By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has officially recognised the role of National Coordination Organization for Farmers Association The Gambia (NACOFAG) in promoting food security and nutrition.
The recognition was made at a five-year strategy plan that seeks to help maintain and deepen the quality and intensity of NACOFAG with government development partners and private sector, held in Bijilo.
Speaking at the ceremony, FAO representative Ousman Toura, said: “FAO recognises NACOFAG as a key partner in agriculture, food security and nutrition.
He stated that since the establishment of NACOFAG in the early 2000s, FAO and NACOFAG collaborated in a number of activities geared towards improved livelihoods in agriculture and natural resources.
“Most recently, in a quest to alleviate poverty and multidimensional vulnerabilities in The Gambia, as well as to address gaps in service provision in agriculture and social development, both NACOFAG and FAO recognised that the role of NACOFAG and its intervention strategy requires transformation and expansion in order to provide a more reliable and effective service to its members and to contribute meaningfully towards building the resilience of farmers,” he said.
He said the five-year Strategic Plan will help to facilitate a systematic review of NACOFAG’s role and to align its programmes to global and national priorities.
Meanwhile, President of NACOFAG Musa F Sowe said NACOFAG was established for the sole mandate of creating an environment where farmers contribute significantly to socio-economic development of the country.
It supposed to provide policy direction for the farming sector and play regulatory role among member associations. After the expiration of our strategies 2016, NACOFAG approach FAO to support development of a new 5 – year strategic plan,” he added.
He therefore thanked FAO Gambia office for taking the lead in supporting the development of the strategic plan, saying because of the absence of comprehensive strategies direction they were not able to effectively coordinate, monitor and oversee the activities implementation of their members.
NACOFAG, he said, brought together different Gambian farmers associations to represent the interest and aspirations of Farmers throughout the country. Each of the farmers associations has its own management committee and a membership of various village kafos (village, district and Regional level).
According to him, the purpose of the strategic plan is to address the underlying causes of rural poverty and vulnerable, and those factors hindering productivity, core value chain development of Agricultural commodities and capacity building.
For her part, Fatou Jammeh Touray, Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture congratulated NACOFAG for coming up with a new strategy plan and thanked the consulting firm, ISRAD for its excellent service provision.
She explained that FAO, the EU funded project entitled Agriculture for Economic Growth, hired the services of an independent Consultant Firm (Institute of Social Research and Development-ISRAD) to support the development of a NACOFAG 5-year strategy plan (2021-2024). The scope of the assignment comprised an institutional assessment of NACOFAG and a consultation on strategic directions.
The strategy document defines comprehensive and cross-cutting agricultural and social development reform agenda and proposes a set of priority actions to guide the organization, and to ensure sustainability as well as to maximize the efficiency of its members in the current changing context.