The NEWS (Monrovia)
20 May 2008
editorial
When Heads of State and Government of the Mano River Union (MRU) countries of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and La Cote d'Ivoire met for a one-day summit in Monrovia last week, top on the agenda was the need for food security.
The summit was held amidst increasing concerns over the looming global food crisis, which has upwardly impacted prices of the commodity almost beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.
The MRU summit, following years of fratricidal civil war within the Mano River basin, was also convened to rekindle the spirit of promoting socio-economic and regional cooperation amongst member states; the aims for which the Union was established in 1973.
Notwithstanding, prior to the Monrovia summit, it was feared that the rising food prices could have caused food scarcity thereby prompting some MRU countries to institute protectionist measures by banning food export as an attempt to avoid food scarcity for local consumption.
In the wake of the food export ban, the heads of state and government of the MRU countries seem to have agreed at the summit on the need for the sub-region to focus on the production of rice as a way to confront the looming global food crisis.
Accordingly, a set of strategies and operational plans designed recently by Agriculture Ministers of the four countries to tackle the emerging food crisis were adopted.
Moreover, the call by Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to harmonize strategies to ensure peace and stability prevail in the region was also given favorable ears.
Unfortunately, the pronouncements for peace, stability and food production through collaboration and harmonized strategies on the one hand, and the prior food export ban on the other do not seem to correlate.
The food export ban affecting neighboring MRU states has the propensity to undermine regional cooperation.
It would therefore be in the interest of fostering socio-economic initiatives and enhancing regional cooperation if MRU states exempted one another from the food export ban.
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