Celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the CILSS in Burkina Faso – Inaugural conference

« CONTRIBUTION OF THE CILSS TO THE TECHNICAL COACHING OF COUNTRIES IN RESPONSE TO FOOD AND NUTRITIONAL SHOCKS ».

The Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) was established on 12 September 1973 in Bamako, Mali. It was founded by six countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. The committee was formed in response to the major droughts that affected the Sahel in the 1970s
Fifty (50) years after its creation, the CILSS now has ten (10) member states, including eight (08) coastal states (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal, and Togo), one (01) landlocked state (Burkina Faso), and one (01) landlocked and island state (Niger)
Its mandate was redefined after the organizational and institutional reform initiated in 2017. The current mandate of CILSS is to promote sustainable development, food security, and resilience to climate change in the Sahel and West Africa region through the implementation of integrated strategies for agriculture, livestock, natural resource management, and rural development
Over the fifty or so years of its existence, the CILSS has positioned itself in the Sahel and West Africa as a benchmark institution in the search for effective and sustainable solutions to help Sahelian and West African populations combat the effects of drought and other climatic risk factors such as flooding
Regarding food and nutrition insecurity, since 2004, the CILSS, in collaboration with its partners, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has developed a fundamental tool called the Harmonized Framework (HF). The Harmonized Framework is used to identify and monitor the vulnerability of populations to food and nutrition insecurity in the Sahel and West Africa.
The HF is a federating tool that enables relevant analyses to be made of current and projected food and nutrition situations in the countries of the Sahel and West Africa. This was followed by the establishment of the Food Crisis Prevention Network (RPCA), a framework for dialogue, coordination, and the construction of a coherent and consensual vision of the food and nutrition situation. These tools have enabled the Sahelian and West African regions and all their development partners to be regularly informed of the risks of food insecurity and to be equipped to take decisions at the highest level
As part of the commemoration of its fiftieth anniversary, Burkina Faso has organised a number of activities, including conferences. The theme of the first conference, to be held in July 2023, is « CILSS’s contribution to the technical coaching of countries in their response to food and nutrition shocks
This meeting will provide an opportunity to reflect on the achievements of CILSS’s contribution to the fight for food and nutrition security in Burkina Faso, as well as discuss future actions to improve existing tools. This is the purpose of the meeting.

Click here to download the terms of reference of the inaugural conference of the fiftieth anniversary of the CILSS