AU SAFGRAD attended the 4th KAFACI General Assembly in Dakar, Senegal
At the invitation of the Korean Embassy in Addis Ababa, through the Partnership Management Division, AU-SAFGRAD represented AUC at the 4th Korea-Africa Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (KAFACI) which was held at the King Fadh Hotel, Dakar, Senegal July 10-13, 2017. Dr Mure AGBONLAHOR, Production and Marketing Officer & Mr Mamoudou KOUTOU, Programme Officer represented AU SAFGRAD at this important gathering.
KAFACI is an African-focused food and agriculture development platform under the Rural Development Administration (RDA) of the republic of South Korea. It was officially inaugurated in Seoul, South Korea, in 2010 with government representatives from 17 Africa Member States. As at 2017, the membership has grown to 21 countries with Tanzania as the most recent member. The objective of KAFACI is to promote sustainable agricultural development through technology cooperation in the agro-food sector. KAFACI projects are national projects that cut across the entire commodity (arable and horticultural crops as well as poultry) value chains including breeding, training, mechanization and input support, on-farm technology applications, value addition and post-harvest loss reduction. KAFACI project uses country-level focal persons from the public agricultural sector with national consultants.
The 4th KAFACI Assembly was organized to:
1. Present KAFACI country outstanding projects and relate implementation constraints to success factors in other to promote knowledge sharing.
2. Share agricultural R&D structure and strategies in MS and relate to the Korean structure
3. Report of KAFACI 2016-2025 strategy and presentation of the work plan
4. Interact with Partners’ organizations and suggestions on possible areas of cooperation
The 4-day meeting was marked with presentations of projects and success stories from the 20 MS, the General Assembly meeting and a ceremony to commemorate the official handing-over of a Rice breeding Laboratory donated by RDA of Korea to AfricaRice Center in St Louis, Senegal.
During the Partners meeting, day-one, AU-SAFGARD made a brief presentation on AU’ continental flagship programmes for agricultural transformation for promoting shared prosperity in the Continent.
