Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops in Africa (SARD-SC)

Published 9 January 2018. Final report of the project: Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops in Africa (SARD-SC) (20 pages)

The Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops in Africa(SARD-SC), was a multi- national CGIAR- led project, which had the overall objective of enhancing food and nutrition security and contributing to reducing poverty in selected Regional Membership Countries(RMCs) in Africa. 

The target RMCs are: Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

The project was funded by the African Development Bank and focuses on raising the productivity and profitability of four commodities; cassava, maize, rice and wheat. These were four of the six commodities that African Heads of States have defined as strategic crops for Africa, through the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP).

A two- day end- of – project Supervision Mission by the African Development Bank to the Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic crops(SARD-SC) project was conducted at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, Nigeria, 2 to 3 November, 2017.

The end –of- project international conference on cassava value chain was  held from 28-30 June 2017 in Sierra Leone, brought to the front burner the valuable contribution the SARD-SC project has made to food security in target countries; Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Zambia and DR Congo