Stakeholders Consultation on Developing the Advocacy and Resource Mobilisation Strategy for FARA and its Secretariat

FARA Secretariat, Accra, Ghana. 5-6 March 2009. The meeting was organized to discuss the objectives and outcomes of Advocacy and Resource Mobilisation for CAADP Pillar IV, focusing on the contributions Network Support Function 1 of the FARA Secretariat can make to achieving Pillar IV objectives.

The consultation facilitated discussions among FARA constituents to define their advocacy and resource mobilisation requirements and propose activities that will address two key objectives which are:

• Reformed African agricultural institutions and services; and
• A new financing framework for African Agriculture that promotes a research system that is efficient, effective and has high potential for rapid and widespread impact on agricultural productivity.

Participants (FARA Secretariat & Facilitators excluded):

H.E. Dr. Alieu Jeng, Resident Representative, AfDB Ghana Country Offic

Dr. Ibrahima Diallo, AU Representative, The League of Arab States Secretariat, Egypt

Mr. Julius Mathende, Agricultural Inputs Trade Specialist, COMESA Secretariat, Zambia
Dr. Remileku Rackey Cole, Special Technical Advisor to Executive Director, CORAF/WECARD, Senegal
Dr. David Keetch, Director, AfricaBio, South Africa

Mr. Jiadiais Kamga Jean-Rostand, Director for Finance and Administration, CORAF/WECARD, Senegal

Dr. Mahama Ouedraogo, Acting Director of AU/SAFGRAD, Burkina Faso



Dr. Andre Bationo, Director, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (for West Africa), Ghana
Dr. Patrick H.R.Tawonezvi, SADC MAPP Coordinator, SADC-FANR Secretariat, Botswana
Prof. Dr. Ayman Abou Hadid, President, ARC-Egypt

Dr. Alsacia Atanasio, Director General, National Research Fund, Ministry of Science and Technology, Mozambique
Dr. Komla Bissi, Senior Agribusiness Advisor, NEPAD Secretariat, South Africa
Dr. Joseph Methu, Head of Partnership and Capacity Development, ASARECA, Uganda



Mr. Rotimi Nihinlola, Group Head of Microfinance and International Organisation, Ecobank, Ghana

Hon. Janguo Minshehe Athuman Saidi, Chairman, Committee on Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, Pan-African Parliament, Tanzania

PLANNING MEETING FOR ASARECA Regional Agricultural Information and Learning Systems

The Information and Communication Unit of ASARECA held a planning meeting with the RAILS national focal points in the ASARECA countries on 23rd to 24th February 2009 in Entebbe, Uganda. The overall objective of the meeting was to determine how to concretize the RAILS project in the ASARECA region. The outputs were:

• the identification and description of Learning teams
• the identification of priority activities;
• the development of Regional and National action plans

Participants:

Mrs Jane-Francis ASABA, Information Scientist CABI International Africa Regional Centre, Kenya

Mrs Rachel REGE, Ag. Assistant Director Information and Documentation Services, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) Kenya

Dr. Doris Matovelo, Director of Library, Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) Tanzania

Ms. Vidah MAHAVA, Ag. Head of Information and Documentation Unit, DRD Tanzania

Mr. Pascal KAUMBUTHO, CEO, Kenya Network for Dissemination of Agricultural Technologies (KENDAT) Kenya

Mr. Bob MUGERWA, National Coordinator, District Agricultural Training and Information Centers (DATIC component) Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) Uganda

Mrs. Marie-Chantal NIYUHIRE, Head Biometrics Unit and Computer Sciences, Institut des Sciences Agronomiques de Burundi (ISABU)

Mr. Jocelin Eyel'nzo MAKOKO, Head Biometrics Unit, Institut National pour l'Etude et la Recherche Agronomique (INERA) DR Congo

Mr. Janvier NKUNZEBOSE, Librarian, Institut des Sciences Agronomiques de Burundi (ISABU)

Mr. Abebe KIRUB, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)

