The European (EFARD) and African (FARA) fora for agricultural research for development (ARD), are building a platform of partnership on ARD. The purpose is to facilitate knowledge exchange for stronger partnership between the two continents, as an example of inter-regional partnership. The first transcontinental consultation was organized during the FARA general assembly. The purpose was to provide opportunity of interaction among the African and European stakeholder in order i) to identify the major past and current limitations, constraints and bottlenecks that are responsible for the weaknesses in the partnership between both continents, ii) to look at priorities, opportunities and mechanisms that could be relevant for enhancing the partnership.

The consultation meeting helped define mechanisms and tools on how PAEPARD could operate as an efficient platform for building-up bridges between the two continents. Discussions were triggered from experiences given by the African subregional research organizations (ASARECA, CORAF, and SADC-FANR) on handling European Commission competitive funding mechanisms. Their experiences showed that for Africa to respond to different funding opportunities from Europe, such as from the European Commission, still requires to strengthen its capacity to write proposals, project management, financial institutional capacity, as well as clear understanding of the complex proposal and implementation requirements from donors. Once funding are awarded to African institutions such as CORAF and ASARECA, their implementation has to be consistent with EC administrative and financial requirements, which can be very complex to hinder effectiveness and efficiency of the project implementation. FARA and EFARD were advised to work with the EC and AU on how to solve this issue. Partnerships should be built on the principles of subsidiarity. Clear roles and responsibilities of partners are crucial for a partnership to be successful.

The group was encouraged to open partnership with the African universities, represented by RUFORUM as well as the civil societies, especially the private sector.

PAEPARD as a European Commission project, will first focus on improving the African participation in EC and its member states funding opportunities such as its FP7 program or EDF10 and Food Security Thematic Program.

What will be the PAEPARD focus?
PAEPARD will assist the regional and subregional organizations as well as national partners in achieving their objectives. PAEPARD will add value to existing initiatives within the region led by FARA, SROs, RUFORUM in partnership with EFARD members such as ECART and NATURA. It will be an interface, a facilitator and catalyst for Europe-Africa cross-actions that promote equal partnership between EU and African ARD Stakeholders on African and global issues. It will facilitate increased awareness of opportunities for collaboration in ARD as well as better understanding of funding mechanisms and procedures.
Within the year that PAEPARD is being built, it will be developed to be a platform owned by all stakeholders including the CSO. PAEPARD business plan will show clear indicators, clear concept of sustainability and strategy to reach out to national partners. Partnerships built will be based on principles of subsidiarity and shared understanding of roles and responsibilities of each partners or members.

If you are interested to join PAEPARD, please don’t hesitate to contact the project coordinator; mjones@fara-africa.org or the facilitation unit team: mwopereispura@fara-africa.org and jacky.ganry@cirad.org.