Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Dr. Monty P. Jones
Executive Director
Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
No. 2 Gowa Close, Roman Ridge
PMB CT 173 Cantonments, Accra, Ghana
Tel: +233 21 772823 / 779421
Fax: +233 21 773676
Email: Mjones@fara-africa.org
Website: http://www.fara-africa.org
Description
FARA was created in 1997 during the 17th Plenary Session of the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR) by three sub-regional organizations namely; Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), and Southern African Centre for Cooperation in Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Training (SACCAR). It is formally registered in the UK and the USA as a charitable organization with a signed MoU with the Government of Ghana giving it an international organization status.
The vision of FARA is for African agriculture to become vibrant and competitive in the international market. Its mission is to create broad-based improvements in agricultural productivity, competitiveness and markets by supporting the sub-regional organizations (SROs) in strengthening Africa’s capacity for agricultural innovation. FARA’s overarching goal is to establish sustainable high broad-based agricultural growth in Africa, and specifically to attain sustainable improvements to broad-based agricultural productivity, competitiveness and markets.
At inception, FARA was viewed as an organization that would play a facilitative and information exchange role among the sub-regional organizations (SROs). Additionally it would be an umbrella organization that would bring together major stakeholders in African Agriculture Research and Development. Given this position and expectations placed upon it, it has over the past few years strengthened its relationship with most North African Countries through AARINENA to enable it become a representative organization for the entire 53 African countries.
FARA has been able to work with a wide range of partners who have included CIDA-Canada; USAID; Governments of Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, DFID, Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation. It has also collaborated with other organizations with unique technical competences in implementing its objectives. These include: National Agricultural Research Stations (NARS), CAADP, NEPAD, DONATA, ABBI, SCARDA, BASIC, ASARECA, CORAF/WECARD, SACCAR, SPAR, and ARRINENA. Currently, its annual budget is US$5 million.
Track Record
Having been granted the mandate of functioning as a technical arm of the African Union on rural economy and agricultural development, FARA coordinates and facilitates the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) pillar number IV which involves agricultural research, technology dissemination and uptake. Through this, it advances the African vision in agricultural research that seeks to achieve an annual average rate of growth in agricultural production of at least 6 percent by 2015, a fit that would ensure the African Union attains its objective of alleviating poverty, enhancing food security and enabling sustainable economic development. In advocacy, it has marked great milestones through its Framework for African Agricultural Activity program (FAAP), which has emerged as both an advocacy and organizational tool for African Agricultural stakeholders to direct resources and activities in research, information, and technology transfer. The program has also created greater consistency and harmony among implementers and investors in the Comprehensive Agricultural Development (CAADP) pillar.
Regarding innovations and capacity building, FARA has been able to build partnership with SSA CP to validate and upscale the innovation systems approach, IAR4D, involving all actors in the value chain. Noting the importance of utilising new and appropriate agro-technologies, through FARA’s efforts, ABBI is to develop policies on new technologies such as biotechnology and IPR of African resources and /or innovations.
In view of the fact that one of FARA’s major thrust is to achieve AU’s 2015 vision on agricultural sufficiency and poverty reduction, acceleration of information and knowledge exchange is critical. To this end, FARA has partnered with DONATA in order to identify proven research-based and farmer-derived technologies, and RAILS task is to improve information and learning exchange among stakeholders.
Notwithstanding the above achievements, FARA being the technical arm of AU/NEPAD recognises the importance of Civil Society participation in the promotion of Agricultural Research and Development (ARD) in Africa. So far, in partnership with CSOs, FARA is involved in promoting science and technology aspects of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Africa, as well as livestock development in response to major client demands as highlighted in the CAADP companion document.
Challenges
As mentioned above, FARA plays a more coordinative and facilitative role than implementation of agriculture related technologies. In its quest therefore, it relies on National Agricultural Research Stations (NARS) and other SROs. FARA has nevertheless faced obstacles in this approach since many countries lack strong and effective National Agricultural Research Stations (NARS). Besides, the existing thematic SROs are weak and more often struggle to attain their research goals. The import of this is the delayed achievement of one of its goals: The attainment of food sufficiency and poverty reduction in rural Africa.
As stated in the track record above, FARA has the designated role of coordinating and facilitating the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) pillar number IV. However, the challenge of attaining it still remains a mirage given the delicate balances to be made especially in satisfying the requirements of the private sector players most of whom have invested heavily in agricultural technological research.
Furthermore, due to such stakeholder demands that are likely to traverse several agricultural sectors, there is a risk of FARA losing focus on areas aligned to its priorities. One such inherent danger is for it to fall into the temptation of taking on research functions instead of coordination. Additionally, coordination alone without instruments of enforcement and attendant abilities may, with time, unfortunately make FARA just another ‘white elephant’.
From time immemorial African cultures are awash with traditional agro-production technologies that have survived many generations through which they ensured food sufficiency. The emerging population challenges and shrinking farm sizes do of course demand a change in approach to agricultural production. However, the fear is that such intrinsic technologies might be trampled by the drive to increase food output by 2015.
Though relatively new on the African agricultural research stage, a number of investors recognize the importance of FARA as the leading agency for African ARD. This is evidenced by the strong support of FARA donor group on all its programs. The London FARA donors meeting where they agreed to evaluate FARA’s capacity to take this role and its long-term sustainability was a classic example. For instance, it commissioned its Secretariat with an operating fund of US$250,000 per year, yet currently its annual budget and expenditures are in excess of US$5 million of which 80 percent goes to SROs and NARS. This is an indication of effective resource mobilization and efficient program development. It must be noted that Africa’s economies are largely dependent on agriculture. Effective coordination and strengthening of SROs and NARS will without doubt require far much more than FARA’s current budget and schedule of donors.
Regarding its programmatic themes, FARA has so far solely focused on advocacy, promotion of functional partnerships and accelerating sharing and exchange of information and knowledge. However, there have been increasing demands from major stakeholders and external reviews recommendations for FARA to address issues constraining the dissemination of new technologies, as well as responding to the biotechnology consultation report that advocated for promoting common continent-wide biotechnology and biosafety policies. There have been demands for FARA to pay more attention to policy and market issues as well.
Being a forum for African Agricultural Research and development, this provides a platform for establishing strategic and effective partnerships amongst stakeholders in African AR&D and further facilitate FARA, SRO and NARS linkages with European, North American and Asian institutions and agencies. These are important linkages which also present challenges in form of interests that may negatively affect African agricultural production. Further cooperation will require FARA to closely re-assess and choose its partners with the continent’s interests being central.
Opportunities
Although the challenges are immense, the organization has a number of opportunities. Through FARA’s work, strengths and weaknesses in the scientific capacity of NARS have been identified. Most of the weaknesses if not all are related to the diminishing and unreliable funding from national governments. Based on the recommendations from a study commissioned by FARA, the SCARDA program was designed to bring about desired change in NARS and SROs. Bilateral and multilateral donor interests could help strengthen these NARS and SROs by directly partnering with them in a very precise manner.
Moreover, Institutional strengthening of the largely functional NARS and SROs is an important prerequisite for the effective functioning of FARA, which is well positioned by mandate and the FAAP to assist African development partners (donors included) to direct their increased investment in African agricultural research and development to get value for money.
