GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
FACE TO FACE CONSULTATION
Accra, Ghana ( DAY 1 : 5th October 2009)
Sixty three (63) participants are meeting at FARA’s new secretariat in Accra to review GCARD consultation efforts in Africa. Reflections in this blog are from David Hughes, Communications and Networking Officer for the Future Agricultures Consortium.
Day one saw an Overview of Agricultural Research and Africa’s Development Agenda by Dr. Monty Jones.Main points:
• The performance of agriculture is a major success factor for efforts to improve living standards in Africa & the world
• CAADP projects that Africa must maintain at least 6% agricultural production growth/yr to sustainably improve its food security
• The changes required to achieve CAADP and MDGs targets call for revolutionary vision, commitment, investment & action
• The investment and broad actions required are laid in CAADP and FAAP—for research, extension and adoption
• The mutual interests necessary to drive collaboration in agricultural science, capacity strengthening & infrastructural development exist.
• What is now needed is concrete action to harness the momentum of GCARD
Some expectations of participants include:
1. Defining realistic priorities for agricultural research and describing clear action plans for R&D
2. Defining roles and responsibilities for research stakeholders
3. Identifying end-users, partnerships
4. Including non-research persons, stakeholders, local knowledge in research planning
5. Maintaining the aim of demand-driven R4D and transforming research outputs into national and concrete actions
6. Committing to a statement of issues, concerns
7. Including capacity building/strengthening in planning
Uzo Mokwunye provided a Summary of the Regional Review he conducted.
Sub-regional priorities:
ASARECA
- improve productivity of staples as well as commodities with a growing regional market
CORAF/WECARD
- promote joint investment in rice research and development
- increase investment in livestock improvement
- promote growth and development of root crops
SADC/FANR
- promote partnership and collaboration among NARs
- promote public/private partnerships
- promote capacity building
- mobilize resources to implement demand-driven research activities
Gaps:
- poor capacity for innovation
- lack of coordination between research and extension
- too much emphasis on challenges and little on opportunities
- perceived gaps in implementation of the four pillars
- little attention has been paid to undernourishment
- what happened to research on “processing”?
In setting the research agenda, we’ll need to maintain a commitment to responding to needs of the poor:
§ poorest countries must emphasize increases in production
§ priority must be given to agricultural development in places where significant productivity gains are possible
§ put emphasis on staples and on smallholder farmers
§ develop strategies that complement agricultural growth with social protection measures
§ focus on meeting needs of domestic markets
§ emphasize growth that ensures sustainable use of main production resources
Participants from GFAR also provided an overview of GCARD including its objectives:
• Ensure alignment of the research agenda with development needs of the resource-poor
• Advocate for a more effective financial support
• Facilitate dialogue between diverse stakeholders on innovation pathways
• Promote the integration of the international agricultural research systems with national systems.
A participant noted that GCARD is a very unique opportunity to input into a developing framework for Agriculture research.
Stakeholder engagement and the lead up to GCARD follows this plan (currently at stage 3):
1. Regional Reviews
2. E-Consultations (Round 1)
3. Regional face to face meetings
4. E-Consultations (Round 2)
5. GCARD Event
6. GCARD follow-up
To frame the consultations, GCARD is asking:
• What are the needs and priorities for agricultural research in delivering defined development impacts?
• What mechanisms and partnerships are required in innovation pathways turning research into development impacts at scale?
• What are the key blockages, barriers and bottlenecks that prevent research from benefiting the poor?
How best should these be resolved and what enabling investments, policies and capacities are most needed?
E-CONSULTATIONS
As part of the GCARD stakeholder engagement process, e-consultations were held. For Africa, there were more than 320 contributions from 65 countries (highest number of contributions were from: 1. Ghana, 2. Kenya, 3. Uganda, 4. Nigeria, 5. Ivory Coast). Prevalent feeling is that contributions were informed by actual field experience and local conditions.
Discussion subjects raised (commonly used words in brackets):
1. Knowledge (18%) (knowledge, information, science, innovation)
2. Resources (15%) (resource/s, soil, water, climate change)
3. Training (14%) (extension, dissemination, training, education)
4. Production (12%) (production/s, crops, food/s, productivity, fertilizer, seed, plant/s, water, vegetable, animal, fish)
5. Technologies (11%) (technology/ies, ICT)
6. Mechanisation (9%) (mechanization, machinery, tractors, waterset)
7. Indigenous Knowledge (8%) (indigenous (plant/knowledge), traditional)
8. Markets (6%) (market, agribusiness)
9. Partnerships (4%) (partnership, network, collaboration, interaction)
10. Policy (3%)
11. Infrastructure (<1%)
Participants were: researchers, scientists, lectures, farmers, civil society, youth and women, extension workers.
“CAADP is a strong articulation of Africa’s priorities. We want to work with GCARD for R4D – no need to change our priorities (already voiced in CAADP), but we need better coordination, more smallholder-oriented research, etc.” (meeting participant)