The Project
The Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA) is a SADC subsidiary created by the Member States in 2010 to coordinate regional cooperation in agricultural research and development. CCARDESA and its partners comprising of African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) and Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) have secured resources from the European Union under the Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA) initiative to implement a 4-year project in Africa. The Project is financially supported by the European Union (EU) and implemented through the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The project will link research and innovation with development initiatives to boost the transformation of innovation in agriculture and food systems to make them more resilient to climate change and better respond to development demands.
Objectives
The CCADP-XP4’s overall objective is to enable agricultural research and innovation, including extension services, to contribute effectively to food and nutrition security; economic development and climate mitigation in Africa. This will be achieved by improving the capacity, effectiveness and positioning of the regional and sub-regional agriculture research and extension organizations as well as National-Agriculture-Research-Systems, and by promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing among the organizations.
The CAADPXP4 will specifically improve the capacities of CCARDESA to strengthen and support agricultural knowledge and innovation partners at all levels in Southern Africa to transform agriculture and food systems and to influence policy formulation through effective linkages to and use of climate-relevant science, knowledge and innovation.
Key Project Outputs
Output 1: Capacity Strengthening
Strengthen the internal capacities of CCARDESA and its regional and country-level partners.
Output 2: Multi-stakeholder Partnerships for innovation established and in Operation
Promote, facilitate the formation of, and operationalize multi-stakeholder partnerships for innovation that focus on climate change.
Output 3: Policy, cross country market access and improved investment.
Strengthen capacities of regional and national organizations in climate-relevant policy analysis, formulation and advocacy.
Output 4: Knowledge Management
Develop a coordinated framework and infrastructure that makes available climate-relevant Science Technology and Innovation (STI) to support National Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (NAKIS) in learning and sharing opportunities
Output 5: Effective Planning, Coordination, Partnership, Monitoring, Evaluation Learning (MEL) and Reporting
Plan, coordinate and monitor all project activities using an interoperable MEL System as well as ensure that it will visible and creating the impact in the region.
Beneficiaries
The direct beneficiaries of this action are National Agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (NAKIS) in African countries, while the ultimate beneficiaries of the transformation of these agricultural knowledge and innovation systems are the rural poor comprising smallholder farmers, women and youth agri-preneurs and pastoralist, as well as marginalized communities.
Expected outcome
The expected outcome is “improved effectiveness of African knowledge and innovation systems, demand-driven public policies on agricultural research and extension services, and enhanced knowledge sharing and technology development for climate change adaptation and mitigation of agriculture and food systems’’.
Geographic Focus
The project will cover seven countries in Southern Africa namely; Botswana, Eswatini, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The rest of the SADC countries will also benefit as spill-over countries. Some aspects of the project such as information and knowledge management will benefit all the countries.
Project targets and Expectations
CCARDESA anticipates reaching up to 12,000 direct, and 30,000 indirect beneficiaries during the life of its project.
Project lead:
Dr Baitsi Podisi bpodisi@ccardesa.org
