By Dr Fina Opio, Executive Director, ASARECA

1. Opportunities for sub-regional
collaboration
Fina Opio
Executive Director, ASARECA

2. ASARECA (Association for Strengthening Agricultural
Research in Eastern and Central Africa)
An association of 11
Country NARs in the ECA
region

3. Association cont.
It covers 11 countries namely: Burundi, DR.
Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya,
Madagascar, Rwanda, South Sudan Sudan,
Tanzania and Uganda
It was established in 1994

4. The Association cont.
It was noted then that:
 These countries share boarders and have a lot in
common
 The problems and opportunities in most cases cut
across boarders
 Hence a need for collective action to avoid
duplication of effort and resources.
 Leverage on resources where possible

5. ASARECAs Mission
To enhance regional collective action in:
 agricultural research for development,
 extension and
 agricultural training and education
To promote:
 economic growth,
 fight poverty,
 eradicate hunger and
 enhance sustainable use of resources in Eastern and
Central Africa.

6. ASARECAs Mission is Aligned to the MDG and
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development
Programme (CAADP) Goals
This mission highlights ASARECA’s
commitment to the:
• Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty and
hunger by half by 2015 and
• To attain CAADP’s target of regional agricultural
production growth rate at an annual rate of 6% by 2015

7. Core functions of ASARECA
1. Develop a shared vision and sub-regional goals
2. Empowerment of end-users to ensure their meaningful
participation in setting priorities
3. Coordinate collective action at the sub-regional level
4. Contribute to improving networking in the sub-region on
research, extension, agricultural training and education
5. Contribute to the development of appropriate knowledge,
methodologies, information and technologies
6. Facilitate the transfer of knowledge, information and
technology

8. Core functions cont.
6. Mobilize and allocate resources for research, extension,
agricultural training and education through working with
African and International organizations
7. Strengthen capacity for agricultural research for
development, extension, agricultural training and education
8 Facilitate sharing of research outputs and benefits among
national agricultural research systems

9. - Promotion of
economies of
scale
- Identification of
sub-regional public
goods
- Ensuring
Science &
Technology
leads to
Innovations
ASARECA adds value to National Agricultural Research
Systems (NARS) through:
ASARECA secretariat takes a coordinating role

10. Opportunities for collaboration
Identification of regional priorities cutting across
the different countries and
Developing strategies and setting an agenda to
address them through collective action.
Convening the countries to address the regional
problems and sharing responsibilities instead of
duplication – hence leveraging resources.

11. Opportunities cont.
Being able to respond collectively to emergent
problems and threats.
Enhancing and facilitation of harmonization of
policies across the countries to enhance trade
and other barriers to agricultural development
Enhancing of sharing of knowledge, information
technologies and innovations across the sub-
region – (information and Knowledge hub)
Capacity building, mentoring and opportunities
for learning among the different countries.

12. Opportunities cont.
Leveraging strengths of strong NARS to build
capacity of other NARS
The case of EAAPP- using center's of Excellence

13. Effective Partnership Required to Implement CAADP And
Achieve 6% Growth Rate at ECA Regional Level
REGIONAL
LEVEL
SUB-REGIONAL
LEVEL
NATIONAL
LEVEL
AU/NEPAD
Regional compact
CAADP
PILLARS I, II III & IV
COMESA
Sub-Regional Compact
NATIONAL
FOCAL UNIT
National Compact
CAADP
PILLAR IV
FARA
Regional Compact
ASARECA
Regional Compact
NATIONAL
FOCAL UNIT
National Compact

14. Examples of effective collaborative activities
in ASARECA

15. Sustainable Intensification of Sorghum legume systems in ECA
• Uganda
• Kenya
• Tanzania
• Sudan
• Eritrea
• Exchange of
sorghum
germplasm
between countries
facilitated
• Sharing of
information and
data on sorghum
has hastened the
time for release of
new varieties
ICRISAT Scientist Dr. Mary Mgonja and
Eritrean breeder Negusse Abraha examine
the sorghum crop at Serere, Uganda
NACO Mtama ! was released in Tanzania
after 1 season of testing. The variety was
accessed from Kenya
Eritrean farmers at Goluj
have accessed sorghum
germplasm and hybrids
from ICRISAT and partner
countries

16. Outcome of water harvesting on maize and nappier grass
production in drier parts of ECA – the case of Kenya
(Upto 1,600 households pulled out food insecurity & maize
production increased from 0.5t/ha to 3.5 t/h over 3 yrs)

17. Onion productivity enhanced through drip irrigation and
market creation - Madagascar
Off-season
market-oriented
onion productivity
increased by
between 50-70%
over the last 3
years for 600
farmers

18. Enhancing access to quality seed potato in ECA
 ASARECA is upscaling quality seed
potato production innovations in
ECA
 Facilitating the movement of certified
seed between the participating
countries
 Exchange of potato germplasm
enhanced
Potato field planted with quality seed
potato at Ngozi, Burundi
The small seed plot techqnique has
been promoted at Meru, Kenya
Small seed-plot for producing quality
potato seed at Kabale, Uganda

19. Success story of Maize project
 ASARECA and its partners (Kenya,
Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and
Sudan) have introgressed drought
tolerance conferring genes into the
Maize
Sudanese Maize
transformed with NHX1
gene
Glass house care of transfomats
Ms Rasha Adam invented a
drought tolerant gene & named
it ASARECA AnxZm35 gene

20. Thank you