AGRF Side Events

DATE, TIME & VENUE	NAME OF SIDE EVENT	ABSTRACT/SUMMARY	BY INVITATION / OPEN
Wed 26 September 08h00 – 12h45 Meru	Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)	Purpose of the event is multiple: Provide AGRA with a clear constituency among the African private sector and particularly agribusiness SME’s Provide an opportunity to stakeholders, particularly donors, to learn how these businesses contribute to the transformation and modernization of Africa’s agricultural sector Provide the participating businesses an opportunity to learn from each other and to link up with investors Provide AECF management with a platform in which it can account for its results and share its plans.	By Invitation
Wed 26 September 08h00 – 09h30 Ngorongoro (upstairs)	African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) Board Meeting	Board Meeting attended by board members	By Invitation
Wed 26 September 12h30 – 14h00 Ngorongoro (upstairs)	African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) Launch & Reception	AFAP Introductory Launch	By Invitation
Wed 26 September 10h00 – 12h00 Ngorogoro (ground floor)	AGRA Soil Health Program: Scaling integrated soil fertility management: promising options to help smallholder farmers access to input and output markets	Improving the productivity of smallholder agriculture in Africa can be done sustainably through the integration of organic sources or nutrients and fertilizers. There is growing evidence that when this is combined with good extension and advisory services that yields of crops can be increased by manifolds. The challenge is how improve access to input and output markets, and to facilitate linkages to financial institutions that provides affordable credit for farmers. Currently, most financial institutions are not lending to smallholder farmers, or do so at interest rates that is prohibitive. On their part, farmers are often not well organized and skilled enough to engage well with financial institutions as well as input and outputs. To address these challenges, AGRA’s Soil Health Program has been piloting various options in an initiative dubbed ‘going beyond demonstrations’. This was triggered by the fact that demonstrating soil fertility management options alone cannot lead to wide-scale adoption of the technologies available by the target smallholder farmers. Towards this end, AGRA’s grantees and partners in the Soil Health program have been piloting and innovating with different strategies that aim at addressing these challenges and in ways that allow thousands of farmers to benefit. The side event will, therefore, showcase some of the promising projects and their innovations. It will also highlight lessons learnt and areas for improvement going forward. The session will also highlight innovations used by the other projects with similar objectives.	Open
Wed 26 September 11h00 – 12h30 Lamgambo (Room 217, 2nd floor, main building)	CAADP Implementation – building national systems to leverage increased financing to Agriculture	It can be called innovative financing or alternative financing or sustainable financing, what is clear and central is the compelling case to critically examine and identify options that will provide the volumes and character of investment financing necessary to support the levels of growth desired in the agriculture sector/industry. The extent to which such financing modalities relate to sustainable and viable financing systems at the same time linked positively to wealth creation and build-up of local capital base and a vibrant domestic business sector are part of the efforts to determine what financing will propel the levels of agriculture productivity and growth desired. The side-event is set so show-case country and regional level experiences in exploring and efforts to rally increased financing to agriculture and through the CAADP ensuring that this is reflecting and embracing the principles of sustainable financing, building and linked to a vibrant domestic business sector and supportive institutional, regulator and policy environment.	Open
Wed 26 September 09h00 – 12h00 Horombo 2	CAADP Private Sector Initiatives – Coordination Meeting	Several initatives are seeking to promote private sector engagement with CAADP. A working group is proposed to ensure these efforts are coordinated in to a coherant body of activity that is fully aligned to priorities for transforming African agriculture. This side-event is for key representatives to initiate this group and its work.	By Invitation
Fri 28 September 14h00 – 15h15 Lamgambo, Room 217 2nd floor	Creating an EverGreen Agriculture in Africa	EverGreen Agriculture is emerging throughout Africa as a science-based solution to regenerate the land on small-scale farms, and to increase family food production and cash income. It is a form of more intensive farming that integrates trees into crop and livestock production systems at the field, farm, and landscape scales. Millions of women and men farmers in Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and other countries are already practicing EverGreen Agriculture, and the momentum for its spread is accelerating. Seventeen African countries are now either implementing or developing national EverGreen Agriculture scaling-up initiatives, along with India and Sri Lanka in South Asia. National scaling-up programs are currently being launched in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, and a number of other countries, building on the successful scaling-up in Malawi, Zambia, and Niger. IFAD, the World Bank, GEF, FAO, UNEP, UNCCD and other international and regional organizations have endorsed these efforts and are supporting them. This side event will update Forum participants on these developments and foster new public-private partnership opportunities to engage the business sector in supporting this broad-based effort for change.	Open
