LUANDA, Angola — Angola is hosting the 55th general assembly of the Inter-Africa Coffee Organization (IACO) in Luanda this week where participants will review all issues related to coffee production, processing, trade and modernization on the continent. During the four-day meeting beginning Monday, specialists, growers, researchers and experts from the coffee sector in Africa will discuss the current situation and the work done in the past two years.
The director of Angola’s National Coffee Institute (INCA), João Ferreira Neto, said here Sunday that a meeting of the Africa Network for Coffee Research and the 3rd African Coffee Symposium would be held here concurrently with the general assembly.
The Africa Network for Research will review all related work done on the continent, while the symposium will focus on gender issues, especially the integration of women in coffee production.
He explained that about 70 per cent of food in Africa is produced by women, but there is still a great structural difficulty in recognizing their role.
He said the meeting would also focus on what incentives governments could put in place to attract the youth into coffee production, as this group was increasingly leaving rural areas for urban centres.
Ethiopia, Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire are the biggest coffee growing countries on the continent.
The Inter-Africa Coffee Organization, which has 25 members currently, was established in 1960 at Antananarivo, Madagascar, to draft policies and defend the production of coffee in the socio-economic development of the continent.