Ms. Rafaa Ashamallah GHOBRIAL, Head of Information Services and Systems, National Centre for Research, Documentation and Information, Sudan


Ms. Ahlam Ismail MUSA, Head Librarian, Central Library ARC, AGRIS Resource Centre of the Sudan


Mrs. Claudine UMUKAZI, Head Information Communication and Documentation, Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda (ISAR)

Zeinab, Secretary ASARECA

Francois STEPMAN, Communication Expert FARA

Dady DEMBY, RAILS program officer FARA

Zeremariam, Eritrea

Jacky NYAGAHIMA, director information and communication, ASARECA

Appropriate agricultural protection measures

BURKINA FASO, 8-9 FEBRUARY 2009. Meeting to ponder the protection measures required for West Africa's agricultural development and reflexions on the safeguard measures that ECOWAS could adopt.

The meeting was attended mostly by farmers leaders on the national platforms of ROPPA and several high civil servants of ECOWAS and WAEMU. A PowerPoint is available in French on Solidarité website.

Les producteurs ont rejeté le taux de 35 pour cent proposé par le comité conjoint de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA) et de la Communauté des Etats d’Afrique de l’ouest (CEDEAO). Et ils proposent un taux minimum de 50 pour cent pour le TEC qui, selon eux, permettra également le développement de leurs productions agricoles.

Reference:

Inter Press Service 19/02/09 AFRIQUE DE L’OUEST : Les producteurs agricoles veulent un tarif extérieur commun protecteur

Book launch of Farmers First Revisited

12th February 2009. Nairobi. FARA participated at the Book launch of Farmers First Revisited.
Speakers:
ACHIM STEINER Executive Director, UNEP
CARLOS SERE Director General, ILRI
And Book Contributors:
JOHN K. MUTUNGA, Chief Executive Officer, KENFAP
JEMIMAH NJUKI, International Center for Tropical Agriculture
LUCY WANGARI MWANGI, General Manager, KENFAP
IAN SCOONES, Fellow, IDS & Future Agricultures Consortium
JOHN THOMPSON, Fellow, IDS & Future Agricultures

Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, launched a movement to encourage farmer participation in agricultural research and development (R&D), responding to farmers’ needs in complex, diverse, risk-prone environments, and promoting sustainable livelihoods and agriculture.
Since that time, methodological, institutional and policy experiments have unfolded around the world. Farmer First Revisited returns to the debates about farmer participation in agricultural R&D and looks to the future.


From this page, you can access the individual papers submitted for discussion at the conference. The papers are organised by the theme and session and listed by author name and paper title.

The paper from Monty P. Jones and Sidi Sanyang* – FARA – Promoting inclusion of civil society organizations (CSOs) in African Agricultural Research and Development was reproduced in the book under the title "The politics of inclusion in African Agricultural Research and Development".

Hereunder are some interviews of book contributors:

Jemima Njuki, researcher CGIAR Zimbabwe, speaks at the FarmerFirst revisited conference (12-14/12/2007) hosted at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.


Lucy Mwangi, General Manager KENFAB Kenya, speaks at the FarmerFirst conference.


Paul Van Mele of the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) speaks at the FarmerFirst revisited conference


Listen to the Podcast of Dr. Wale Adekunle of FARA : Speech (38mins) during the FarmerFirst revisited conference.


Related blogposts:
Farmer First Revisited 26/01/2009
Farmer Participatory Research and Development Twenty years on 12th December 2007

e-agriculture & the Women of Uganda Network

Women of Uganda Network with support of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP – EU (CTA), held the second Lango forum on e – agriculture in Apac district on the of 10th February 2009. The purpose of the forum was to sensitize rural women and the community at large on the role of information in agriculture and rural development with a gender perspective. Forum participants will share knowledge on the role of information in agriculture and rural development, the social challenges and benefits of ICT tools to men and women including the state of e-agriculture in Uganda.