Fri 28 September 2012 16h15 to 17h00 Lamgambo, Room 217 2nd floor		Real success in agricultural development depends on a deep understanding of the farming systems that are the basis of rural livelihoods, and how household make decisions to change their practices in light of new opportunities. This event will inform Forum participants about a current initiative to develop a comprehensive classification and analysis of African farming systems across the continent that will provide policy makers, agricultural development specialists, and a new generation of young agriculturists with an extraordinary body of work in this area. It will soon be published in the form of a book and a web-based platform containing abundant maps and dataset resources. The outcomes of this work, which is being led by the World Agroforestry Centre, along with IFPRI and many other CGIAR Centres and African partner organizations, will undoubtedly be of deep interest to Forum participants. The side event will feature Ms Melissa Wood, Director of the Australian Food Security Centre, which is funding this effort through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.	Open
Wed, 26 September 09h30 – 12h30 Ngorongoro (ground floor)	International Fertilizer Industry Association Africa (IFA) Forum	The IFA Africa Forum is the Africa regional body of the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA). It provides a platform for IFA members with a long-term interest in the African market to exchange views and ideas with partners to improve fertilizer supply and demand in Africa.	By Invitation
Wed, 26 September 09h00 – 22h00 Mandara	NEPAD Agency ABNE-MSU	Promoting innovation, while safeguarding environmental safety, biodiversity, human health and public interests, is key to the creation of conditions for socio-economic development and improved livelihoods in Africa. The African Union (AU), therefore, brings a strong commitment to harnessing science, technology and innovation for enhancing food and nutritional security, environmental quality, economic growth and sustainable development in Africa with an ultimate goal of lifting millions of people out of poverty. Among the most innovative and emerging tools now available, modern biotechnology applications offer significant opportunities for improving agricultural productivity and thus reducing poverty and hunger. To access these technologies and make the best use of them, African countries need to have in place functional regulatory systems that enable science, technology and innovation on one hand and regulation on the other to advance in a co-evolutionary manner. In line with this objective, majority of African countries have joined the international community to negotiate and adopt the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention of Biological Diversity, as a basis for setting national regulatory frameworks for regulating agricultural biotechnology. In spite of the Protocol’s set objective of providing a common and coordinated approach to regulating agricultural biotechnology, parties to the Protocol variously interpreted provisions in their domestic regulations due to different policy choices. A lag in development of a governance capacity for biotechnology is seen in the current status of the development of National Biosafety Frameworks (NBFs) in Africa. Currently, out of the 55 member states of the African Union, only 18 countries have laws, regulations, guidelines or policies related to modern biotechnology. The shift from national biosafety frameworks to functional biosafety systems requires the evaluation of biosafety needs and the existing.capacity to implement biosafety regulatory processes. The slow progress of building functional regulatory systems in Africa can be attributed to many factors including domestic policy choices and development strategies, scientific knowledge, skills and capacity base, expertise for the biosafety review process, regulatory development, and the political will and commitment to make a decision. In recognition of these factors, the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), in collaboration with Michigan State University, established the African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) as a service network owned by African regulators with a mandate that includes provision of biosafety information resources and biosafety capacity strengthening through training and education, technical support and consultation, networking and partnerships. The ABNE service network is working to empower regulators to make informed decisions on safe development, use, and management of crop biotechnology products. ABNE strongly believes in networking and partnerships to mobilize technical expertise, facilities, and other resources for empowering African regulators and creating an enabling environment for regulating and harnessing new science and technology, especially the products of modern biotechnology that offer great potential for enhancing agricultural productivity and food security. It is within this context that ABNE has joined the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in organizing a side event in Arusha, Tanzania, titled "Agricultural Innovation and the Establishment of Networks towards Building Functional Biotechnology Regulatory Systems in Africa.” This side event will include African Voices for New Science and Technology and a panel of experts who will explain the roles and activities of the ABNE service network, national biosafety programs, and other issues related to regulating agricultural biotechnology in Africa. Panel Members: There will be seven panel members for this side event. The names of the panellists will be announced soon. The second edition of the ABNE biennial Scientists & Regulators Forum is also scheduled for September 26, 2012, in Arusha, Tanzania. This follows the first edition held in April 2010 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The forum will assemble 40 African Biosafety Regulators and Scientists selected from ABNE focus countries. The aim is to provide a platform for regulators and scientists within Africa to share their experiences on emerging challenges and opportunities in biotechnology and biosafety. ABNE strongly believes that such constructive dialogue is key to building functional biosafety systems.	By Invitation
