Fifth General Meeting of the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD)

5-6 February 2012. Dakar. The Fifth General Meeting of the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) was held  to review progress in a 10 year initiative to double Sub-Sahara Africa’s rice production.

The conference reviewed the progress and challenges of the rice sector development in Sub-Sahara Africa during the past five years and discussed the key activities of the next five years.

Background:
The CARD initiative was launched during the 2008 Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) jointly by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to help strengthen overall African agricultural development.

Other CARD members are the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa (FARA), the Africa Rice center, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

 The initiative aims to double Sub-Sahara Africa’s rice production to 28 million tons by 2018, through coordination of all the stakeholders including governments, donors, NGOs and private enterprises.