This bi-annual fora includes Participants from the farming community, district leaders, Civil Society organisations from Apac, Gulu, Lira, and Oyam districts, and stakeholders from other areas of Uganda. Key issues arising from these foras and other project experiences are used to produce briefing papers with a focus on the benefits of ICT and gains from a programme that has working in an environment of limited ICT access.

Reference: WOUGNET

The new Chair of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation Board of Trustees

FARA collaborator Prof Walter S. Alhassan was in November 2008 elected the new Chair of the AATF Board of Trustees. Following is an excerpt from an interview with Prof Alhassan, a founder member of the AATF, on the organisation’s past, present and future.

What are the key challenges you see ahead for AATF and its partners?

I can see AATF growing, but the biggest challenge I foresee here is funding. So far we have an annual budget of about 17 million US dollars. Most of this money is coming from donors, but we are not seeing much input from our very own African governments. So the challenge is how to achieve sustainable funding to complement what the donor community can bring in.

But the good thing is that with the support from donors, we are developing products that can be seen. Take the case of maize. The herbicide-resistant maize is being deployed against Striga in East Africa and producing real benefits for farmers. In West Africa, we are talking to governments about bio-fortification of sorghum, a major crop in West and Central Africa. These products will help us convince our partners, the African governments and regional organizations, that there is need to put in money into what AATF is doing.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We deliberately start with products because it is proof that the AATF concept can work. But we are not only focusing on products. Our African scientists are actually participating in developing these products and in the process, they and their institutions are gaining the capacity to handle such products and deploy them to benefit farmers in Africa.

The projects are also building the capacity in the private sector which will market the products locally. Once governments realize that we don’t just bring products from outside but that these go through the national research systems, they will be interested in our activities and products. (Read the full interview)

Related blogpost: Saturday, 31 January 2009: Drought-Tolerant Maize for Africa

Release of Technical Report: Development and Climate Change - A Strategic Framework

This Technical Report is the culmination of a global multistakeholder consultation process that benefitted from thousands of development professionals, policy makers, academics, scientists, youth, indigenous peoples and the private sector representing a wide range of countries, views and perspectives.

The document is of interest to the wider development community and will help with the implementation of the Strategic Framework by the Bank Group, in support of the UNFCCC process.

The Strategic Framework was approved by the Development Committee at the 2008 Bank-Fund Annual Meetings and distributed at the UNFCCC Climate Conference in Poznan in December 2008.

The Technical Report covers in detail how the Bank Group will support climate actions in country-led development processes, how to mobilize additional concessional and innovative finance and more.

Reference:
Press release World Bank's Climate Change Consultation on 01/28/2009

Institution-Based Information Systems Kenya Agricultural Information Network (KAINet) Planning and Strategy Building.

The organizers of the 2nd Expert Consultation on International Information System for Agricultural Sciences and Technology (IISAST) (September 2007) invited actors from the national level to document their experiences in developing information systems and institutional networks in the form of case studies.

The Kenya Agricultural Information Network (KAINet) was initiated in April 2006 in response to demand from the national and international community to promote information exchange and access among stakeholders in the agricultural sector. KAINet has evolved from the on-going Kenya Pilot AGRIS Project, which aims at building capacities in information management, dissemination and exchange in network members in Kenya.

The project's objectives include establishing institutional repositories of agricultural information, facilitating the development of institutional and national Information and Communication Management (ICM) strategies and policies as frameworks for addressing issues that are critical to content development and information exchange, and supporting development of human capacity in ICM through training programs for information managers.

The main stakeholders in the implementation of KAINet are five national institutions: the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), the Kenya National Agricultural Research Laboratories (KARI-NARL), the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and Jomo Kenya University of Agriculture and Forestry (JKUAT).

At the international level FAO, CABI Africa and the Regional Agricultural Information Network (RAIN) of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) participated in developing the project and are supporting its implementation through providing expertise in ICM. The project received financial support from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK Government through FAO. In addition, national and international project partners provide in-kind contributions.

