Establishment of an African Food and Agricultural Policy Platform

30th – 31st May, 2012. Accra, Ghana. Workshop to Plan the Establishment of an African Food and Agricultural Policy Platform (AFAPP).

The workshop was organized by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in collaboration with the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy (CIFAP) of the University of Minnesota, USA. Policy research institutions or think tanks support and influence public and private sector decisionmaking by conducting policy research, disseminating the results and engaging in advocacy for its use. They also act as catalysts for new thinking and new solutions to address current, emerging and potential future problems and offer a nursery of ideas on the direction policies should take. With its new role as a weaver of knowledge networks in Africa,

FARA will provide a continental forum for networking (catalyzing, connecting and communicating) among African policy research institutions. Affiliate members of AFAPP will be drawn from these and other institutions to constitute the research resources by which AFAPP can carry out its mandate. The platform will provide the opportunity for them to catalyze, connect and communicate thus complementing and adding value to the work of each other. The platform will also provide several venues (e.g. workshops, seminars, training, conferences) for “venting” or communicating research outputs to affiliates of AFAPP, policymakers, and the broader community of policy analysts. By providing a platform for promoting the production, dissemination and uptake of policy research outputs, FARA expects to enhance the contribution of policy research institutions to public policy in Africa.

A small group (15 – 20) of policy experts drawn from policy research and development institutions within and out of Africa with ample knowledge and experience in food, agriculture and natural resources participated in the 2-day workshop. The participants have developed an action plan that shows the objectives, outputs and activities to be implemented. It should also provide a structure and operational mechanism of AFAPP, potential sources of funding and a roadmap on the way forward with identified responsibilities.

Africa Human Development Report 2012 on Food security

Launch of the report at the UNON compound in Nairobi.
(Photo: UNDP)

15 May, Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa cannot sustain its present economic resurgence unless it eliminates the hunger that affects nearly a quarter of its people, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues in the newly released Africa Human Development Report 2012: Towards a Food Secure Future.

“Impressive GDP growth rates in Africa have not translated into the elimination of hunger and malnutrition. Inclusive growth and people-centred approaches to food security are needed” said UNDP Administrator Helen Clark at the launch on 15/05, attended by Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki. Arguing that action focused on agriculture alone will not end food insecurity either, the Report calls for new approaches covering multiple sectors; from rural infrastructure to health services, to new forms of social protection and empowering local communities.

Ensuring that the poor and vulnerable have greater voice through strengthened local government and civil society groups is also needed to ensure food security for all. The quickening pace of change and new economic vitality on the continent make this an opportune time for action, the Report says. “Building a food-secure future for all Africans will only be achieved if efforts span the entire development agenda” Helen Clark said. While acknowledging that there are no quick fixes, the report argues that food security can be achieved through immediate action in four critical areas: Increasing agricultural productivity; more effective nutrition; building resilience; empowerment and social justice.

Towards a Food Secure Future

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of hunger in the world. Until this situation improves, the human development prospects of millions of Africans will remain at risk. UNDP’s first Africa Human Development Report shows that food security and human development reinforce each other.

If African countries are to realize their long-term potential, the report says, they must boost agricultural productivity to both improve the availability of food and reduce poverty. Policies to enhance nutrition are central to ensuring that access to food translates into human development. The report argues further that local populations must have the resources and decision-making power to produce and consume nutritious food throughout the year, overcoming the risks represented by continuing conflict, climate change and variations in food prices.

These drivers of change, by ending the ravages of hunger and malnourishment, will nurture capabilities and conditions for human development. A well-nourished and empowered population, in turn, is more likely to seek education, participate in society and expand its productive and human potential. With the right policies and institutions Africa can sustain this virtuous cycle of higher human development and enhanced food security.

 Full Report (8MB)        Summary (2MB)

Watch the video of the report below, featuring Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Harvard Professor Calestous Juma, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and the Director of UNDP Africa, Tegegnework Gettu. All interviews can be watched individually.
 
