Civil society leaders from five African countries gathered from October 16 to 18 in Accra for a three-day training workshop aimed at sharpening their policy advocacy skills.

The Workshop also provided a platform for Diakonia and partner Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in agriculture from South Africa, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Mali to share ideas and agree on collective actions towards engaging government in agricultural policy planning and implementation in favour of smallholder farmers and women farmers in Africa.

Diakonia is an international organisation that works with and supports organizations in about 35 countries across the world to push for change that leads to better living conditions for small holder farmers.

The Africa Regional Workshop forms part of efforts towards building an effective advocacy movement for sustainable and equitable agricultural development in Africa.

Issues discussed by participants at the workshop include, strengthening civil society’s capacity to engage in policy-making processes; developing more inclusive platforms to formulate agricultural policies and programmes; securing reliable access to land, agricultural water and other natural resources; and establishing platforms to share best experience among non-state actors on strategies for improving agricultural policies.

Andeas Ulfsax, Diakonia Program Manager lauded SEND-Ghana for championing the work of small holder farmers in Ghana.

At the end of the conference, participants agreed to push for gender sensitive law reforms and hightlight the need for decentralisation of agric services in their respective countries.

"We want agriculture budgeting and planning to be decentralised...that district assemblies will have budgets for implementing agric programmes. As it is now everything comes from the national level", said Daniel Adotey of SEND-Ghana.

He added that Ghana needs gender-sensitive reforms in the land sector.

"Currently when we talk about access and ownership of land, men have advantage over women. We must make sure that women challenges to land  for farming purposes are addressed", said Daniel Adotey

SEND-Ghana, who are the local partners of Diakonia, coordinated the workshop.