Policy Environment and Public Participation

Why is this Important?

A supportive and enabling policy environment and public participation that will stimulate innovation, technology uptake and agribusiness is critical if agriculture is to make meaningful difference to the lives of smallholder farmers in Africa.

Agriculture is strategically important for countries in the developing world given its direct link to food security and economic development. Farmers in SSA have shown willingness to adopt innovative technologies especially when they address their farming constraints, increase value and are affordable.

However, new and innovative agricultural technologies with great potential to make a difference to African economies and farmers’ lives are not getting to market as fast as they should and are also not being scaled up across Africa’s agro-ecological zones because of various reasons including less enabling policy, legal and regulatory environment.

Our Contribution

We align with African institutions including the African Union, governments, state and non-state actors to champion for functional policy and regulatory environments, effective institutional arrangements and political support for agricultural innovations that will allow the continent to reap the full value of improved agricultural approaches at the individual and country levels.
We promote dialogue on science, technology and innovation including education and awareness of technologies to build understanding and informed decision making at national, regional and international levels by advancing credible multi-stakeholder engagement with public and private sector agencies.
We strengthen the capacity of institutions and individuals to equip them with the knowledge they need to effectively carry out their work.

An enabling policy and regulatory environment refers to sets of policies, institutions, support services, processes, capacities and other conditions that improve or create a setting where agricultural sector players including enterprises, can start, develop and thrive.

Given our belief that innovative agricultural technologies can positively impact the lives of smallholder farmers in Africa, we proactively address policy and regulatory obstacles to technology access and delivery across the food value chain from research, production, processing through to market linkages.

We mainstream into our projects complementary enabling functions that include intellectual property rights, policy advocacy, regulatory support, technology stewardship, communications and issue management, product deployment and seed systems.

A conducive environment contributes to efficient and effective country and continent-wide economic growth. Countries that create conducive business climates employ sound policies, institutions and services to promote investment, attract capital and engender economic growth.

Current Projects and Special Initiatives

OFAB
The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB), project facilitates the flow of credible biotech information from the scientific community to policy makers and the public through advocacy and communication campaigns. It contributes to constructive conversations among key stakeholders and decision makers such as scientists, policy makers, journalists, civil society, farmers, regulators, investors on the role that biotech can play in enhancing food security and creating wealth. These interactions contribute to Africa’s decision-making on how to progress with biotechnology as part of its developmental agenda and also to addressing misinformation and misconceptions. OFAB is currently being implemented in seven countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia.
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Quality Seed Supply Systems
The project on Supporting African Governments to Implement National Regulatory Reforms Governing Quality Seed Supply t National Regulatory Reforms Governing Quality Seed Supply SystemsSystems Challenges on implementation of policies on seeds in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa is addressing challenges on implementation of policies on seeds in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa to improve the enabling business environment for agriculture and catalyze and sustain an inclusive agricultural transformation. The project is improving understanding of the existing challenges to policy implementation and building commitment of policy makers on the need to invest in unlocking policy implementation challenges for commercialization and availability of key agro-inputs in target countries.
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Enabling Policies for Technology Adoption
The project on Enabling Policies for Technology Adoption aims to increase the percentage of farmers using improved seeds from 30% to at least 60% over the next 8-10 years through creation of a strong seed system, increasing access and availability of quality seeds, harmonization of regional technology release and registration policies and facilitation of competitive value-added chains.
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Biopesticides
Given the importance of food safety and quality, we are facilitating regional consensus building on registration frameworks for biopesticides in selected African countries where control of aflatoxin contamination in food grain has been a national priority. This involves working with stakeholders on development of a ‘Guidance Document’ for registration of bio-pesticides including equipping regulatory laboratories with sampling and testing equipment for aflatoxin control. It also involves capacity strengthening for government ministries and private sector entities on the importance of practical food safety measures, compliance with international trade standards, and their impact on trade especially with the U.S. market and opportunities under AGOA.
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