Background

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is working in close collaboration with the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) as regional partners in the AICCRA project. 

Their focus under the AICCRA project is on mobilizing African universities, creating awareness and enhancing the use of CSA and CIS knowledge and products developed by the CGIAR Centers and other research institutions engaged in CSA and CIS. Enhancing the use of CSA and CIS involves capacity, knowledge and technology audits at the national and institutional level, mobilize CGIAR and other research centers to provide CSA and CIS knowledge, technology and skills and training of faculty to deploy the CSA and CIS products in training, research and outreach. 

Knowledge transfer and capacity building activities form the central part of RUFORUM’s and WASCAL’s participation in the AICCRA project. 

After conducting scoping studies to identify gaps in CSA and CIS in Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, RUFORUM and WASCAL have developed training modules targeting priority CIS/CSA areas. 

Specifically, WASCAL led the development of the following modules:

• Soil - carbon sequestration – crop production
• Disaster risk management in crop production livestock and aquaculture (drought, flood, migration like to climate effect other disasters)
• Renewable energy - water resources and agriculture nexus under climate change (green solution for agriculture)
• Pests and diseases of crop and management  

During the additional financing phase of AICCRA, the focus is now on mainstreaming use of the curricula in African higher education system. 

This phase will also support the independent Global Stocktake (iGST) process through WASCAL competence center in Ouagadougou and strengthen the capacity of West Africa's civil society organisations for climate actions.

About the event

The overall objective of this event is to create awareness of training curricula developed with support from the AICCRA project among university leaders, lecturers and students with a view of integrating the developed CSA and CIS curricular in the training programmes of universities and strengthening regional collaboration.

During the meeting, presentations will showcase RUFORUM-WASCAL achievements as well as the iGST process. University vice chancellors, lecturers and students will share their experiences and recommendations for the uptake and use of the training materials.

Participants

Participants in this meeting include representatives from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, WASCAL, RUFORUM, university vice-chancellors and lecturers.