Africa Human Development Report 2012 from UNDP on Vimeo.

Connecting Farmers to the Agricultural Value Chains in southern Africa

On May 28-30, 2012, SACAU hosted its Annual Conference and AGM in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

The theme of the two-day conference was “Connecting Farmers to the Agricultural Value Chains in southern Africa” and aimed at fostering more structured relations between farmers and agribusinesses in southern Africa. 

CEOs and Presidents of national farmers’ unions from 16 countries in southern Africa attended. Key agribusinesses with a regional scope, such as SENWES, AFGRI, RUSELLSTONE, Massmart/Wal-mart, SAB Miller, Agribusiness Chamber and ABSA were invited to participate as well as regional institutions including SADC’s Trade, Investment, Finance and Industry (TIFI), COMESA and NEPAD. 

Presentations were made by some of the leading agricultural procurement agri-businesses and discussions focused on sharing some of key developments and issues related to value chains in Southern Africa Region.


The conference was aligned to SACAU’s aim to strengthen its relationship with agribusinesses and create an environment that allows farmers to be well informed about value chain issues with respect to trading/marketing, retailing, direct production, storage, financing, processing, input supply and others. Increased agribusiness activity can be a key driver towards the deepening and broadening of the commercialisation of primary production, and especially of the smallholder sector.


Core areas of agreement between farmers and agribusiness from the conference will be used by SACAU to develop its positions on the sustainability of agriculture, especially from the perspective of agriculture primary producers in the region.

New board … Vice - President Dr Theo de Jager (AgriSA), 
President Mr Felix Jumbe (Farmers Union of Malawi), 
SACAU CEO Mr Ishmael Sunga, Mr Salum Shamte (
Agricultural Council of Tanzania) and Mr Hajasoanirina 
Rakotomandimby (Coalition Paysanne de Madagascar) 
make up the team representing farmers in the region.

International Workshop on Investing in and Strengthening Agricultural Innovation Systems

May 30 - June 1, 2012. An international workshop held in Washington D.C brought together more than 100 AIS experts and interested participants for three days of exchange and discussions.

Agricultural Innovation Systems: An Investment Sourcebook

Past efforts to strengthen agricultural research extension and education systems have not increased innovation in agriculture at the pace or the scale required by the intensifying challenges confronting agriculture today.  Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in R&D, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action and coordination, exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, and incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop business. The Agricultural Innovation Systems Sourcebook describes the additional and complementary interventions needed for an effective agricultural innovation system (AIS). Browse the Agricultural Innovation Systems Investment Sourcebook  Download the self-standing Sourcebook Overview document [PDF]

Workshop objectives:

This workshop highlighted the key findings from the recently developed AIS Investment Sourcebook. The workshop also served as a venue to feature and learn from operational and analytical cases and initiatives that are currently not covered by the Sourcebook

• To launch, and disseminate and discuss findings from the recently published “Investment Sourcebook: Agricultural Innovation Systems”
• To learn from other on-going operational and analytical initiatives on AIS
• To identify key recommendations for and issues requiring further analysis, experimentation and implementation to promote operationalization of AIS approach
• To consolidate the Community of Practice on AIS

Participants List

Conclusions/summary of the Conference will be added later.

Some presentations relevant for PAEPARD

Please click on the days below to view the presentations Wednesday, May 30  Thursday, May 31  Friday, June 1

PART 3: RURAL ADVISORY SERVICES & ITS ROLE IN PROMOTING INNOVATION Chair: Magdalena Blum, FAO

