In her opening speech, the Chair of the African Union Commission led Continental Steering Committee Dr. Janet Edeme and acting on behalf of the Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission, Her Excellency, Mrs. Josefa Correia Sacko, she
welcomed all members to Bamako, Mali and to the meeting. She thanked the current donors and partners through representation by Mr. Peter Sidler of SDC who had attended the meeting for the continuedsupport of EOA initiatives and programs.
Dr. Edeme commented EOA-I Continental Secretariat and the EOA colleagues in Mali for the excellent job done in arranging the logistics of the meeting and mentioned that a lot had happened within the EOA fraternity since the 7 th Continental Steering Committee meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon in May, 2017 and provided the meeting with an update of what has taken place since the last meeting.
The Chair mentioned that until recently, there were issues with the leadership of the SDC funded EOA platform in Mali. As such, the key objective of holding the meeting in Mali was to offer the membership of the Continental Steering Committee an opportunity to participate in the 4 th West Africa Organic Conference held between 5 th and 6 th December 2017 in Bamako, Mali and meet with the leadership of the funded EOA Platform in Mali and encourage them in the task that has been entrusted to them.
During this meeting Ghana was endorsed to host the 5 th West Africa Organic Conference in Accra in 2019.
Updates on preparation for the 4th African Organic Conference, (4 th AOC), scheduled for Cameroon in 2018 were given by AfrONet and the meeting was informed that plans were steadily underway. The EOA-I Continental Secretariat through the Chair had sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Cameroon to solicit for support towards the conference.
The Chair congratulated Dr. David Amudavi, the Executive Director of BioVision Africa Trust, for being elected to the World Board of IFOAM Organics International. She noted the big step and expressed her happiness that EOA was now well represented at the global space through Dr. David Amudavi and urged him to try his best and raise the profile of EOA.
The Continental Steering Committee noted the West African EOA Cluster support by ECOWAS as represented by Mr. Ernest Aubee, the Director of Agriculture. The ECOWAS representative informed
the Committee that they had received funding to support EOA work in five countries starting 2018. Mr. Aubee urged the East African EOA cluster to keep talks going on with EAC to ensure similar support is realized.
In 2018, the Continental Secretariat encourages all the EOA players to maintain collaborations, share
lessons learnt and best practices to push the EOA bar even higher.
Contacts for EOA-I Continental
Secretariat:
Mr. Alex Mutungi
E-mail: amutungi@biovisionafrica.org
Phone: +254 20 8632 014
Site: www.biovisionafricatrust.org