Reference:

R4D posting of 28/01/09

Please check back to the CIARD website for updates to this document - 2008 7 pp.

How agricultural researchers can monitor and evaluate projects and assess research impacts.

The Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative has launched its new interactive website, http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/. This new CGIAR-backed resource contains important information about how researchers can monitor and evaluate projects and assess research impacts.
ILAC hopes the site will help them strengthen the capacity of collaborative research - especially in agriculture, to help develop innovative research that involves poor people and helps research to become more effectively managed.

The resources and library sections of the new site contain rich collections useful for all those interested in the evaluation and impact of collaborative projects. The library contains over 1200 references on:

• participatory research
• monitoring and evaluation
• impact assessment
• organizational learning

More Information
http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/
Find out more about Institutional Learning and Change in the ILAC factsheet

Organic agriculture and food security in Africa

This publication (Sept. 2008, 61 pp.), co-published by UNEP and UNCTAD, argues that organic agriculture "can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems," and that it is more likely to prove sustainable in the long term.

Entitled "Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa", the study demonstrates that organic agriculture can be equal or better for food security than most conventional systems and is more likely to be sustainable in the longer term, as it builds up levels of natural, human, social, financial and physical capital in farming communities. It also favours the use of low carbon footprint production methods and local resources.

Background: The UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development (CBTF) is one of two international partnerships through which UNCTAD conducts its work on organic agriculture as a trade and sustainable development opportunity for developing countries. The other partnership is the UNCTAD-FAO-IFOAM International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture (ITF).
Read the full text here.

Vulnerability of national economies to the impacts of climate change on fisheries

The authors of this report (24 pp.- Published online: Feb 4 2009) examined 132 national economies to determine which are the most vulnerable, based on environmental, fisheries, dietary and economic factors.

Two-thirds of the most vulnerable nations are in tropical Africa, where in many countries fish account for more than half of daily animal protein consumption and where research indicates that fish production in both coastal and inland waters is highly sensitive to climate variations.
In coastal regions, climate variations can significantly alter the flow of nutrient-rich waters - known as upwellings - which sustain fish populations that feed millions in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, in eastern and southern Africa, rising temperatures in freshwater lakes over the last century have already reduced fish stocks. Future climate change is expected to worsen this trend, while also leading to lower water levels due to decreased rain and increased evaporation.

Both coastal and landlocked countries in Africa, including Malawi, Guinea, Senegal and Uganda, four Asian tropical countries - Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and Yemen - and two countries in South America, Peru and Colombia, were identified as the most economically vulnerable to the effects of global warming on fisheries. Overall, of the 33 countries that were considered highly vulnerable, 19 are already classified by the United Nations as "least developed" due to their particularly poor socioeconomic conditions.

More information
The study: Vulnerability of national economies to the impacts of climate change on fisheries
Related:
Fishing and Climate Change
The Stockholm Environment Institute will carry out the study of climate change impacts and their economic costs for Kenya, which it is hoped will inform decision-making by policy makers in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. Posted on R4D 30 January 2009

Nokia launches information service for farmers in Kenya

Nokia is launching in Kenya a new service to offer prompt weather and agriculture related information to farmers to enhance their preparedness in ensuring optimal food production. The pilot service was innitially launched in India in the Maharashtra region in December 2008. Nokia plans to roll-out the commercial service across the rest of India in the first half of 2009, and will be extended to select countries in Africa and Asia later. Nokia Life Tools service will be available in the first half of 2009. In India Nokia Life Tools will support a wide range of languages, including Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi, and English.

Through the Nokia Life Tools, rural based communities and persons living in small towns will now be able to receive regular updates on climatic changes; farm input and farm produce prices on their mobile phones, empowering them to make quick and informed decisions that will enhance their productivity.