Session Description

Pluralism and Brokering as the Defining Factors for Rural Advisory Services in an AIS Context – Kristin Davis, Executive Secretary, GFRAS and Willem Heemskerk, KIT Application of ICT for RAS – Carol Bothwell, VP and Chief Knowledge Office, Catholic Relief Services Private Sector Driven RAS: Principles of and Evidence of Engagement – by Willem Heemskerk, KIT and Village-based Agricultural Advisor: A New Model for Self-employed Extension Workers – by David Priest, FIPS-Africa Ltd. What can Brokers Offer for RAS and Agricultural Innovation – by Laurens Klerkx, Wageningen University What can Brokers Offer for RAS and Agricultural Innovation - Rasheed Sulaiman, CRISP-LINK

PART 4: ROLE OF RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY IN AIS Chair: Jonathan Wadsworth, Executive Director of the Fund Office, CGIAR

Session Description

Strengthening Research System to Function in AIS – John Lynam, International Research and Innovation Consultant Building Effective Demand Articulation and Interface between Research System and Other Actors – by David Spielman, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI  Lessons on Consortia and R&D Partnerships with the Private Sector (Australia, Chile and India) – Francisco Obreque, Independent Consultant      Change Management within Agricultural Research Systems– Doug Horton, Independent Consultant  20 years of AIS Implementation in Uruguay – What Have We Learned from INIA? – Mario Pareja, Independent Consultant, IICA Agricultural Innovations Using the Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) Aapproach – Sidi Sanyang, Program Manager, CORAF/WECARD

PART 6: IGNITE SESSION &; PARALLEL WORKING GROUPS

IGNITE Session: 13 Speed presentations on AIS approaches/initiatives/products

Recent International Initiatives on Innovation Systems and Processes by CIRAD and its Partners – Bernard Triomphe, CIRAD 

Farmer-managed Funds for Local Innovation Processes – Ann Waters-Bayer, ProLinnova 

Facilitating Institutional Change to open up Opportunities for Small Farmers: the CoS-SIS Experience in West Africa Case - Laurens Klerkx , CoS-SIS Programme  

The Farmer Entrepreneurship Program , A Case Study on The Experience of Small Farmer Clusters in Nueva Ecija, Philippines - Terry Tuason, CRS

“Papa Andina: Facilitating Innovation in the Andes and Beyond” - Andre Devaux, CIP  

INNOVAGRO Network - Leticia Deschamps, IICA 

Realizing Agriculture Innovation (AI) in Family Farmers (SOFA 2014) – Magdalena Blum, FAO

Value Chains 2.0: Promoting Improved Information and Knowledge Management for Value Chain Development - Veronica Gottret, CATIE

Innovation Dynamics (with WUR) Based on How to Deal with Innovation Processes Based on SSA cases - Willem Heemskerk, KIT

Business Incubation for Agribusiness SMEs: Findings from infoDev – Michael Ehst, InfoDev

The Australia/ Papua New Guinea Agricultural Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF): Successful Capacity Building of Agricultural Research for Development? - Andy Hall and Kumuda Dorai, UNU-LINK

Agri-Fin Mobile and Access Agriculture: ICTs at the Service of Innovative Extension Approaches - Pierre-Andre Cordey, SDC

New Extension Skills Needed to Function in a Changing Context and AIS - Kristin Davis, GFRAS

E-mail conference on "Ensuring the full participation of family farmers in agricultural innovation systems

4 June to 1 July 2012. FAO hosted a moderated e-mail conference  on "Ensuring the full participation of family farmers in agricultural innovation systems: Key issues and case studies".

The UN General Assembly has declared 2014 to be the International Year of Family Farming and has invited FAO to facilitate implementation of the International Year, in collaboration with its partners. Among its initiatives for the International Year, FAO is planning to publish a major study on family farming and Agricultural innovation systems (AIS) in 2014 in the State of Food and Agriculture series, which is FAO’s major annual flagship publication.

Agricultural innovation systems are systems of individuals, organizations and enterprises that bring new products, processes and forms of organization into social and economic use to achieve food security, economic development and sustainable natural resource management. AIS include a multitude of potential actors, such as producer organizations, research organizations, extension and advisory services, universities and educational bodies, governments and civil society organizations, co-coordinating bodies, individual farmers and farm laborers, and the private sector (including traders, processors, supermarkets etc.).

