AATF Inaugural Report - African Agricultural Technology Foundation

AATF at a Glance
adapted to meet farmers’ needs and are moved
through national regulatory systems and the
whole product value chain. This ensures that
those who provide the technology are protected
from liabilities stemming from its application
or possible misuse.
What Makes AATF Unique?
The Foundation is the product of wide-ranging
and unprecedented consultations among
African, European and North American
stakeholders who are actively seeking to
improve food security and reduce poverty in
sub-Saharan Africa. AATF is unique in several
ways:
• It provides a much needed “one-stop-shop”
for enabling access to proprietary technologies,
knowledge and know-how;
• It serves as an “honest broker” in negotiating
the royalty-free transfer of technologies
held by public and private institutes in
developed and developing countries;
• It works along the full product value chain,
from basic research, through adaptive research
and development, distribution, production
and marketing; and
• The Foundation uses its unique convening
power to bring together potential partners
from the public and private sectors, and in
so doing serves as a catalyst for innovations,
reforms and the creation of agricultural
markets.
Current Investors
AATF enjoys the financial backing of three key
donors who have been with the Foundation since
its inception:
• The Rockefeller Foundation, a knowledge-based,
global foundation committed to enriching and
sustaining the lives and livelihoods of poor and
excluded people around the world.
• The UK Department for International
Development (DFID), which is responsible for
UK initiatives to promote economic development
and reduce poverty globally.
• The US Agency for International Development
(USAID), which is responsible for providing
and managing US economic and humanitarian
assistance worldwide.
As the scope of the Foundation’s work broadens
and the demand for its interventions grows,
additional financial backers are being sought. For
example, the promise of the Improving Cowpea
Productivity Project has attracted support from
the UK-based Kirkhouse Trust. They are interested
in improving the capacity of the region’s
national agricultural research organisations to
apply marker-assisted selection techniques for
the introgression of the Bt gene into elite cowpea
varieties.
Partners
AATF has numerous partners drawn from
among the following groups of people and
institutions interested in technology transfer
for agricultural development:
• Agricultural producers and consumers;
• Regional and national institutions and
agencies [such as the African Union’s
Commission for Agriculture and Rural
Development, the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the United
Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa
(ECA), the Forum for Agricultural Research
in Africa (FARA), and various sub-regional
organisations and national agricultural
research systems];
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