Feeding Africa through the TAAT CDTO Program with the youth

It was refreshing and exciting to experience the total involvement of young agricultural professionals of YPARD from ten (10) African countries involved in the inception meeting of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), Capacity Development and Technology Outreach (CDTO) Enabler Compact held at Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) Secretariat in Accra, Ghana from 10th to 12th July 2018.

It was an inception meeting with a wide range of agricultural professionals from research, extension, policy formulation, academia, producers among others from different countries interacting and sharing a relevant experience that will be very helpful for the success of the program. The TAAT CDTO program will use Innovation Platform as the main institutional model to implement the TAAT technology outreach function and will be complemented by holistic capacity development approaches to develop technical, institutional and systemic capacities that are effectively networked to sustainably scale proven technologies to millions of beneficiaries.

Young people were not only represented as attendees but were involved in every process of the planning of country-level activities for the implementation of the program.

The implication of this action by FARA is that the future of Africa’s agriculture is secured if the youth who are the future of the continent take the responsibility, the drive, and action required now in the TAAT CDTO program. With this action by FARA, I can boldly say that we as young people involved in Africa’s agriculture are ready to learn, lead and drive the TAAT CDTO program to Feed Africa.

Within the context of the TAAT CDTO program, YPARD Africa at the country level will be key in the creation of needed data required for the various value chain compacts in the program, facilitate the engagement of youth in the program to generate the needed enterprises to enhance job creation and facilitate cross-border spill-overs of technologies due to its wide network of young professionals located across the region.

YPARD Ghana has therefore positioned itself to rally its members to embrace TAAT CDTO program spearheaded by FARA and its constituent’s bodies (CORAF /WECARD, ASARECA, CCARDESA, NAASRO) and AFAAS with CGIAR and other regional, national and local partners to facilitate technology outreach and scaling through the use of innovation platforms.

Photo credit: FARA