Launch of the PROIntensAfrica project

The Executive Director of FARA, Dr Yemi Akinbamijo, 

Dr. Patrick Caron and Dr Martin Kropff 

signed the Consortium Agreement

21- 22 April 2015. Accra, Ghana. The General Assembly of ProIntensAfrica program was held at FARA.

The project consortium comprised of 23 Agricultural research and development organizations drawn from Europe and Africa that has agreed on carrying out different activities to develop a partnership program towards agricultural intensification in Africa.

The Consortium Agreement is the instrument that gives legal backing to the partnership arrangement within the program. And it represents a significant milestone in the history of ProIntensAfrica. It also paves the way for the implementation of the program activities.

As part of the kickoff session on April 21, each of the seven working packages (WPs) of the ProIntesAfrica program gave an overview of their activities for peer review, assessment and critique and the outcome of the review is expected to feed in into the project final document.

The high point of the general Assembly was the endorsement of the projects consortium agreement.

• The program involves agriculture modernization, sustainability of food production and increase in output to meet the growing needs of people in the two continents.
• It also seeks to improve the livelihoods of people in agricultural value chains while helping remove the barrier to achieving food security in Africa.
• Consultation, case studies and stakeholder panel workshops are a major part of the activities of ProIntensAfrica. A wide range of strategic stakeholders will be invited to contribute to the activities and the agenda. Communication is considered crucial to develop and enhance the interactive dialogue between all stakeholders.
• ProIntensAfrica is financed by the European Union (EU) and coordinated by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in Africa and the Wageningen University Research Institute in the Netherlands.
• The project will develop into the IntensAfrica programme within two years.
• African partners in the project are: FARA (Ghana), CORAF/WECARD (Senegal), CCARDESA (Botswana), ASARECA (Uganda), AFAAS (Uganda), ARC (South Africa), CSRI-CRI (Ghana) and INERA (Burkina Faso).
• European partners are: Wageningen UR (The Netherlands), CIRAD (France), UCL (Belgium), SLU (Sweden), IICT (Portugal), Luke (Finland), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), ZEF (Germany), INIA (Spain), NRI (England), Teagasc (Ireland), BOKU (Austria), University of Life Sciences (Czech Republic), University Szent Istvan (Hungary) and Bioforsk (Norway).

Participants at the ProIntensAfrica kickoff meeting, at FARA Secretariat, Accra, Ghana

Mr. Marc Duponcel of the Directorate General of Agriculture at the European Union (EU-DG AGRI L-1), in a keynote paper expressed the commitment of the European Commision to partner with the stakeholders of ProIntensAfrica to make it a success. He expressed the commitment of the EC to the program, planned to be in a more engaging manner; compared to the previous practice of just committing funds to the program and expecting the outcomes. “The EC will participate in the entire work plan and other process from the beginning to the end” he indicated. He further expressed his conviction that the ProIntensAfrica will ultimately benefit Africa and Europe.

Related posts:

• Launching of a New Initiative Aimed at Exploring African Opportunities for Sustainable Food Systems
• Ghana Minister of Environment and Innovation formerly launched the ProIntensAfrica
• New initiative explores African opportunities for sustainable food systems
• A strong case made for agriculture intensification in Africa 
• Participants at ProIntensAfrica meeting discuss the relevance of the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa

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Published on 11 Dec 2014
Marc Duponcel (DG Agri) addresses the closing plenary 'Farmer groups leading inno-vation and research' session at the 9th Organic Producers' Conference - 27th November 2014.