IOFS and RUFORUM Discuss Action Plan for 2023

01 January 1970

The IOFS team met with representatives of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) on 17 February, to discuss the action plan for 2023, which was part of the MoU signed in September 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda.

The parties discussed the challenges Africa faces with agricultural and climatic diversity even within one country and the need to account for that when implementing projects and conducting research, the need to disseminate the capacity of research institutes to farmers, so they use all the advancements and provide feedback, as well as the need to focus on the development of women's participation in agriculture.

RUFORUM Executive Secretary, Prof. Patrick Okori stated that food security is core to the organization's agenda, and their plans coincide very well with IOFS’s vision, while H.E. Director General of IOFS Yerlan Baidaulet expressed hopefulness that the bilateral cooperation will be fruitful.

RUFORUM, as a consortium of African universities, will work with IOFS on projects aimed at education in the field of food security governance, which will include three-day Caravan Trainings at five Cameroonian Universities and six fellowships provided to practitioners of food security governance in African universities. Other activities include various trainings and conferences on animal genetic resources, cassava production and rice development.

The parties also plan to hold the International Conference for Advancing Afro-Arab Coordination on Food Security Research and Studies in cooperation with the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA).