The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) is a Non-Profit Intergovernmental Organization created by the National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) of 14 countries: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, and Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Partnerships for leveraging resources
Over the last 25 years, the Governments of the ASARECA Member Countries and Development Partners globally have provided unflinching financial and technical support to the Association to coordinate and facilitate joint AR4D initiatives in the sub-region. In implementing this mandate, ASARECA has mobilized over USD 251 million from various partners and invested it in the NARES to undertake regionally convened and coordinated projects in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA).
Value for money innovations
Through these initiatives, over 435 assorted demand-driven gender-responsiveTechnologies, Innovations and Management Practices (TIMPs) such as improved crop and livestock varieties; integrated soil fertility and water management; agronomic packages; storage; value addition and marketing have been developed and made available for uptake by stakeholders, especially poor rural households. These household experience poor returns from agriculture and face similar challenges including variable climate; declining natural resource base; lack of access to input and output markets; limiting agriculture and trade policies; use of poor quality inputs; and attack by menacing pests and diseases, which often leads to sluggish productivity growth, low per capita income levels and deepened poverty.
As of 2019, ASARECA initiatives helped farmers across member countries through: Reclamation of over 5,000 ha of highly degraded lands and watersheds; dedication of over 1,000 ha of land to seed production and multiplication for production of quality seed for selected crops for further multiplication; establishment of enabling policy environment through coordination and participation in the review of existing policies; provision of over 400 assorted infrastructure and facilities to targeted partner institutions, especially to the least developed NARES; support to over 150 research scientists and students to undertake Masters and Phd. Studies; training of over 60,000 stakeholders in integrated water management, value addition, soil fertility management, value chains, agronomic and management practices among others.
Livelihoods impacts
As a result of the various interventions, over 869,000 rural farming households have benefited from the Technologies Innovations and Management Practices, which have impacting over 57million individuals directly and over 63 million people indirectly.
Going forward, ASARECA has purposed to focus on:
- Commissioning, brokering and managing strategic research partnerships to address identified regional priorities in the most effective, efficient and synergetic ways.
- Nurturing pathways for on-time delivery and scaling up of regional agricultural research results to deliver agricultural outcomes and impact.
- Mobilizing, allocating and managing regional AR4D investments to support generation of regional agricultural research public goods and services.
- Monitoring and evaluating returns on AR4D investment and repackage lessons and best practices to inform decision-making processes and actions.
ASARECA now appeals to the Governments of member countries to continue supporting jointly identified priority projects and operations at the Secretariat. In the same breath, ASARECA urges Development Partners to continue providing their priceless financial and technical support, which has made a difference in the livelihoods of the sub-region.
As always, we pledge to manage, facilitate and backstop actions to ensure value for money from all investments entrusted to us.