News

Within the framework of the West African Food System Resilience Program (PRSA/FSRP), CORAF plans to invest in equipment and capacity building to improve and strengthen national extension services. To achieve this, it is important to equip the sub-region's major agricultural schools and training centers with curricula for training Innovation Platform (IP) facilitators to meet the needs of the job market and provide countries with a critical mass of specialists. With this in mind, on April 3, 2024, Ouagadougou hosted a workshop to review the results of the process of drawing up training programs and curricula, and a plan for facilitating agricultural innovation platforms (IPs) in West and Central Africa. Until April 05, players in agricultural research and development met to discuss the promotion of these platforms.

The meeting focused on the presentation and adoption of training programs and curricula, as well as discussion and advocacy for their adoption by agronomic schools and training centers in the sub-region. The meeting brought together participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Chad and Sierra Leone, including educational managers, teachers, students, company directors, extension agents, Innovation Platform facilitators, farmers' organizations and start-ups. 

According to Ismaïl Moumouni Moussa, professor of agroecology and agricultural consultancy, " the economies of countries in West and Central Africa are fundamentally based on agriculture, and we have many value chains that are still struggling to gain momentum. It is crucial to put in place mechanisms to enable them to emerge. CORAF, through the FSRP financed by the World Bank, felt that it would be important to strengthen the capacity of agricultural training centers to provide agricultural advice, which could help promote agricultural value chains ".

The innovation platforms (IP) are one approach to ensuring sustainable food and nutrition security on the one hand, and supporting smallholders on the other. CORAFworks to promote the use of innovation platforms as a means of developing priority value chains. Since then, over 400 Innovation Platforms have been set up. An innovation platform is defined as a physical and/or virtual framework that brings together the various players in a value chain to cooperate in the development and dissemination of technologies around common objectives. 

In the opinion of Dr Idrissa SEREME, Director General of INERA (Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles), these platforms proved their worth in accelerating the mass adoption of technologies during the implementation of the Programme de Productivité Agricole en Afrique de l'Ouest (PPAAO). "In Burkina Faso, this approach is in vogue. Over the past 15 years, PIs have been reported on the maize value chain in Sissili, PIs on the cowpea value chain in Bam, PIs on the milk value chain in Comoé and Houet, and so on. It therefore seems necessary to continue using this channel for the development of productive, sustainable agriculture that is resilient to the various shocks in West and Central Africa ", he expressed. 

At the closing ceremony, INERA Deputy Director Dr Blaise Ouédraogo thanked participants for their attendance and for the various opportunities for exchange. " I would especially like to thank CORAF, which spares no effort to ensure that agriculture in Africa flourishes and produces good results, through financing and training. I invite all those who have taken part in these three days of activities to do their utmost to ensure that everything that has been decided can come to fruition, and that education on innovation platforms is a success," he concluded.