From December 2 to 4, 2019, Experts from the 14 Ecowas Member States conducted an assessment in Conakry, Guinea, of the level of implementation of the Ecowap 2025 Orientations and Perspectives for the Development of the Agro-Forestry-Pastoral and Fisheries Sector for the next three years (2020-2022).

As a matter of fact, the Ecowas Commission and the Member States have been implementing, for the past three years, the second generation Regional Agricultural Investments and Food and Nutrition Security Program (RAIP- FNS) and the National Agricultural Investment and Food Security and Nutrition Programs (NAIP-FNS) as part of the Ecowap 2025.

Despite the convincing results obtained (increased production on a backdrop of improved productivity for some speculations, reduced severe food and nutritional crises), there are still issues that require a participatory and inclusive assessment of all stakeholders in the implementation of the Ecowap orientations and operationalization instruments by 2025.

The three days of intense discussions allowed the experts to reach consensus deliberations which they submitted to their respective Ministers on December 5, 2019 for consideration and adoption. Before adopting the main conclusions and recommendations made by the experts, the Ministers stressed the following key concerns:

• the integration of women and youth, their economic empowerment, their participation in decision-making processes, with the need to take into account the cultural and social specificities of West African societies;
• issues related to the protection of forest resources, especially community forests, in a context of demographic growth, expansion of cultivated areas and climate change;
• the emergence of multiple cross-cutting, cross-sectoral issues that call for concerted and coherent action among different ministerial departments;
• the control and management of water resources (surface, underground, fluvial), a major concern at the crossroads of environmental issues, issues of securing agricultural and animal production, but also energy issues;
• the involvement of the private sector, which is essential for the financing and transformation of agriculture and the agri-food sector oriented towards the market, with the challenges of negotiation and contracting systems/partnerships within the value chains, and the necessary evolution in the context of public regulatory mandate;
• the issue of market access, related to taxation, border protection, secure private sector investment, including small businesses promoted by women and youth;
• the issue of research and development enabling the generation of appropriate technologies and their dissemination;
• the need to restructure the recommendations, specifying the relevant stakeholders and how to monitor their implementation;
• the Ecowas federative capacity around Ecowap, with the difficulties that this poses in terms of alignment, coherence and coordination, the absence of certain financial institutions in the Ecowap Donors' Group;
• the importance of building coalitions of actors and partners around strategic and complex issues such as resilience and social protection/promotion of social safety nets for food and nutrition for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable people.

This mid-term review has addressed the issues related to the implementation of the Regional Agricultural Policy in order to identify the perspectives to better frame the efforts for a real food and nutrition security in West Africa. It is a participatory and inclusive approach of all stakeholders in the implementation of the Ecowap's orientations and operational instruments by 2025.