By: TPA News Desk | editor@thepointafricanews.com

In a strategic effort to bolster food security and climate resilience across West Africa, ECOWAS Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, Massandjé TOURE-LITSE, led a high-level delegation to the Togolese Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday. The visit comes ahead of a regional workshop scheduled to be held in Lomé from June 16 to 20, focused on agricultural risk management (ARM) and the formulation of a new regional initiative.

The mission included representatives from the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM), a G7 initiative hosted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), as well as experts from the ECOWAS Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food and the ECOWAS Resident Representative in Togo. They met with Mr. Konlani Dindiogue, Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Agriculture, representing the Minister of Agriculture, Village Hydraulics, and Rural Development.

Commissioner TOURE-LITSE informed Togolese officials about a new regional facility, to be coordinated by ECOWAS and financed by IFAD, with an investment of $250 million over the next ten years. The initiative aims to systematically address agricultural risks including climate variability, pests, market volatility, and infrastructure gaps—factors that frequently undermine agricultural productivity and food security in the subregion.

The upcoming workshop in Lomé will build on experiences and lessons learned through PARM’s pilot interventions in various West African countries. These include the implementation of risk assessment tools, development of early warning systems, and insurance schemes tailored to smallholder farmers.

The regional program seeks to harmonize national agricultural risk management strategies under one coherent framework, strengthening institutional capacity, access to finance, and policy alignment across ECOWAS member states.