Through partnerships with organizations like the Kenya Meterological Department regular tips can be sent to farmers, through Nokia Life Tools, on changing weather patterns, while agro-based organizations could provide information to help farmers update farming techniques or indicate prevailing market conditions that could help prevent future food shortages. Nokia will work with local and regional organizations to provide the local content required that will be sent through the Nokia devices.

Information on weather, prices of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and prevailing market prices can be sent directly to the farmers’ mobile device. The information for the produce is customized to the farmer’s location and his/her choice of crop.

Reference:

IT News Africa 10/02/09

Harnessing Agricultural Potentials through Regional Partnerships

11-12th February 2009. 2nd ECOWAS Business Forum ‘Quaga 2000’ Conference Center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The operational theme for the forum was "Harnessing Agricultural Potentials through Regional Partnerships." The forum featured exhibitions of goods and services from businesses in the region.
"Last year's food crisis served as a wake up call that we neglected agriculture. Now we have to go back to basics and develop the huge agricultural potential that we have in the sub region,' said president of the Ecowas Commission, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas.

The broad objectives of the forum included:

• reviewing the implementation of the Action Plan adopted at the 1st ECOWAS Business Forum which was held in Accra, Ghana from 29th – 31st October 2007;
• adoption of concrete and measurable strategies and action plans to engage the private sector more effectively in the implementation of integration programmes and projects, particularly those concerning the promotion of agribusiness (e.g. rice production) and food security in the region.
• inform the West African private sector and other partners/investors on the status of regional integration in West Africa, with particular emphasis on current opportunities and frameworks for investment and enterprise promotion including Public Private Partnerships (Agriculture/Agribusiness, SMEs, infrastructure – telecoms, energy, etc) international business collaborations (e.g. ECOWAS – China, West Africa – EU, etc) and trade, to facilitate engagements.
• strengthen regional network associations like the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce, the West African Manufacturer’s Association, Federation of Business Women and Women Entrepreneurs, FOPAO, NEPAD, Business Group West Africa, West African Road Transporters’ Union (WARTU) and the Wet African Rice Producers’ Association.

Reference:

• Sierra Leone News & Information 10/02/09 2nd ECOWAS Business Forum Commences Tomorrow
• Daily Observor 12/02/09 West Africa: 'Create West Africa of Peoples' Ecowas Commission President
• Afrique en ligne 13/02/09 'Food crisis, wake up call for agric revival'

Announcement: Partner conference on Market information systems

9 till 13 th of March 2009. FARA Accra Ghana.

Timely and accurate market information distributed systematically along agricultural supply chains is desperately lacking in many developing countries. It serves as the foundation for understanding market horizons, better decision-making, more secure transactions and better market linkages; all of these factors have been shown to increase market engagement and revenues for vulnerable low-income farmers.

Despite widespread acknowledgement that these information flows are essential to assist small producers, few approaches have been sustainable and effective. Market information systems have been difficult to maintain and develop, expensive to deploy in the field, rarely accurate, and often not targeted or accessible to the intended customer. Mobile networks have been leveraged for publishing, but rarely for low cost data sourcing or profiling. And no one has designed a revenue model that ensures widespread deployment.

To that end, TradeNet/Esoko will hold with support of FARA a partner conference in Accra, Ghana from March 9 – 13 (the last two days of the conference will be reserved for optional training workshops). The purpose of the conference will be to foster dialog and learning between partners, explore solutions to partners’ challenges with deployment, and conduct an in depth analysis of best practices. The conference will enable participants to share their experiences, ideas, issues, skills, models, etc. and gain a better sense of how to implement TradeNet/Esoko’s MIS successfully in their countries.

Background:

• This activity is a follow-up to FARA's Inventory on Innovative Farmer Advisory Services.
• Through deployment in numerous countries, Tradenet/Esoko recognizes that success constitutes 5% technology and 95% training and execution. They are particularly interested in building capacity and partnerships on projects and developing an established set of best practices that can be disseminated among numerous participating countries. Currently, Esoko software is being deployed in Afghanistan, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo.

