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An article on the subject in Coraf.Echos No. 12 – December 2009

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Georges Subreville
West Africa Regional Office
Dakar, Senegal
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West and Central Africa: CIRAD and WECARD hand in hand

15/01/2010 - Article

CIRAD has just signed a new general cooperation agreement with WECARD. The two organizations currently find themselves in a new international and international context. They will be working together to pursue new research and training strategies in West and Central Africa.

CIRAD and WECARD have long worked together: there have been close links between them since the founding of the Conference of African and French leaders of agricultural research institutes in 1987, which subsequently became the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD). On 12 December last, the two organizations formalized their partnership with the signature of a general cooperation agreement, in Dakar, at CORAF/WECARD HQ.

The alleviation of poverty, food insecurity, the emergence of new diseases, the introduction of new agricultural policies tailored to global change, and climate change are all challenges and issues relating to agriculture that WECARD and CIRAD need to tackle together. They concern West and Central Africa as well as France and Europe.

The prospects for cooperation between the two organizations will centre on these challenges, in the form of research, training and development programmes. The agreement also covers new fields of collaboration, such as facilitating dialogue or raising awareness among policy decision-makers. "This agreement will drive future collaboration between us ", says Gérard Matheron, CIRAD Director General. "I am delighted with the quality of the partnership that CIRAD and CORAFCWECARD have succeeded in building over the years, in the face of substantial change ."

In recent years, WECARD's latest strategies have taken account of those of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union. They have also taken on board the objectives of the agricultural policies adopted by the regional economic communities and the principles of the Framework for African Agricultural Productivity, headed by FARA (Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa).

For CIRAD, Africa is now the main geographical priority. At present, 50% of the organization's researchers working abroad are based in Africa. Africa also accounts for the same proportion of the total number of scientific support or appraisal missions. Each year, in Africa, such missions amount to 6000 man-days, during 600 missions, or the equivalent of 30 full-time posts. Moreover, CIRAD has recently recentred its operations around six priority lines of research and 25 joint research structures, including 16 in Africa (three of them supported by WECARD).

"Our ambitions are guided by a single aim ", Gérard Matheron concludes: "to work together and with others–in the North, in Europe, and in the South–on top-level, targeted research and training operations. We have a duty to boost the capacity, in fields recognized as being of mutual interest, of national agricultural research systems in West and Central Africa and, first and foremost, skills among researchers, with the aim of having a positive impact on agricultural activity and more generally on the lives of rural populations–crop farmers, animal farmers and foresters ."