Proposed Initiatives/Projects

In this context, the IOFS intends to implement the following initiatives in Africa throughout the year of 2022:

Consultations are underway with a number of Member States for agreeing on hosting arrangements for the annual IOFS solemn gathering. The same is to have a side event as conference on strategic commodities and food reserve for Africa.

Considering the need to revamp agriculture sector in Africa, particularly the one related with public-private partnerships, a Forum is proposed to be held annually to display investment/partnership opportunities.

Most of the African Member States suffer from several natural and human factors contributing for their dire and bleak situation on food security, which calls for urgent humanitarian food assistance. In this vein, it is important that financial resources are available for ensuring that such assistance is timely made whenever necessary.

It is important that African Member States joint efforts towards developing or strengthening, whenever applicable, the production of Cassava, as it is one of the consumed and strategic commodities in Africa.

    

International Exhibition/Trade Fair between SME’s “Africa - Central Asia” on agri-food local and organic products.

The number of participating countries and companies/volume of transactions will enhance food supply chains and cross-border trade and investments. 

"Build your own agri-business" for Africa's Youth and Women Entrepreneurs 

This program would be a competition aimed at supporting youth and women start-up entrepreneurs. Anyone (till 35 years of age) would be invited to apply for participation on three stages by i) producing/shooting a short video about the competing project; ii) presenting a business plan; and iii) passing an interview. After analyzing the process, 10 of them are to be selected to compete at the final of the competition.

The road show is to take the form of a tour of African countries (OIC Member States) in a time span of 1-2 weeks. IFPA Members would meet potential members and manufacturers, leading agri-food companies, presenting their achievements and talking about relationships with suppliers, customers, competitors, etc.

It is a documentary film to be shoot so as to draw the attention of the public and the decision makers to the situation of food security within the African region. The main feature expected in the documentary films would be instances marked by extraordinary courage and relevance to the matter under discussion.

These are to be conducted for representatives of government authorities of OIC Member States in Africa, responsible for strategic planning and policy development in food security and agriculture, including strategic planners, policy developers, legislators and program analysts. These activities would enhance the capacity of governments in the development of holistic strategies/frameworks and establishment of effective government mechanisms to address food security challenges.

a.    Training Workshops on “Developing Livestock in Africa”

Considering the crucial role of livestock for ensuring the food security among livelihoods and agricultural development in Africa, the IOFS is to conduct training activities for capacity-development of scientists, researchers and other specialists from OIC Member States in Africa in the field of livestock development and management of animal genetic resources.

b.    Livestock Development for Entrepreneurs and Small-Scale Farmers

The idea is to collect different relevant projects to benefit entrepreneurs and small-scale farmers working in the field of livestock in Africa so as to improve the same from all angles.

c. Asia/Africa Initiative for Development of Livestock from Gene to Fork (Trade)

To hold an international conference on the subject towards encouraging both regional OIC Groups to cooperate in this important food security chain.

Due to the importance of agricultural data for better policy making, prediction and analysis, IOFS will help develop agricultural data collection, assessment and utilization technique for its African member countries. 

Training Workshops on best practices and efficient conservation of plant genetic resources in Africa. 

Agro-biodiversity is becoming increasingly important in the conservation and use of genetic resources for the formation of sustainable agro-systems. In this regard, within the “Development of National Gene Banks in OIC” Programme the IOFS plans to conduct several activities in the format of physical or hybrid training workshops for Africa Member States on all aspects of conservation of PGR.  

The commitment of IOFS is to strengthen the capacity of OIC Member States by facilitating the acquisition of new knowledge and experience related to PGR that would lead to the transformation of their current practices towards know-how in their respective countries. The countries would obtain knowledge on efficient managing and operating gene banks, starting from effectively registering, studying, describing, and documenting its collection, and making both information and plant material available to researchers and other interested users. The training workshops could be undertaken based on facilities of the very well-developed Gene Banks of OIC Member States such as Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Malaysia and Pakistan.

The implementation of IOFS 2022 Year for Africa will also be through official visits to Member States that are part of the African Group so as to increase the profile of the IOFS in those countries.

The IOFS is convinced that the demonstration of active solidarity of OIC Member States with the desperately needy African people and the determination to commit ourselves to providing the focus on their food security and agricultural development in this very difficult and critical period in the history of the continent should be IOFS top priority and needs to be implemented without any further delay.