The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in collaboration
with the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) in December last
year (2018) launched an essay competition to have youth articulate
their experiences in youth engagement initiatives across the Africa region,
including the context of agri-preneurship.
From the twenty-six (26) countries where responses were
amassed, the one hundred and fifty (150) essays submitted recounting the
experiences of youth as beneficiaries of various initiatives of diverse
agricultural institutions in their respective countries and across Africa.
Forty (40) of these were written in French and a hundred and ten (110) in
English. Also notable among the entries were illustrations of youth’s
experiences being directly involved in the implementation of youth-targeted
initiatives in which the participants themselves had the opportunity to engage
other youth. The themes of engagement described included entrepreneurship, food
security, sustainable agriculture and natural resources, advocacy towards
agricultural policy formulation, ecological agriculture, agricultural
extension, women empowerment, climate change, sustainable development among
others.
In this three-day workshop which takes place from 2nd to 4th May 2019 in Accra, Ghana, participants will get the opportunity to build their writing & communication skills to share knowledge and experiences apply the concepts of Innovation Platforms for agri-preneurship development and validate the framework for agri-preneurship capacity development interventions among youth. A few YPARD Africa representatives from the sub-regions (West and Central, Eastern and Southern Africa) will also partake in the workshop to share their experiences on expanding their country chapters. Also, among the collaborators are the TAAT ENABLE Youth compact, African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) and several Agricultural Incubators Networks.
Ultimately, the participants will constitute an expanded
network of practitioners of experience capitalization who will assist in
capturing experiences on the implementation of the Technologies for African
Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) within the in-country TAAT commodity
compacts.
We profoundly express our appreciation to all the youth
across the continent who conscientiously responded to our call for entries to
the FARA-YPARD Africa Essay Competition #AgriYouthEngagement. We look forward
to our continued engagement together as we advance the involvement of youth in
Africa’s Agri-food systems.
#AgriYouthEngagement
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