African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Prof. August Temu, Executive Director
African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE)
P.O Box 30677-00100, GPO, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 20 7224197 / 7224000
Fax: +254 20 7224001
Email: anafe.sec@cgiar.org / a.temu@cgiar.org
Website: http://www.anafeafrica.org
Rita Mulinge, Secretary, r.mulinge@cgiar.org
Regional Agricultural Forums for Training (RAFT)
Dr. Sidiki Gabriel Dembele, Chair
RAFT Sahel
Institut Polytechnique Rural de Katibougou (IPR)
B.P. 6 Kouliokoro Mali
Tel: 223 262012/226 25 59
Fax: sidikigabriel@hotmail.com
Prof. S.A. Abdulrazak, Chair
RAFT East and Central Africa
Egerton University Faculty of Agriculture
P.O. Box 536 Njoro
Tel: 254 51 62530
Fax: 254 51 62442
Mobile: 0733 934221
Email: sabdulrazak@yahoo.com or dvc@wananchi.com
Prof. John Saka, Chair
RAFT Southern Africa
University of Malawi
Chancellor, College Faculty of Science
P.O. Box 280 Zomba
Tel: 265 01 524222
Fax: 265 01 524046
Email: jsaka@chanco.unima.mw
Dr. Marie Louis Avana, Chair
RAFT Africa Humid Tropics
University of Dschang
Faculte d’Agronomique et des Sciences Agricoles
B.P. 222 Dschang
Tel: 237 451566
Fax: 233 451436
Email: avanati@yahoo.fr
Description
ANAFE is a network of African colleges and universities teaching agriculture and natural resource sciences. It emerged from a series of educational workshops supported by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in the 1990s and was launched in 1993 by 17 universities and 12 technical colleges teaching land use and disciplines in sub-Saharan Africa, with a mandate to:
- To facilitate/guide the transformation of land use education programs as well as the teaching and learning processes into more integrative and effective approaches for solving real development problems;
- To strengthen the capacity of institutions of learning in land use sciences and technology in Africa and develop mechanisms that enhance and sustain collaboration among them and with other stakeholders;
- To enhance the understanding and application of working principles and practices that promote synergy among experts in all branches of land use and facilitate better reach to stakeholders; and
- To put in place effective mechanisms for participatory monitoring and evaluation of Africa’s agricultural capacity and to develop and implement responsive strategies.
To deliver the aforementioned objectives, ANAFE institutionalizes integrated education programs in Agriculture, Agroforestry, Forestry, Environment and Natural Resources at African colleges and universities. This enables the member institutions to produce graduates capable of developing, disseminating and implementing agricultural practices suitable for African farmers and solving natural resource management problems in a holistic manner for human development and for conserving the environment. ANAFE has asserted its role in the society as:
- To strengthen the content and delivery of tertiary education in Agroforestry, Agriculture and Natural Resource sciences;
- To establish and nurture linkages among education, research and extension to maintain the relevance of education programs;
- To build a culture of sharing information and expertise among educational and training institutions in Africa and promote links with global partners.
To achieve synergy and help contextualize learning, ANAFE collaborates with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). Under this arrangement, a new strategic program, dubbed BASIC (Building Africa’s Scientific and Institutional Capacity in agriculture and natural resources education) has been developed to address weaknesses in agricultural education programs and link education with research and development. In 1999, ANAFE adopted a regional structure, effectively decentralizing network decision-making, implementation, monitoring and control. This also enhanced grassroots ownership and management, sustainability, flexibility, and efficiency of the network. The four regional chapters known as RAFTS (Regional Agricultural Forum for Training) focus on Eastern and Central Africa (ECA-RAFT), Southern Africa (SA-RAFT), the Sahelian countries (Sahel RAFT) and the Africa Humid Tropics (AHT-RAFT). These regional frameworks report directly to the Board. The Executive Secretaries of these regional networks are also members of the Board. The regions are fully represented in decision-making of ANAFE. The Board in turn reports to the General Meeting. There are 23 national chapters, which form the National Agricultural Forum for Training (NAFT) managed and designed according to national needs. They report to RAFT.
Members of ANAFE are colleges and universities in Africa offering education programs in agroforestry, agriculture, forestry, natural resource management and environment, including related topics in social sciences. ANAFE has 124 member colleges and universities in 34 African countries. It is among the largest working networks of educational institutions in Africa. Colleges and Universities outside Africa may apply for Associate membership.
Beyond the networks, ANAFE also collaborates with ICRAF’s regional programs to link research with education and training. It also collaborates with several regional and development organizations on education, training and research and provides human resources to form a pool of trainers. These include the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), the Southern African Center for Cooperation in Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Training (SACCAR) and the West African Council for Agriculture, Research and Development (CORAF).
Track Record
The organization has supported thesis research, staff exchange and attachments in their own research sites throughout the regions. The program enables African students and their university professors to tap into the experiences of scientists at CGIAR centers through a joint research supervision arrangement. The award of thesis research fellowship is highly competitive and gender sensitive. The average, women participation equaled men incrementally for the 2003-2006 season. (Figure 1 Thesis research awards by gender, 2003-2006 given by Prof. August Temu, Executive Director- ANAFE)
This award has been exercised by tertiary institutions in a number of African countries such as Cameroon, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This shows that the organization covers most pat of the African continent.
Another milestone is the successful review of its curricula. The organization adopted the DACUM (Developing A Curriculum) process, which is a highly integrative and participatory approach for reviewing or developing curricula. ANAFE has developed curriculum guides showing how various stakeholders including farmers, students, industry, researchers, educators, policy makers and investors can participate in both the review and delivery of education programs. The guide was applied 78 times to review curricula for different disciplines by universities in both first degree and post graduate studies and by colleges in diploma and certificates.