Thurs, 27 September 16h00 – 17h00 Ngorongoro (upstairs)	OCP Group	OCP is proud to play an important role in feeding a growing global population, by providing essential elements for soil fertility and plant growth. As a leader in the phosphate rock and derivatives market, with 90 years of experience, OCP provides a wide range of well-adapted fertilizer products to enhance the soil, increase agricultural yields, and feed a hungry world sustainably and affordably. Headquartered in Casablanca, Morocco, OCP works in close partnership with over 150 customers on 5 continents. In this session, OCP will share : its concrete experiences in Africa; its successful Public/Private cooperation model initiated in Morocco; its expansion and investment projects focused in particular on Africa’s growing needs; Its new products adapted to specific conditions in Africa.	Open
Wed, 26 September 11h00 – 12h00 Horombo 1	Partnership to Cut Hunger & Poverty Board Meeting/Consultation	Briefing and discussion on new 2013 programs and opportunities for strengthening collaboration with other partner organizations.	By Invitation
Thurs, 27 September 07h00 – 08h30 Ngorongoro (upstairs)	Republic of South Sudan Agricultural Transformation	The Republic of South Sudan is prioritizing its agricultural sector which has large opportunities for development. It is launching a cross ministerial agricultural transformation effort with the assistance of its development partners, and would like to share its plans, receive feedback, and learn from the experiences of other countries. The three attending ministers (of Agriculture, Animal Resources, and Water) look forward to your participation.	Open
Wed, 26 September 10h00 – 12h00 Mafia Room, Snow Crest	Role of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Promoting a New Agenda for African Agriculture	AGRA’s leadership realizes that the voices and ideas of civil society organizations must be elevated and incorporated into their work. This is because CSOs represent small farmers and citizens in communities across the continent. They represent a diversity of backgrounds, opinions, beliefs and cultures that must be included in catalyzing a Green Revolution. A vibrant civil society sector is essential to effective outreach, advocacy and knowledge transfer. The CSOs side event will provide a forum for sharing best practices in CSOs engagement in stimulating and promoting agriculture development in Africa. Beyond that, it will also provide an opportunity for discussion and synthesis of ideas about what role CSOs could play in promoting a new agenda for Africa agriculture and forms of partnerships that could be formulated between CSOs and other development stakeholders to exploit synergies in the agricultural development efforts in Africa.	By Invitation
Wed, 26 September 10h00 – 13h00 Maisha Centre	Vital Signs: Integrated Decision Support for SAGCOT	The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) has great potential to improve agricultural productivity and livelihoods for smallholder farmers, and has set important goals for achieving food security. A key challenge for SAGCOT is to increase yields and incomes without damaging the environment and the natural benefits it provides to the local population. Because services like soil fertility and availability of clean water are critical to the well-being of farmers and their crops, agricultural gains will be short-lived if the environment is damaged. The Vital Signs monitoring system was launched in 2012 with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It provides integrated information on agriculture, ecosystem services and human well-being. Using data from a pilot project conducted in partnership with the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, Sokoine University and others, we will demonstrate the use of integrated spatial data and derivative maps as an evidence-based approach for prioritizing policy formulation and investment decisions in the context of SAGCOT. Furthermore, we will present a system for monitoring changes in vital ecosystem services upon which agricultural production and associated livelihoods depend. During this session, a round-table of high-level representatives from government, donor and private sector communities will convene to respond to the Vital Signs model. They will discuss the relevance of Vital Signs as the standard for tracking agricultural sustainability and for managing risk in the context of SAGCOT and initiatives like Grow Africa and the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.	Open
Wed, 26 September 10h00 – 12h00 Mahale 1	Youth in Agriculture	The Side Event on “Youth in Agriculture” will demonstrate different experiences in youth engagement in agriculture and agri-food system enterprise/businesses. The event will feature four case studies followed by a penal discussion during which key issues, constraints and opportunities on engaging youth in the agricultural value chains will be discussed. The four proposed case studies are: The Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) – Tanzania The Harambe Entrepreneurs Alliance – Nigeria Youth in Agriculture Programme (YIAP) – Ghana Kenya Youth Foundation – Kenya AGRF being an action-oriented discussion forum, where new projects, agreements and pathways for scaling up successful interventions will be identified, it is expected that the side event will demonstrate the role of youth and their potential as a valuable resource in the development of agriculture and agribusiness in Africa and that these issues be better reflected at the AGRF discussions and recommendations.	Open

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