AFRICA AGRICULTURE STATUS REPORT 2016

een registered over the last decade. Skills in agricultural
and agribusiness development remain a fundamental factor
for increasing productivity, profitability and competitiveness
of Africa’s agriculture (Sarfo et al., 2015).
Section 1 of this chapter presents the current status of
agricultural research systems in SSA at national and
regional levels against a backdrop of key policy changes
and progressive elaboration of agricultural knowledge
frameworks registered in the last decade or so. The
section argues for endogenous mechanisms to encourage
sustainable funding of agricultural research in the region.
Section 2 discusses key trends and some innovative
approaches that are helping bridge the supply and demand
mismatch in AAS. Section 3 discusses progress in the
practice and delivery of agricultural capacity development
in SSA, emphasizing key actions that have been taken
to decrease the gender gap in agricultural research and
extension. The last section of the chapter includes pertinent
conclusions and recommendations to ground possible
policy action.
Agricultural Research Systems
For nearly two decades, reforms in African agricultural
research systems have received deserving attention
from many quarters due to the overall desire to improve
delivery and impact of agricultural research. A good
country perspective to the reform agenda was offered
by Idachaba (1997) in his treatise on the instability of the
Nigerian agricultural research system. According to Chema,
Gilbert and Roseboom (2003), the main reform themes
have involved: redefinition of the role of government,
decentralization, stakeholder participation, new financing
mechanisms, and system linkages. A review by Roseboom
(2004) further considered these principal reform areas, but
also highlighted the underlying organizing principles that
guided the reform agenda.
Subsequently, FARA commissioned an assessment of
the requirements for efficient, effective and productive
agricultural research systems in African countries.
The assessment report (FARA, 2006) gave concrete
recommendations for actions by a variety of stakeholders in
the areas of governance and management, financial status
and management, scientific capacity and management,
and collaboration and linkages. These recommendations
largely provided the basis for the 1st FARA Strategic
Plan and Mid-Term Operational Plan and also yielded
a major regional capacity development initiative that
strengthenedagricultural research management systems,
managerial competencies,and ability to conduct quality
research in national agricultural research institutes (NARIs)
and universities of 10 countries in SSA.
Rather than a diagnostic account of the obtaining reform
dynamics, our aim in this section is merely to present the
status of agricultural research systems in SSA to identify
lessons and characteristics that could be leveraged to
inspire transformative agricultural research for development
(AR4D) in the region. We adopt the European Commission
(2008) definition of AR4D as multi-dimensional research
that addresses agricultural challenges and provides
technological, economic and institutional knowledge and
innovations contributing to sustainable development.
Whereas we do not presume any specific analytical
framework, the section has been tacitly guided by how
changes in the exogenous circumstances (e.g., regional
agricultural policy environment) and the progressive
elaboration of agricultural knowledge frameworks have
influenced institutional developments and funding at
national and regional levels.
Evolution and Configuration of Agricultural Research
Systems in SSA
The evolution of agricultural research systems in the SSA
region has had a chequered history. Taylor (1991) and
Beye (2002) give good accounts of developments in African
agricultural research systems from the post-independent
formative years, through the turbulent era of structural
adjustment programs, and to the form that largely persists in
many countries to date. By the 1990s, agricultural research
in many SSA countries was executed by designated
departments or divisions of the ministries of agriculture.
These had little autonomy and functional linkages locally
(with tertiary agricultural education institutes, extension
services, policy makers, and technology recipients) and
abroad.
A few countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and
Sudan) had, however, managed to confer semi-autonomous
status to the agricultural research function through legally
constituted research councils or institutes with clear
distinctions in regard to mandate, governance structure,
operational domain, planning, and funding. Currently, most
SSA countries have adopted the semi-autonomous model
with a NARI or national agricultural research organization
(NARO) as the main executor of public agricultural research.
Beintema and Stads (2014) classify the SSA NARIs into four
categories: 1) as a research department within a ministry
of agriculture or equivalent (e.g., in Botswana); 2) as a
semi-autonomous government institute with the flexibility to
determine key internal policies (e.g., in Kenya); 3) as multiple
agencies focusing on specific agricultural subsectors (e.g.,
in Sudan); and 4) as numerous institutes organized under a
council (e.g., in Ghana).
Agricultural research is, however, not an enterprise for
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