In addition, ANAFE has been successful in establishing demonstration facilities. The concept of multi-disciplinarity is difficult to grasp for some educators and institutions. To facilitate experiential learning, ANAFE provided technical and financial support to teaching institutions to develop intra- and extra-mural demonstration facilities combining aspects of production, processing and marketing. The facilities provided opportunities for trainers and students to exercise their knowledge and skills. Altogether, ANAFE supported the development and/or improvement of 31 demonstration facilities four of which have been developed into Farmers Learning Resource Centres (FLRC) in Cameroon, Malawi, Mali and Kenya. The FLRCs are located within the farming community so that farmers can easily interface with educators, researchers, students and extension agents to discuss specific farming technologies. Some of them produce products that are sold (e.g. honey, juices). From this experience, more education institutions are keen to develop FLRCs as a way of linking education to practice.
Other than giving a thesis research fellowship, ANAFE has also generally supported graduate studies. To increase the pool of experts with integrative skills in agriculture and natural resource management, ANAFE introduced a postgraduate fellowship program. Under the program, 27 universities have been assisted to diversify the content of their postgraduate curricula, specifically to accommodate other disciplines. In addition, ANAFE has awarded more than 300 postgraduate fellowships (of which about 40 percent were to females). Specific efforts are being made to increase the proportion of women to 50 percent against a background of only 12–15 percent female graduates in the agricultural sub-sectors. ANAFE supports graduate studies by building the capacity of lecturers in tertiary institutions. To meet the challenge of providing integrative educational materials, research reports and publications are collated and shared with member institutions. In addition, lecturers can apply for resources and sabbaticals to specifically develop teaching materials on specific topics. So far, over 200 lecturers from universities, colleges and vocational institutes have attended short courses organized by ANAFE.
Moreover, ANAFE has formed a working network through facilitating regular meetings, communication, information sharing and exchange of expertise among persons and institutions straddling all aspects of agriculture, forestry, environment and social sciences. A biennial newsletter Agroforestry Education News provides peer information and motivates improvement of the teaching and learning environment. The exchange of faculty across colleges and universities is an example of South-South collaboration making better use of available expertise. To reinforce networking, various monographs on education networking, curricula and teaching manuals have been produced and are widely used by network members and others.
Challenges
Regardless of the milestones achieved by ANAFE, the organization faces a number of challenges. One is the lack of education policy improvements in the countries it works. African countries are conservative in their policy formulation and hesitant to embrace innovations in the education system as well as specific curriculum changes.
ANAFE works hand in hand particularly with tertiary institutions. Although member institutions of ANAFE have responded strongly to the need for curricula reform, there is still much to do, since the science of agroforestry is developing rapidly. For example, the emerging broad landscape view of agroforestry is still not widely covered. It is necessary to incorporate such knowledge into education programs and develop methods for field-based learning with farmers. In addition, there is still a lack of policy-level recognition of agroforestry as a field of study and career path. It is generally felt that there is need for agroforestry competence but a shortage of specific agroforestry jobs.
The research system generally shows weak links with education and extension. This is because research and extension in most countries are handled by separate institutions which may or may not collaborate; the research agenda is too narrow (i.e. not systems-oriented) and farmers do not participate sufficiently in identification, conduct or feedback on results of research. In addition, policy makers are often not sufficiently involved in the development process at a local level.
ANAFE has established a network of 123 member colleges and universities in 34 African countries and is organized into four regional sub-networks, some of which include national sub-networks. Two challenges have emerged. One, the organization needs to address the challenge of growing demand for participation and membership in the networks. The establishment of new, more decentralized sub-networks brings issues of sustaining leadership and communication at the regional level. Regional meetings are expensive to organize and mobilizing resources to support the growing networks is a challenge. It is easier to find resources for specific activities, such as training and teaching material development, than for network management. Further, as demand grows it will be difficult to develop and distribute sufficient academic materials to meet the growing need, particularly where countries use local languages of instruction. Secondly, there is need to strengthen the regional networks to the level of the central organ both in capacity and financial strength.
Despite having a stable funding base, ANAFE’s financial support from donors is short range because its projects have short cycles. Further, ANAFE currently works with tertiary institutions only. A key challenge is for it to link its theme to the education chain beginning from primary schools all through to the university rather than its concentration at the university/college level only.
Opportunities
The organization is subdivided into 4 African Regions, that is, Eastern and Central Africa (ECA-RAFT), Southern Africa (SA RAFT), Sahel RAFT and the Africa Humid Tropics (AHT RAFT). There are 23 national chapters called the National Agricultural Forum for Training (NAFT) managed and designed according to national needs. This arrangement presents lots of opportunities for collaboration.
ANAFE, given its networks, is very well placed to address weakness in the education system for natural resources management and capture opportunities for educational change. The networks have brought individuals and institutions into long-term partnerships. They have come to know each other, opening opportunities for partnerships beyond agroforestry.
The network approach can be applied in a broader context. ANAFE is not strictly about agroforestry but natural resources management, integrated beyond forestry and agriculture. There is a change of attitude among educators to put education into context in rural development. Experiential learning methods and tools are emerging and the teaching and learning environment changing to include farmers’ participation. Agroforestry programs can thus serve as vehicles for broader rural development.
While the networks in some cases are being institutionalized (i.e., their programs are becoming part and parcel of the institutions’ regular work), implementation of many good ideas is dependent on resource mobilization activities that attract donors. Better funding will ensure the networks play an important role in reducing poverty and environmental conservation.
