Afruibana is the voice of a community of African producers, and aims to defend their interests with the European institutions through various actions:
Promote the development of trade relations between Africa and the European Union through the export of African fruits to the European Union.
Play the role of interface between the producers of the sector and the various European institutions in order to facilitate the financing and aid programs for the African fruit producers.
Actions that aim to defend very concrete objectives:
Stabilizing the tariff regime applied to imports of bananas and no longer accepting the progressive reduction of customs duty below €75 per ton for the benefit of non-ACP countries.
Maintaining the safeguard clause beyond 2019 which allows a suspension of preferential treatment, in the event of a sharp increase in imports of bananas from Central American countries beyond of a certain threshold.
Extending beyond the Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM) the financing of support programs for the banana sector aiming to improve its competitiveness and sustainability.
Afruibana at the European Development Days - 2018
Mr. Owona Kono, President of Afruibana, and Mr. Kakou-Gervais, Vice President of Afruibana, were in Brussels for the European Development Days (EDD) on June 5 and 6, 2018. This event, organized each year by the European Commission brought together some 8,000 actors from the development community to exchange ideas and feedback.
The theme of the 2018 edition was "Women and girls at the forefront of sustainable development". Among the many sessions organized on this theme, the OCP Group organized a roundtable to discuss how innovation and sustainable agriculture are key tools for reducing gender inequalities in Africa. Mr. Owona was invited, given his expertise on African agriculture, to take part in this round table. At his side were various experts like Dr. Agnes Atim Apea and Charlotte Libog.
During the session, Mr. Owona focused his speech on the policies to be put in place to promote the inclusion of women in the agricultural sector and in particular in agribusiness. He believes that if Africa creates sufficient economic conditions to enable farmers - including women - to operate as entrepreneurs, Africa will be able to feed not only its people but also the rest of the world.
As a reminder, women represent more than 50% of agricultural workers, and are responsible for about 50% of the work on farms in sub-Saharan Africa. According to various reports, they would even produce between 60 and 80% of the continent's diet.
Despite the work done and the important role women farmers play in the agricultural sector in Africa, they still have fewer rights and fewer opportunities than men. An unfair situation, which is also a drag on the continent's economies.
In Zimbabwe, research has shown that where men tend to prioritize maize as a cash crop, women plant a wider variety of crops and market them. Similarly, the involvement of women in plant breeding in Rwanda and parts of West Africa has improved the diversity and performance of bean varieties. Encouraging women to participate in agriculture as entrepreneurs, thus stimulates the agricultural economy as a whole.
At the round table organized by the OCP group, Mr. Owona Kono came back on three key elements, to advance this transformation: land, education and finance.
Banon has been operating in the banana sector for many years and lastly cited several examples of initiatives taken to ensure the empowerment of women in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire: training, capacity-building, implementation childcare facilities, working time management for pregnant and lactating workers, competitive salaries, equal promotion opportunities and salaries.