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ICRISAT's Regional Strategy for Eastern and Southern Africa

Creating opportunities through agricultural innovations

ICRISAT's global research and development mandate is focused on enhancing the livelihoods of the poor in semi-arid farming systems through an integrated genetic and natural resource management strategy. This mandate is pursued through four globally defined research themes: (i) Crop Improvement, (ii) Agro-ecosystem Development, (iii) Biotechnology and (iv) Markets, Policy and Impact. The broad objectives of these Global Themes are translated into research priorities and practical application in our three regions, Asia, West and Central Africa and Eastern and Southern Africa.

This page summarizes ICRISAT's strategy in Eastern and Southern Africa and the development of our four regional programs (not to be confused with the four global themes) through which that strategy is implemented.

ICRISAT's Strategy for Eastern and Southern Africa is founded on three important considerations, namely:

• The need to ensure that regional research priorities are attuned to both those of the sub-regional organizations and of ICRISAT's four Global Themes,
• The need to engage in research for development partnerships where each partner is selected for its complementary skills, and
• The need to have a body of scientists with skills that complement those of our partners and are thus able to address both existing and future challenges facing the region in an holistic manner.

Regional Research Priorities and Programs

In formulating its Regional Research Priorities, ICRISAT considered the following:

• First was the report on Future challenges and opportunities for agricultural R&D in the semi-arid tropics by Ryan and Spencer (2001). Subsequent to this, ICRISAT sponsored a conference on Targeting Agricultural Research for Development in the Semi-arid Tropics of sub-Saharan Africa (Freeman et al., 2002) that offered six broad recommendations that have been considered in developing the regional strategy. The most important of these stressed that the Research-for-Development agenda should be driven by the priorities of African stakeholders and the specific requirements of end-users, ie, farmers, processors and traders. The ICRISAT regional strategy therefore took national, regional and African development strategies into consideration (ICRISAT 2004; ICRISAT's Research Priories in SSA ).
• The second consideration was the extensive dialogue with stakeholders to ensure that its own research priorities for SSA reflected fully the ambitions of the regional (FARA) and sub-regional organizations (ASARECA, SADC-FANR) as these organizations developed their own strategies for their work, based on NARS consultations, in which ICRISAT also participated. Similarly cognizance was also taken of new initiatives by the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the African Union, the Economic Commission for Africa, and the work of the Inter-Academy Council for the UN Secretary General.
• The third consideration was the 2003 ICRISAT External Program Review that recommended, among others, that in sub-Saharan Africa the institute should have an Integrated Genetic and Natural Resource Management (IGNRM) approach to research. Finally, we took into consideration the growing needs in biotechnology which is being championed by NEPAD.