On Friday, 17 September the Civil Society Coalition on Sustainable Development (CSCSD) had a highly interactive dinner meeting with the new Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture at BICC in Benin.  The meeting aimed at introducing the Network to the committee and establish a working relationship with the members.  Over 60 people, representing different actors in the agriculture sector, attended the meeting.  These included leaders of the committee and their members, senior officials from a cross section of international and local Civil Society Organisations as well as other key stakeholders in the agriculture sector such as representatives from UN agencies, the private sector, and the media. 

The West African Smallholder Farmers Organization (WASFO) a local farmers organization, has formed partnerships with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the Africa Centre for Climate and Sustainable Development (ACSD) in the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining which is mandated to produce and disseminate weather and climate information in Benin, and other stakeholders in order to improve smallholder farmer resilience to climate change through the "Scaling up Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture for smallholder farmers in Beninproject".