Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Eden Square
Block 1, 5th Floor
P.O. Box 66773 Westlands 00800
Nairobi, Kenya
Telephone: +254 20 3750 627
ISDN Line: +254 20 3675 000
Fax Line: +254 20 3750 653
Website: http://www.agra-alliance.org
Description
The African-led Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a partnership working across the continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. The Alliance was founded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on September 12, 2006. Its goal is to help farmers double or even triple their yields within 10 to 20 years to generate additional income through sale of their surpluses at profitable prices in local, regional and international markets. Also, most African small-scale farms involve a mix of livestock and crops, and there are opportunities to make these systems more complimentary. Improvements in both crop and livestock operations will give farmers expanded incomes to invest in health, education, housing and other needs. This will help end the hunger and poverty of tens of millions of farmers and their families across Africa.
It strongly endorses the vision laid out in the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), which seeks a 6 percent annual growth in food production by 2015. Alliance programs develop practical solutions to dramatically boost farm productivity and incomes while safeguarding the environment and biodiversity.
To achieve this goal, Alliance initiatives focus on eight interconnected areas: Seeds; Soils; Water; Markets; Agricultural Education; African Farmer Knowledge; Policies; and Monitoring and Evaluation.
The Alliance will have an Advisory Board of Partners committed to working together to meet its goals. The Board provides a means of sharing experiences, identifying opportunities and mobilizing the will and resources to meet common objectives. The Alliance’s staff is based in Nairobi. The Chairman of the Board of the Alliance is former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan of Ghana. Five of the seven Alliance Board members are African leaders and experts.
The Alliance is a young organization actively building partnerships. Through issuing a number of initial grants, it has established partnerships with major African institutions including several Ministries of Agriculture, African plant breeders, soil health experts and leaders of African agriculture extension programs. It hopes to work in close partnership with the Africa Union and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and with other African development institutions (national and regional) to achieve its goals.
The Alliance is an inclusive undertaking that engages African organizations of farmers, agro-dealers, scientists, private sector firms, national leaders and institutions, and the broader civil society. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, which together launched AGRA with a $150 million grant in 2006, are committed to investing more though much more is needed. It is seeking further funding and companion initiatives both within Africa and globally from governments, international organizations, NGOs and other donors who share its goals.
Track Record
The Alliance “Program for Africa’s Seed Systems” (PASS) is funding African-led initiatives that use conventional breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans, rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests.
African agricultural environments are highly diverse with significant differences in local pests, diseases, rainfall patterns, soil properties and the desired attributes demanded by local small farm communities. PASS will fund around 40 national breeding programs a year that will use local participatory crop breeding to address these barriers and provide more robust, higher-yielding crops for small farmers. PASS will invest $43 million with a five-year goal of developing 100 new and improved crop varieties suitable for the ecologically varied agricultural environments in Africa.
Accelerating a new Green Revolution for Africa is a multi-layered challenge. While it starts with improved crop varieties at the most fundamental level, it also requires the development of new generations of trained African agricultural scientists. That is why PASS will invest $20 million to provide graduate level training in African universities for the next generation of African crop breeders and agricultural scientists upon which the seed system depends for growth and productivity.
Another challenge particular to Africa is the lack of a robust market for bringing new products to farmers. PASS hopes to address this by providing training, capital and credit to establish at least 10,000 small agro-dealers who can serve as conduits of seeds, fertilizers, chemicals and knowledge to smallholder farmers to increase their productivity and incomes. This will be a $37 million investment.
Challenges
Africa has the singular and tragic distinction of being the only place in the world where overall food security and livelihoods are deteriorating. Over the last 15 years, the number of Africans living below the poverty line ($1/day) has increased by 50 percent. It is estimated that one-third of the continent’s population suffers from hunger. In the past five years alone, the number of underweight children in Africa has risen by about 12 percent.
In the past 15 years the number of Africans living below the poverty line ($1/day) has increased by 50 percent and per capita food production has declined. In the past five years alone, the number of underweight children in Africa has risen by about 12 percent.
A root cause of this entrenched and deepening poverty is the fact that millions of small-scale farmers—the majority of them women working farms smaller than one hectare—cannot grow enough food to sustain their families, their communities, or their countries.
Opportunities
Funding for African agricultural development has declined over the past two decades, but renewed interest presents an opportunity to overcome current barriers and improve agricultural productivity and small-holder farmer well-being throughout the continent.