The e-mail conference is open to everyone, is free and will be moderated.

The Background Document to this FAO e-mail conference is available here.

Meeting the needs of smallholder farming families also provides the central theme of the GCARD RoadMap, which sets out the systematic changes required to transform and strengthen innovation systems to better meet the needs of resource-poor smallholders around the world.  Results from the FAO e-mail consultation will help inform discussion in The Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2): “Foresight and partnership for innovation and impact on small-holder livelihoods” on practical actions underway and that are required to implement these systematic changes. The GCARD 2 will be organized in Punta del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012, more information is available on the GFAR website.  The Pre-Registrationfor the GCARD 2012 Conference is now open.

Outcomes from the email consultation and the GCARD Conference will inform preparation of the major FAO study in 2014, as well as help to build cooperation around key forward-looking agendas and facilitate planning of joint actions among all AIS stakeholders to deliver large scale development outcomes.

PAEPARD contribution:
Moderated conference on agricultural innovation systems:  a selection of the most significant contributions, relevant for PAEPARD.

·         In order to identify a pool of brokers on the African continent we launched a call for agricultural innovation facilitators (AIF) 1 year ago. We were at that time not aware that ASARECA was in the process of the creation of a pool of well-skilled platform facilitators for innovation platforms under their Farmer Empowerment for Innovation in Smallholder Agriculture (FEISA) project.

o   203 applicants submitted their CV to PAEPARD.

o   The screening of the CVs was based on the geographical origin (country) and the profile of the applicant (research, farmer organisation (FO), private sector, nongovernmental organisation (NGO), ministry, consultant or other).

o   Not surprisingly 160 were male applicants and 43 female.

o   86 applicants had a [agricultural) research profile, 36 applicants worked for an ngo,  21 for a farmer organization, 17 consultants, 16 from a Ministry, 14 private, 6 extensionists, 4 other.

o   But the career path revealed that the  basic training of the majority of all profiles originated in agricultural research.

o   A past training (in Montpellier or in Wageningen) with the International Centre for development oriented Research in Agriculture (ICRA) was a strong reference for the selection.

We are currently performing an evaluation of the brokers' facilitation in 10 ARD consortia from the consortium's coordinator perspective and the AIFs' perspective. And we realize that a technically sound agronomist with facilitation training is a rare gem. In the agricultural research community, we only managed to identify few good experts in group dynamics, adult training, moderation, knowledge management, etc.

We also realized that because (so far) the dominant PAEPARD partnership model has been the AIF (broker) functioning in a project context, this had some important limitations in terms of innovation. The stress is too much on project innovation instead of system wide innovation by involving several societal actors, including farmers, supply and processing industry, civic advocacy organization, and policy makers. The reason why we opted first for the project partnership model is obvious: we wanted to link the brokering to something tangible: the submission of a research proposal to a funding opportunity, as a milestone of the consortium facilitation (a process of minimum one year).

The requirement for the facilitator to be able to play an independent role within the consortium was essential. Preferably, the facilitator should not be a member of the lead institution (the applicant), to ensure a balance of influence on the consortium. The AIF needed nevertheless to be a person [all] the consortium members felt comfortable with. We wanted the choice of an AIF to be done through a consultation between the consortium and the PAEPARD-trained AIF.  But in one case the AIF with an ngo profile found it difficult to impose her authority towards the researchers involved in the consortium, and in another case AIFs with a research profile failed in their facilitation - not having "the spirit and training for facilitation and brokerage".

Conclusion: testing theoretical concepts into practice, but also to translate practical dilemmas into systemic lessons is a major challenge. [Platform for African - European Partnership in ARD]

Announcement:: e-discussion: The potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve data collection and M&E

Participate in the 3rd e-Forum: June 11-22
The potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve data collection and M&E activities is striking. Mobile phones, new platforms and repositories, and even software for reporting have reduced costs and time, improved data validity, and increased the ease of implementation. Some studies are showing these benefits. 

