Background

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in West Africa and CORAF have collaborated over the past decade on several efforts at both regional and national levels through marshaling the expertise of researchers and policy makers to revitalize a genuine mutual commitment to addressing the challenges of climate change. As a result, the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project supports CORAF in advancing this agenda and providing technical support in terms of foresight in the region.

The AICCRA project contributes to building a future in which African agriculture will be climate-smart and driven by science and innovation. The project is led by Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and supported by a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank. AICCRA endeavors to increase access to climate information services and climate-smart agricultural technologies for millions of smallholder farmers across Africa. Its investments are concentrated in six anchor countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal and Zambia with four components being implemented: (i) knowledge generation and sharing, (ii) building implementation partnerships, (iii) validation of innovations in climate-smart agriculture through pilot projects, and (iv) project management. The sub-regional component of AICCRA in West Africa is implemented through multi-stakeholder partnerships from existing scientific and educational networks and centers. This pooling should make it possible to obtain results that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve with individual partners at the national level.

Component 2 of the project will build the capacity of key regional and national institutions in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the research and development process to anticipate climate impacts and accelerate the identification, prioritization and adoption of the best available adaptation measures.

So, based on the workshop for assessing the needs in strengthening capacities, CORAF and the Bioversity and CIAT Alliance represented by the AICCRA West Africa regional cluster organized from April 12 to 13, 2022 in Saly, Senegal, a training of trainers on the application of foresight analysis in West and Central Africa (WCA). Through this training CORAF aims to provide leadership in foresight strategic planning in the region beyond individual projects, as outlined in its 2018-2027 Strategic Plan. At the end of this training, a Community of Practice (CoP)--expert facilitators--in foresight was established. This community of practice applied foresight analysis in 2022 to develop a roadmap for a regional pest and disease outbreak preparedness and response plan in the region. In addition, the PAIRED and Biorisks projects established in 2021 a community of experts for West and Central Africa on fall armyworm management in the sub-region.

CORAF wishes to capitalize on the existing two communities and the contribution of experts in animal health and integrated pest management to finalize the action plan for pest and disease management in WCA.

Objective

The objective of this workshop is to finalize the WCA pest and disease outbreak preparedness and response plan. Specifically, this will involve:

• Consulting with pest and disease management experts on the draft outbreak and disease preparedness and response plan,
• Finalizing the development of the pest and disease management plan
• Formalizing the existence of the community of practice (CoP) on foresight analysis set up in 2022

At the end of the workshop:

• Pest and disease management experts' opinions and contributions on the draft pest and disease management plan are collected;
• The pest and disease outbreak preparedness and response plan in WCA is finalized;
• The Community of Practice (CoP) established by CORAF and Alliance Bioversity and CIAT is formalized.

Participants

Participants in the workshop will be members of the WCA community of practice in foresight analysis established in 2022, experts in pest and disease management, the consultant, the AICCRA project cluster team in West Africa and technical partners (FAO, AGRHYMET/CILSS, IITA, WASCAL, WAVE, BIMAF, etc.) and the CORAF team.

In the news:

- A segment on Benin's national television ORTB (13:00-15:07)