Dakar, Oct 11 (APS) – National consultations and thematic consultations on the revision of the agrosylvopastoral orientation law were launched Friday in Dakar.
“We wish to collect, through this workshop, the opinions, interventions, inputs of all 18 million Senegalese and all technical and financial partners,” explained the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock, Mabouba Diagne.
“This bill currently being updated is in perfect coherence” with the agropastoral development project proposed by the President of the Republic, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, he pointed out while speaking at the official launch of these discussions.
He recalls that “this project aims to restore autonomy to producers and breeders and allow them to live with dignity from their profession”.
According to him, “all points of view are necessary to achieve the objectives” of these consultations.
Mabouba Diagne invites administrative authorities and decentralized services “to play their full role in supporting and supervising this process”.
He believes that “their proximity to field stakeholders and their in-depth knowledge of local specificities are major and essential assets to ensure the success of these consultations in the regions”.
He said he hoped that “this workshop will lay the solid foundations for a commitment by all to consultation, total inclusion and active participation in order to achieve a law which will serve not only present generations, but also future generations” .
He asked, “in parallel with the preparation of the revision and updating of the agrosylvopastoral orientation law, to take all measures to prepare the holding of the Higher Agrosylvopastoral Orientation Council before the end of 2024”.
Civil society called on the authorities to take ownership of its proposals in order to move forward. “We are full of proposals which can only be viable when the State takes ownership,” said the honorary president of the NGO Enda Tiers-Monde, Marième Sow.
The technical and financial partners welcomed the approach of the Senegalese authorities in the context of the revision of this law.
“We congratulate the minister and the ministry for the approach, for the review […] And we are very optimistic for progress with the law,” said the director in Senegal of the Belgian Development Agency, Abou El Mahassine Fassifihri.
Welcoming the common vision for a very competitive, sustainable and inclusive sector, Mr. Fassifihri called for “complete decentralization of agriculture and local development”.
CS/ASG/BK
