CTA in collaboration with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) received 248 abstracts in response to the two science competitions that were launched in July 2008: Women and Young Professionals in Science Competitions.
The competitions seek to identify and recognize women and young professionals in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the Diaspora who are engaged in innovative and pioneering research and development and communicating the outputs (knowledge, technologies, approaches) for enhancing agricultural performance in SSA.
The entrants came from 34 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and Germany. The partners received 133 abstracts from women in science and 115 abstracts from young professionals. The expert group reviewed at FARA in Accra 1st to 3rd October the submissions and selected the top 40, who will be invited to present their full papers for final judging at the Ministerial Forum on Higher Education. Initially this was schedulded to take place in Lusaka, Zambia from 27 – 31 October 2008. but now this is postponed till February 2009 -place and date to be confirmed.
Hereunder an interview with Judith Francis of CTA on 03/10 who explains how the selection went and why it is important to give visibility to research of African Young porfessionals and Women in agriculture.
