Regional Food Security Reserve (RRSA).
According to the statement by ECOWAS, the meetings are scheduled to hold in Dakar, Senegal from October 20 to 21, while the second meeting will hold from October 22 to 23, 2026.
Organised by Ecowas, the 3rd meeting of the Steering Committee for the revision of the SRSSA and the 4th meeting of the RRSA Management Committee are held simultaneously in Senegal.
The third meeting of the Steering Committee of the process of revising the Regional Food Security Storage Strategy (SRSSA), scheduled for October 20 and 21, will focus in particular on the progress of the work undertaken in 2025, the overall financing mechanism for RRSA interventions and the next stages of the process.
The discussions will allow participants to examine the results of consultations with producer organisations, national consultations in Member States and proposals for adjusting the operation of the Regional Reserve.
The Steering Committee will also have to make observations on the draft financing mechanism and define the necessary guidelines for continuing the revision of the strategy, in line with the regional agricultural policy of Ecowas, Ecowap, by 2035.
Adopted in 2012, the SRSSA is based on the complementarity of three storage levels: local stocks held in particular by producer organizations, national food security stocks and the Regional Reserve, created in 2013 to strengthen crisis response capacity.
The fourth meeting of the RRSA Management Committee will then be held on October 22 and 23 in Dakar. It will be devoted to taking stock of operations carried out since March 2025, examining the programme of activities and the budget of the Reserve for 2027, as well as monitoring the process of revising the regional strategy.
The members of the Committee will notably examine stock purchase operations, food assistance interventions, replenishments, technical rotations and the prospecting of new storage spaces. They will also be called upon to decide on the management of the Executive Office.
The work will also focus on the examination and validation of the programme of activities and the 2027 budget, as well as the resource mobilisation plan intended to support the Reserve’s interventions.
These two meetings take place in a context of persistent concerns about food and nutritional security in West Africa and the Sahel.
According to the Cadre Harmonise data from December 2025, nearly 41.8 million people faced acute food insecurity in the region, with a projection of 52.8 million people for the lean season from June to August 2026.
ECOWAS underlines, in this context, the need to strengthen regional crisis prevention and response mechanisms, in particular through better coordination of storage systems and more predictable mobilisation of resources.
SS/Sf/fss/gik/APA