Could bacteriophages help with managing cholera in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

International audienc

A new paradigm in the delivery of modernizing agricultural technologies across Africa

Published online: 17 Aug 2021This Chapter describes the approach and impacts of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) Program. TAAT is an operational framework based upon collaboration between the African Development Bank, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, and many other partners. This Program is designed to deliver modernizing agricultural technologies as a means of achieving food and nutritional security, and to boost employment and agricultural exports across Africa. TAAT consists of nine Commodity Compacts that have assembled technology toolkits for use in development programs and six specialized Enablers that help them to do so. These commodities are rice, maize, wheat, sorghum, millet, cassava, sweet potato, common beans, fish, and small livestock. The Enablers provide policy support, youth empowerment, capacity development, irrigation and soil fertility expertise, and control of invasive pests. Together these Compacts and Enablers design and conduct collaborative agricultural development projects in partnership with national counterparts. To date, TAAT has staged 88 interventions in 31 African countries, including the incorporation of customized technology toolkits within country loan projects of major development banks. Over three years, these efforts have reached about 10.6 million adopter households and increased food supply by 12 million tons worth over US $763 million, resulting in substantial improvements in smallholder farmer’s food supply (0.75 MT yr.−1) or income ($128 yr.−1). Environmental gains in terms of carbon offset average 0.74 MT CO2e yr.−1 per adopter household, an outcome indicative of positive combined rural development and climate actions. This Chapter describes how these technology toolkits are designed, deployed and evaluated, and how TAAT is becoming a leading mechanism for agricultural innovation delivery across Africa. This evaluation is limited to eight critical field crops and does not consider animal enterprises or the strategic roles of TAAT Enablers, two other important activities within the larger Program

A practical perspective on One CGIAR: lessons from 15 years of CIALCA agricultural research for development consortium work in central Africa

There is a wind of change blowing through the sector of international agricultural research for development (AR4D), mainly as a result of comprehensive reorganisation and transformation of one of its largest players, the CGIAR. In January 2020, Food Policy published a Special Issue providing valuable external and high-level reflections, challenges and recommendations for One CGIAR. One of the papers by Coffman et al. (2020) provided five Challenges and related Recommendations to the One CGIAR