To ensure food and nutrition security for their populations, local authorities, particularly communes, must first play an initiating role (planning), a directing role (mobilizing and making funds available) and last but not least, a facilitating role (mobilizing stakeholders).
There is a potential for financing food and nutrition security projects in the communes. This potential has been identified at state level through special funds (ANICT) and central government tax resources transferred to communes. There is also potential at the level of the various development partners (NGOs, projects, diaspora) who prioritize capacity building and investments linked to food and nutrition security.
The Public-Private Partnership Act and its implementing decrees also offer considerable institutional potential for harnessing the resources of private partners, notably in the provision or management of services or infrastructures of public interest, particularly in the context of the national land-use planning strategy, which classifies the Pro-ARIDES intervention zone as “type 3: cereal-growing territories with high agropastoral potential”. It offers an opportunity for collaboration with private players in agricultural value chains, including the mobilization and management of funds.
Building trust between commune managers and (private) players in agricultural value chains facilitates the mobilization of internal financial resources (local taxation, cash or in-kind support from the diaspora). This aims to put an end to the legendary crisis of confidence that exists between the population and commune managers, due to a lack of transparency and accountability around the management of public goods and services. Social inclusion (women, young people, internally displaced persons) in terms of governance as a basis for ensuring citizen participation in local financing of food and nutritional security is also a prerequisite. It will facilitate the appropriation by these usually excluded groups of the decision-making process and its application, and strengthen their confidence in the management of public goods and services. It offers an opportunity for collaboration with private players in agricultural value chains, including the mobilization and management of funds.