Providing agricultural policy advice and promoting innovation

Context

The expansion of intra-African trade, especially agricultural trade, can help to meet the increasing global demand for agricultural products and create more jobs in rural regions. Alongside this, innovations that optimise processes are attractive instruments for additionally promoting the agriculture and food industry.

Objective

Selected African countries and country groups shape their agricultural trade policies in a participatory and environmentally sound way, based on scientific findings. New formats that promote innovation for the agriculture and food industry have been developed and are applied.

Approach

The project consists of two components: the Agricultural Policy Advisory Fund (ABF) and the Agricultural Innovation Fund (AIF).

ABF supports African cooperation countries and regions in developing and implementing environmentally sound and scientifically proven agricultural policies and agricultural trade policies. The project advises political decision-makers on agricultural policy issues, especially in Benin, Namibia and the East African Community. On top of this, ABF also provides support in Zambia, for example, with the aim of developing a science-based, gender-sensitive and tested national agricultural investment plan (NAIP 2).

Cooperation with various stakeholders such as farmers’ organisations, the agriculture and food sector, and government agencies additionally contributes to achieving the project goals. One of the partners here is the Andreas Hermes Academy in the Bildungswerk der Deutschen Landwirtschaft.

AIF aims to ensure that innovative solutions for the agriculture and food industry are used successfully and further developed. To this end, it identifies and promotes innovations, for example through competitions, or disseminates them using knowledge platforms such as hybrid trade fair formats or learning platforms (such as atingi).

Last update: July 2022