Integrated Agricultural Research for Development: contributing to the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (IAR4D in CAADP)

Agricultural research in Africa has had numerous remarkable successes but the sector has continued to perform badly. This has contributed to falling incomes, increasing food insecurity and continuing degradation of land and water resources. To realise the potential of agriculture to contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) NEPAD has developed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Two major projects are being developed to support CAADP by promoting new concepts for the conduct of agricultural research in Africa and providing the required resources. The Multi Country Agricultural Productivity Programme (MAPP) is intended to underpin CAADP's agenda for reform of agricultural research by providing incentives and means for enhancing the efficiency of agricultural technology generation, transfer and adoption. Its goal is to double annual spending on agricultural technology generation and dissemination in Africa by 2015 from about US$2.3 billion currently to about US$4.5 billion. The Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) will promote Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D). This new approach builds on Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) and Integrated Natural Resource Management INRM) with research on increased productivity and sustainable natural resource management being integrated with research on policies and markets with an emphasis on the interactions between these four factors. The IAR4D approach recognises that, in addition to disciplinary and basic research skills, agricultural scientists and trainers need the ability to put their disciplines into dynamic systems contexts and to integrate the contributions of different disciplines. They also need to be able to develop partnerships and manage change with multiple stake-holders in the agricultural sector and wider society. This will require building and managing interdisciplinary and inter-institutional teams and enabling all stakeholders to participate. The research will be underwritten by facilitation, information and knowledge management and capacity building to ensure that the approaches of IAR4D will be internalised, implemented, and scaled out and up to have national and continental level impact on improving the livelihoods of African smallholders and pastoralists.