GCARD2: Briefing paper North-South and South-South Collaborative Actions

DRAFT

Breakout session C1.3 North-South and South-South Collaborative Actions – Speaker
Brief

The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development
(PAEPARD)

Paolo Sarfatti (EFARD/AGRINATURA)

Context – the problems being addressed
Europe has considerable experience and technical expertise in applying Agricultural Research for
Development (ARD) to address development challenges. These are not limited to technical
innovations, but also include the pioneering of new approaches such as innovation systems to improve
research response to farmer demands, capacity strengthening initiatives and knowledge transfer to
developing countries’ institutions and individuals. In addition, Europe is the largest regional donor, as
European countries and the European Commission collectively contribute around 60 percent of official
Oversees Development Assistance (ODA). This includes around €1.2 billion annually to support
agriculture and rural development. Europe is also the largest contributor to publicly funded ARD,
including to the CGIAR.

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the European Forum on Agricultural
Research for Development (EFARD) through The European Alliance on Agricultural Knowledge for
Development (AGRINATURA), joined forces in the implementation of the Platform for African-
European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PAEPARD), established with funding from the
European Union.

Problems addressed by PAEPARD:
1. Insufficient capacities of African agricultural knowledge organisations, at regional and
national levels, on multi-stakeholder partnership for innovation systems;
2. Lack of effective linkages between research, extension and rural development;
3. Insufficient cross-sectoral linkages, between agriculture, environment and social sectors;
4. Agricultural research not enough driven by demand and opportunities, leading to lack of
impact on development;
5. African and European agricultural knowledge organisations do not exploit the potential of
working together for the mutual benefit of the two regions on agricultural innovation for
development.

Current activities presented and discussed in the Session
PAEPARD is a collaborative project between FARA and EFARD (through AGRINATURA), financed
by the EU. Phase I was implemented from 2007 to 2008 and assessed EU-African agricultural research
and/for development (ARD) partnerships and concluded that they were:
1. EU dominated, and;
2. Dominated by research organizations.
Phase 2 started in 2009 and will run until December 2012. A one-year no -cost extension is currently
awaiting approval by the EC. The project seeks to build “enhanced, more equitable, more demand-

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driven and mutually beneficial collaboration of Africa and Europe on ARD with the aim of attaining
the MDGs”. PAEPARD II is led by FARA, co-coordinated by AGRINATURA (through three
members of its network of universities and research organisations, CIRAD, IAO, and NRI), and
implemented in partnership with Pan African Association of Farmer Organizations (PAFO and its
constituent SRFOs: EAFF, ROPPA, PROPAC and SACAU), African University Network
(RUFORUM ), African Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), three of AGRINATURA’s
constituents - CIRAD, IAO and NRI; COLEACP (Import association, EU), European CSO network
(CSA), European Capacity Strengthening Organization(ICRA) and other associate partners in Africa
and Europe.

PAEPARD activities include mobilization of networks in Europe (including support to EFARD) and
Africa, development of communication tools between these, capacity strengthening and partnership
development, and advocacy. Through the different activities the following outputs, outcomes and
impact have been achieved:
1. Consultations among European and African stakeholder networks/groups to create awareness
of opportunities and identify common interests, information needs and capacity-strengthening
needs;
2. Three regional partnership inception workshops involving nine consortia were organized in
Nairobi, Lomé and Pretoria for consortia belonging to the three sub-regions;
3. Information/communication (website, mapping, blog, information disseminated, etc.),
including monitoring and two - monthly overviews of ARD funding opportunities related to
Africa;
4. Two regional write-shops in Entebbe for Central and East Africa and Cotonou for West-
Africa;
5. Nineteen African/European and research/research-user consortia established through open
call, support for partnership and research proposal development, including 11 initiated/led by
organizations representing the research “demand side”. A total of 14 research proposals
submitted to outside funding agencies (African Union, ASARECA, CORAF, and Edulink),
one funded (to date);
6. Five “sub-regional” partnerships established around agreed “federating themes” identified by
African sub-regional farmer organizations (and COLEACP, in one case);
7. A total of 24 “Agricultural Innovation Facilitators” mobilized and financed to support
research partnerships (“consortia”); and,
8. Capacities of partnerships and partnership facilitators improved.

