Presentation

The “All ACP Agricultural Commodities Programme” was launched in September 2007 as an initiative of the European Commission and the ACP Secretariat. Its overall objective is to improve incomes and livelihoods for ACP producers of traditional and other agricultural commodities, and to reduce income vulnerability at both producer and macro levels. Specifically, it seeks to strengthen the capacity of ACP stakeholders all along the commodity value chain to develop and implement sustainable commodity strategies.

With a budget of 45 million Euros, one third has been earmarked for the COS-Coton, this five-year programme addresses commodity issues through an innovative approach. This consists in pooling the expertise of five leading International Organizations (IOs) to the benefit of ACP agricultural value-chains, and providing a specific framework conducive to promoting the objectives of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, specifically as regards complementarity, coherence and coordination of technical assistance.

The Programme mandate focuses on support to:

• Formulate commodity strategies (led by the International Trade Centre (ITC), with support from FAO and other IOs)
• Implement such strategies including through capacity-building of producer organizations, promotion of good agricultural practices, better functioning of markets, etc. (Common Fund for Commodities (CFC); Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); United Nations Conference for Trade and Agriculture (UNCTAD); and the World Bank)
• Introduce and scale up the use of market-based commodity risk management instruments (World Bank, FAO)
• Promote complementarity and synergy in the interventions of implementing agencies.

In view of increasing the involvement of ACP stakeholders in the programme, and to anchor the latter in the regions, the programme has established regional Focal points (FPs). Five regional organizations covering the beneficiary regions have agreed to ensure this role. Twinning arrangements have been concluded with three partner International Organizations to provide FPs with the technical support enabling them to carry out their mission, a major component thereof being to contribute to enhanced information flows, broad exchange of programme-related information, experiences and know-how, and to the dissemination of programme results.