1. WHAT’S GOING ON IN
WCAO?
West & Central Africa Newsletter 01 •February to August 2012
PRESENTATION OF THE GLOBAL FOOD
POLICY REPORT IN DAKAR IFPRI WCAO
welcomes a new
29 June 2012- As part of the series of meetings entitled researcher, a new
“Rencontres Stratégies et développement , organized by IFPRI research assistant and
WCAO in partnership with development oriented institutions in
4 interns
Senegal including ANSD, DAPS, DPEE, FASEG, ISRA and IPAR,

a seminar was held on June 29th 2012 at Radisson Blu hotel in
Dakar to present IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report . IFPRI IFPRI WCAO is happy to
welcome new team members.
From IFPRI headquarters and
partner institutions including
UGB, UCAD and ENSAE,
they will all be helping IFPRI to
find sustainable solutions for
ending hunger and poverty in
West and central Africa. Learn
more about them on page 5)
Director General, Dr. Shenggen presented the French version of
Global Food Report that was first launched n Washington last
January. During the event Dr. Shenggen Fan highlighted the main
features of the report, while Dr. Ousmane Badiane focused on the
African region. The Seminar was chaired by Baba Dioum, former
IFPRI trustee now general coordinator of the Conference of
Ministers of Agriculture of West and Central Africa (CMA-WCA),
discussants were officials from the ministry of agriculture and rural
equipment and the ministry of livestock. This first RSD was attended by
many IFPRI partners, ambassadors, students and the press.
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2. IFPRI opens its doors to ENSAE
students

June 22, 2012- As
part of the series of
open-doors to
students, one of the
first schools targeted
by IFPI WCAO was
ENSAE (Senegal’s
national school of statistics applied to economy)
attended a presentation of IFPRI, the institution’s
mission and research tools. Presentations were made by
Dr. Ousmane Badiane, Dr. Ismael Fofana, Dr. Sunday Capacity Strengthening at DAPS
Odjo and research assistant Mamoudou Tankari. The
day ended with a tour of the library with a presentation

of IFPRI knowledge tools, ebrary and useful websites by
Cheikh.
May 17, 2012 –One of IFPRI WCAO mission is to
SAKSS workshops held in WCAO work with local institutions, share the researcher’s
 knowhow and
strengthen capacities.
April and June 2012-
This mission is well
two capacity-
illustrated through the
strengthening
cooperation between
workshops were held
IFPRI and DAPS.
in Dakar, for
attendees from 37 The first immersion
countries. The workshop was held on March 22, 2012 in the premises
workshops provided trainings on the CAADP agenda, of DAPS in Dakar and focused on computable general
SAKSS concepts, monitoring and evaluation, equilibrium models.
agricultural policy analysis and knowledge management The objective of the workshop was to introduce DAPS
tools. The country SAKSS capacity needs assessment managers and professionals to computable general
was also launched which, will help governments and equilibrium modeling techniques and its use in decision
stakeholders identify capacities, analytical tools, and making.
information to generate credible, timely and high quality
knowledge products to inform and guide agricultural A series of workshops are being led by Ismael Fofana
sector policies on planning and review processes. and Tanguy Bernard and are currently being attended by
Assessments for 15 countries are to be completed by the DAPS employees. A 2 days course which aims is also to
end of September 2012. introduce and give an overview of impact studies.
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3. IFPRI WCAO opens its doors to Fleur and Nick win the
the media. “OIKOCREDIT Young
Researcher Award”

Friday, 20
April 2012- To
celebrateWorld -March 2012 -Nicola
Earth Day, Francesconi and Fleur
Wouterse from WCAO
IFPRI WCAO were awarded with the
hosted a press “OIKOCREDIT
breakfast Young Researcher
conference in award”, based on the
the Dakar office, an opportunity to reflect on the many paper they presented in Berlin at the conference on
global challenges : climate change, lack of water, arable “Cooperative Responses to Global Challenges”,
organized by Humboldt University (Berlin) and UN-
land and food insecurity.This meeting also allowed
DESA (NY). The award was assigned after the scrutiny
journalists to have a better knowledge of the Institute, of over 100 papers from all over the world on topics
of its activities, resources, statistics and publications related to cooperative organization and collective action
available for their profesion, policy makers, researchers for development.
and students.The speakers of the press conference were:
Dr. Ousmane Badiane, IFPRI Director for Africa and
Dr. Ismael Fofana. Various topics were discussed such
AGRODEP holds it first workshop
as IFPRI’s history, role and mission, Implementation of in Dakar
CAADP, Forgien Land Investment and Food Security 
in West Africa.
March 13, 2012- The
African Growth &
The Thematic Research Notes Development Policy
series are launched (AGRODEP)
Modeling
 Consortium held its
-April 2012- IFPRI’s West and first training course
Central Africa Office has recently in IFPRI WCAO on March 13-15, 2012. Twelve
launched a new Policy Note series AGRODEP members from nine African countries
targeted to policy makers and attended the training course on "Building and Updating
analysts in the region. Under the Social Accounting Matrices” (SAM). Participants were
leadership of Fleur Wouterse two introduced to the national accounts tables before being
thematic Resaerch Notes have been published, the 1st reconciled into a single framework: the SAM.
one on “Foreign Direct Investment in Land in West Participants used a GAMS-based program to reconcile
Africa” and the 2nd on: “Patterns of Growth and information into the SAM framework. They also learnt
Structural Transformation in Africa”. These how to transform a SAM into an input-output table
publications are a series of 4 annual ones, a gathering of used by global CGE models. The course was conducted
contributions of expert researchers of other institutions by Ismael Fofana.
on a commun theme; the two first editions are available
at the resource center. The next Thematic Research
Note will be on the issue of social protection.
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4.  direction, and to connect with
colleagues. Rise is a meaningful
WCAO team at the -February 2012 -This year the process that intends to contribute
annual RISE in DC WCAO team was well represented to the improvement of IFPRI
at RISE (Retreat for IFPRI Staff research programs and the overall
Everywhere). This annual welfare of the institute. After
gathering created opportunities for RISE a whole day was devoted to
dialogue across divisions, offices, the WCAO retreat, an opportunity
and job functions. RISE enabled to overview this year’s activities
to gain a better understanding of and overall strategy.
the CRPs and IFPRI's strategic
Birthday celebrations at WCAO
Each month we celebrate WCAO team
members’ birthdays, here are the pictures
of Sunday, Ismael, Ligane, Mariama,
Kader and Hawa’s birthday celebrations.
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5. They just joined the IFPRI WCAO team!
Dr Agnès Le Port/Post Doctoral
Fellow
She is from the PHND division.
She has a PhD in Epidemiology
since 2010 and holds a Masters in
Public Health in Developing
Countries. She worked on malaria
during pregnancy and infancy, in
Bolivia, Senegal and Benin. Her
research interests focus on Maternal
and Child Health, Nutrition and
Care.
Abdoulaye Cissé/ Intern
He is from Gaston Berger
University and is working on
Dynamic Stochastic General
Equilibrium Model for West and
Central Africa with Dr Ismael
Fofana
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