AASW7

The Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW) and FARA General Assembly (GA) is the principal forum for all stakeholders in African agriculture Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) to reflect on their achievements and craft strategies and actions aimed at enhancing the contribution of agriculture STI towards accelerating the continent’s economic and social transformation. This event is organized every three years. The last such event, the sixth AASW and FARA GA, was held in Accra, Ghana in July 2013.

The 7th AASW and FARA GA will be held in Kigali, Rwanda from 13th to 16th June 2016. Ordinarily FARA convenes this event jointly with the host country only. The organisation of the 7th AASW and FARA GA is however a more inclusive undertaking involving several key actors (co-organizers) in African agricultural research and development in addition to the Government of Rwanda.

The event will focus on enhancing the application of STI in African agriculture, which is pivotal to achievement of the sector’s goals, namely zero hunger, creation of wealth and jobs, increasing the resilience of agri-food systems and improvement in the management of the natural resource base. The Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa is an African-owned continental framework formulated to achieve this objective. The event will devote special attention to the implementation of this framework at country level.

The overall theme of the 7th African Agriculture Science Week and FARA GA: is “Apply Science, Impact Livelihoods”. The discourse at this event will be organized around the following five sub-themes:

1. Institutional systems and policies for making science work for African agriculture
2. Sustainable productivity growth, value chains and profitable agribusinesses
3. Human capital development and the Youth
4. Sustainable financing of Science, Technology and Innovation for African agriculture
5. Megatrends in African Agriculture

Co-organisers

FARA is co-organizing this event jointly with the following institutions:

Sub-regional Agricultural Research Organisations: (ASARECA, CCARDESA & CORAF/WECARD)
The African Union Commission and NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency
CGIAR centres (AfricaRice, IITA, ILRI, IFPRI, ICRISAT, ICRAF, CIAT, CIP and CIMMYT)
Education networks (ANAFE, RUFORUM and AAU)
Continental AR&D organisations (AFAAS, AGRA, PAFO, AAIN and AATF)
The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA), FAO, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and CIRAD.
Development Partners directly contributing to the organisation of this event are: the European Commission, BMZ-Germany and IFAD