Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Thursday, April 18, 2019

FARA collaborates with YPARD to build capacities of Africa Youth in Agri-preneurship for Technology Adoption


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.

 The top thirty-five (35) among the participants of the FARA-YPARD Africa Essay Competition #AgriYouthEngagement have been selected to participate in the Youth Workshop: Strategic Engagement and Capacity Development of Youth in Agri-preneurship for Technology Adoption.

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


Story also available at: YPARDAfrica


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