What are the incentive mechanisms for increasing investment in agricultural R&D?

In the paper Agricultural R&D policy: a tragedy of the international commons, (Authors: P., G. Pardey; J., M. Alston; J., S. James Publisher: AgEcon Search, September 2008, University of Minnesota, 42 pages) the factors contributing to persistent global underinvestment in agricultural R&D are described from a developing country perspective. Additionally, incentive mechanisms for increasing rates of investment in agricultural R&D are also discussed.

The paper notes that under-funding of agricultural R&D in developing countries (DCs) is clearly problematic, and the stage is set for the problem to worsen. In the past, DCs benefited from technological spillovers from developed countries. However, because of changes occurring in developed countries, spillovers from developed countries may not be available to DCs in the same extent as before. Decreasing spillover potential is caused by several trends:

• the types of technologies being developed may no longer be as readily applicable to DCs as they were in the past
• those that are applicable may not be as readily accessible
• technologies that are applicable and accessible are likely to require more substantial local development, calling for more extensive forms of scientific R&D than in the past.

Africa has almost 30 percent more public agricultural researchers than the United States and 50 percent more than India, but the training of these researchers continues to lag well behind those in the United States (and well behind those researchers working elsewhere in the developing world). Approximately 25 percent of research full-time equivalents (FTEs) in sub-Saharan Africa have PhDs, compared with 100 percent in the United States and 63 percent in India. (p.14)

African public agricultural research agencies are heavily skewed to the small end of the size distribution, with three quarters of these agencies employing fewer than 20 researchers, whereas one third of the public agencies in India and almost all the public agencies in the United States employ more than 100 researchers. The small size of many research agencies in India and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa makes it difficult to exploit the economies of scale that characterize the production of knowledge. Moreover, the lion’s share of public research in the United States is now performed by universities, while the average university share is less than 20 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and approximately 45 percent in India. (p.15)

Full text of document

Related:

Eldis team news blog 03/02/2009 Key debates on food security: challenges ahead with a number of video interviews taken at the ‘Food Crisis and the Global South’ conference in London, 28-29 January 2009

Daring to share & rapid rural appraisal of agricultural knowledge systems

Click to Play

Interview with Dr. Paul Engel, Director of ECDPM (European Centre for Development Policy and Management).

In the interview Paul Engel explains how the RAAKS methodology fosters agricultural innovation. RAAKS means rapid rural appraisal of agricultural knowledge systems. It is a participatory method that facilitates networking and communication processes. It can be used to improve the generation and use of knowledge and innovation.

Further references:
Engel, P.G.H., Salomon, M.L. Facilitating Innovation for Development. A RAAKS resource box
A KIT/CTA/Stoas co-production. 200 p.

The set includes the book The Social Organization of Innovation and a cd-rom which contents a guide to the RAAKS method, plus 'Windows' - specific ways to gain a new perspective on the situation - and 'Tools' to be used in practice.

On networking for innnovation see:
Chapter 5 Daring to share: networking among non-governmental development organizations

2nd CGIAR Senior Management Course

16-31 January 2009. Nairobi Kenya. The 2 weeks workshop was conducted to provide add-on managerial training to senior management staffs of CG centers and associated institutes. This is in response to the need for additional skill to managed changes in agricultural research and development system, which tend more towards collaboration, network and alliance.
The twenty participants at the workshop were drawn from ten CG research centers, the CG secretariat, FARA Ghana, KARI and ICIPE Kenya.

The success of the first course held in Bangkok in 2007, prompted the decision to run three more trainings in Africa, Asia and America. The broad objective of the workshop is to equip the senior managers in the CG and associated institutions with vital complementary managerial skills that are essential for communication, team management, effective collaboration and ultimate delivery of required output. Other specific objectives include.

• To prompt an understanding of oneself and its effect on managerial style and team performance
• To inculcate the intricate principles of effective team work.
• To provide knowledge base on the initiation of collaboration, network and alliance management for desirable research and development outcome.