West Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world. Climate, agricultural, health, market and conflict risks make the performance of the food system highly volatile, triggering more frequent and severe food crises. In 2020, some 16.7 million West Africans required immediate food assistance due to a non-typical combination of drought, poverty, high cereal prices, environmental degradation, displacement, poor trade integration and conflict.

In addition to a very slow increase in agricultural productivity, market imperfections (variation and volatility in commodity prices, localized food shortages) are one of the aggravating factors in food and nutritional insecurity.

The COVID-19 pandemic put additional pressure on the food system, increasing malnutrition and food insecurity among vulnerable populations. It triggered health and economic crises that reduced access to food, particularly among the urban poor.

As well as being almost permanent, vulnerability in West Africa is characterized by inequality between social groups. Indeed, major inequalities persist between women and men in terms of access to resources likely to improve their living conditions through agriculture - in particular access to land and equipment, credit, markets and advisory and support services.

Faced with these facts, the region has made strong commitments to transform agriculture and strengthen the resilience of the food system, and is benefiting from funding from the World Bank and its partners to implement the West Africa Food System Resilience Program (FSRP).

Project components:

FSRP is organized around five (5) components:

1. strengthening digital advisory services for the prevention and management of regional agricultural and food crises;
2. the sustainability and adaptability of the food system's production base;
3. integration of regional food markets and trade;
4. the emergency response component (CERC), which only concerns countries; and
5. Program management.