Ethiopia: OCP takes part in the high-level meeting of the EWA initiative

As part of their commitment to women’s empowerment in agriculture, OCP group has participated on Saturday 9 February in the high-level EWA initiative (empowering women in Agriculture) meeting held in conjunction with the 32nd African Union Summit in Addis-Ababa.

OCP’s notable participation at the high-level meeting of the EWA initiative was held on Saturday 9 February, in conjunction with the 32nd African Union Summit in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia.

This event was an opportunity for the Group to restate its commitment to support women working in this field and contribute to their empowerment.

All the more so as EWA efforts go perfectly hand in hand with OCP’s vision to elevate women’s situation in the agricultural sector.

As a reminder, the EWA initiative was launched side by side with the 19th African Union Summit in Addis-Ababa in Ethiopia on the 15th of July 2012. Support for the EWA initiative has been renewed on the occasion of the 20th African Union Summit along with the adoption, by the Heads of State, of Decision n° 473 which stipulates that the Assembly “takes also note of the progress made by the Initiative (EWA) to empower African women working in agriculture, a progress that stresses on land reforms, leadership, access to farm/chemical inputs and awareness, and is dedicated to reinforcing the status of women in agriculture”.

This initiative has many objectives, one of them being the reinforcement of these women’s network organizational capacity to back their empowerment in African agriculture. It also aims to promote equal access to agricultural lands, and to finance and promote innovation and techniques that boost both the productivity and income of these rural female farmers.

Next to OCP representatives, the high-level meeting of Saturday 9 February was chaired by the former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and actual president of EWA Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, and was attended by many partners of the Initiative. Those are, amongst others, Mo Ibrahim’s Foundation (MIF), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACFB), the IFC (International Finance Corporation), the Rockefeller Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UN Women, the United Nations Development program (UNDP), the African Development Bank (AfDB), World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).