A deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture, Kennedy Nyarko Osei, has briefed Parliament on the road map for the transition of the Shea Unit under COCOBOD into a Shea Development Board and the way forward for revamping the shea industry in the country.

The roadmap consists of three key milestones: establishment of the Shea Unit and the National Steering Committee on Shea, the graduation of the Shea Unit to a subsidiary status by end of 2019, as a semi-autonomous institution under the COCOBOD, but with an increasingly independent source or stream of funding.

Also, the conversion of the Subsidiary into a Board, after putting in place a guaranteed self-funding scheme.

To this end, he told Members that the government was on course to establish a Shea Development Board by 2024.

According to the Deputy Food and Agriculture Minister, the first phase of the transition period has been completed, with the Shea Unit been created with an office in Accra and the National Steering Committee on Shea also established.

The Shea Unit, he added, has opened a branch office in Tamale and is well on course to open another office in Wa, in the Upper West region.

The Shea Unit together with the National Steering Committee formulated a 15-year development strategy, called the Shea Development Strategy(SHEDS 2014-2030), which will serve as the blueprint for the implementation of programmes for the development of the Shea sector.

The deputy Minister, who is also the MP for Akim Swedru, also stated that COCOBOD is expected to present the document through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to Cabinet in August 2018.

The core areas of the policy document include: research, extension, plantation development and conservation, strategic stakeholder partnerships and product development, marketing and quality standards.

COCOBOD is also expected to move the head office of the Shea Unit to Tamale in 2019, to begin full operations as a Subsidiary drawing on other sources of funding outside COCOBOD.

“The Subsidiary will also generate revenue from its operations and by 2024, become adequately equipped to operate as a full-fledge Shea Development Board, as laid out in the roadmap” the Minister added.

The roadmap and the Shea Development Strategy were formulated with inputs from relevant stakeholders in the Shea value chain.