When a team from Catholic Relief Services used iformbuilder to register and distribute vouchers to beneficiaries in a seed fair in Central African Republic, they saved over a one week prep time and reduced the personnel needed by half. CRS is now developing an entire M&E system using iformbuilder.

The ICT in Agriculture e-Sourcebook touches on these tools in a number of modules. Module 6 on Agriculture Innovation Systems, Module 3 on Mobile Phones, and Module 8 on Farmers Organizations describe how some of these tools have been used. The following videos are taken from only a few of the many digitized data collection and M&E service providers. 

EpiSurveyor, demo of SMS data entry--

FrontlineSMS, explanation of origins and basics--

iformbuilder, basic demo--

This forum will explore two main topics: 

1) Tools and issues in data collection and 

2) Post-data collection—repositories, analytics, and dissemination in monitoring and evaluation. The forum will open the discussion to challenges related to using these technologies and their solutions as well.

Updates on PAEPARD Activities in Mauritius, April - May 2012

Breadfruit Festival in Mauritius

PAEPARD Facilitators sharing information on 
the project activities in Mauritius

The Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research and Extension Unit (AREU) organised a breadfruit festival ("La Fete du Fruit a pain") from 25-27 April 2012 at the Farmers' Training School, Wooton. On this occasion, several activities were proposed to the public, which included a culinary competition, demonstrations on breadfruit propagation techniques, breadfruit processing and value-addition, public lectures on several key topics on breadfruits, and there was also an exhibition on breadfruit by some of the organisations involved in the breadfruit sector in Mauritius. In-line with this event, breadfruit village was also inaugurated at Pamplemousses (a region in the north of Mauritius) on 24th April 2012.Among the different exhibitions, there was an exhibit by the Food and Agricultural Research Council (FARC) and PAEPARD, whereby information on the PAEPARD Project in Mauritius were given to the public.

More information on the Breadfruit Festival in Mauritius can be accessed on this link.

Work session - 10th May 2012

The objective of this work session was to prioritize research areas from the ones identified during the previous work session. 

The prioritization process was explained to the participants by the facilitators:

• From the 10 identified Research areas, the consortium needed to prioritize at most 5 research areas, according to their importance and complexity with respect to the local context. 
• A prioritization questionnaire was designed and participants were required to rate the research areas accordingly 
• The prioritization questionnaire and the list of research areas were provided to each participant 
• Starting from the first research area to the last on the list, each one of them was rated according to the different criteria.

By the end of the work session 5 Research areas were prioritised.Some pictures of the work session can be viewed in the following Slide Show:

Work Session - 16th May 2012

The picture is an example showing how the research questions
were generated formulated for each of the 5 research areas

The work session organized on 16th May 2012 was a follow-up to the work session held on 10th May 2012, whereby 5 research areas were prioritized.The objective of this work session was to formulate research questions that would be developed into concept notes.Participants were explained by the facilitators about how to formulate the research questions under each research area. For each of the research area, there was a central question, secondary questions, and tertiary questions. From all these questions that were generated, a research title was formulated for each research area. 

By the end of the work session 5 Research titles were formulated under each Prioritized Research areas.In the next workshop that would be organized in June 2012, concept notes would be developed for each Research title.

Presentation at the IAALD Africa Chapter Conference

Nawsheen Hosenally during the presentation

A paper on the wiki of the Mauritius Breadfruit Sector Consortium (supported by PAEPARD) was presented at the IAALD Africa Chapter Conference 

held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 21-23 May 2012.

Presentation: "The use of ICTs to facilitate collaboration in a Multi-Stakeholder Partnership: A case study of the Mauritius Breadfruit Sector Consortium" by N.Hosenally and K.Bheenick
Click here to read full paper