Outcomes
1. Strengthening of EFARD management, development of action plan; mobilization of European
stakeholders;
2. Working relationships/communication between African/European networks and key
constituent organizations (including African sub-regional farmer organizations) established;
3. A total of 24 partnerships established around shared and agreed priority themes mostly
identified by research-user groups (but finance to implement resulting research priorities not
yet achieved).

Impacts/Potential Impacts
 Too early to assess!
Lessons learned
1. There is strong interest among different types of organization to work together and, in many
cases, to contribute some of their own resources.
2. Research funding instruments are not always conducive to balanced partnerships (i.e. research
proposals including or led by “research user” partner organizations)
3. Partnerships funded as projects can be dominated by the project’s lead organization. Balanced

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partnerships – and participation are more likely if each organization has its own resources –
but partnership building will take longer and require “brokerage”/”facilitation” which is
currently largely absent in innovation systems.
4. The role of “neutral” partnership facilitators is generally appreciated by most partners, and
seems to lead to more balanced inputs. But this role is not easily filled, and can be easily
confused with that of “team/project leaders”.
5. Both European and African national research organizations are slow to engage in more in-
depth and broader ARD initiatives in the absence of incentives/rewards systems that offer
immediate and obvious benefits.
6. The time required for, and the costs of communication and establishing mutual understanding
– i.e. planning or “transaction” costs - can be substantially greater than expected at the project
outset.
Intended outcomes
1. European and African agricultural research and development actors are increasingly engaged
in ARD initiatives targeting African-European priorities of mutual interest and benefit;
2. African-European partnerships on agricultural research for development are increasingly
driven by users demand;
3. European and African funding mechanisms support more effectively the integrated research
and non-research actions necessary for development-oriented agricultural innovation
supporting achievement of the MDGs.
Commitments to collective actions in 2012-2014 (national, regional or international)
i. With existing resources
If approval of the one year extension is given, financial resources available until the end of 2013 will
be approximately € 2 million. With these resources the following activities will be carried out:
1. Mobilize European stakeholders, including African Diaspora associations, and African
stakeholders, in the demand-led process;
2. Document and share information and knowledge from the project;
3. Document and monitor knowledge exchange among partners. Such activity is crucial to allow
smooth flow of information and knowledge of available opportunities to submit proposals
developed by various partnerships facilitated by the project;
4. Strengthen and improve the set-up of the PAEPARD e-platform. Updates of information and
communication system will make its access friendlier and will organize continued training on
content management and on platform uses by partners and stakeholders;
5. Involvement of partners in building the capacity of the end users led process, organizing
inception and write-shops for them to respond to calls launched by developing proposals. The
capacity building intervention may also concern some of the 19 current consortia to respond to
a specific call for proposals;
6. Mentoring the existing 19 consortia by revising concept notes and full proposals to fit to
specific calls. At the same time support consortia created through the users-led process until
development of full proposals. Drawing lessons learned and sharing them with all
stakeholders;
7. Develop advocacy materials based on the 19 consortia supported by PAEPARD and case
studies to lobby for the reform of traditional research funding mechanisms. Search for funding
at bilateral level for funding of the full proposals developed by the consortia;
8. Participation at high level meetings of decision-makers and presentation of the innovation
ARD approach for it to be funded.
These activities aim at contributing to the implementation of the GCARD Road Map, in ensuring

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equitable partnership and accountability among all stakeholders of agricultural innovation and
developmental change, experimenting and documenting for out-scaling and generalization new models
and approaches to multi-stakeholder partnership which are effective in terms of results (outcomes and
impact) while keeping transaction costs to the lowest realistic level.

ii. With additional support
Additional support from other funding sources (e.g. bi-lateral, private sector, etc.) is crucial to support
the partnerships/consortia which have been facilitated and supported so far. PAEPARD is monitoring
the calls/opportunity and providing support to consortia to present proposals to on-going calls.

iii. With specific large scale programme investment
The PAEPARD Mid-Term Review (MTR) was launched in January 2012 and was completed in April
2012. The review recommended the formulation of a third phase of PAEPARD, which would
capitalise on the investment in capacity and partnerships in PAEPARD II, but also explore better
matching of research proposals to sources of funding. This phase is envisaged for a 5-year period.

Many lessons have been learned from the PAEPARD experience and these have been included in
considering the need, interest and feasibility of similar platforms in Asia and Latin America. If and
when building up platforms between these regions and Europe, lessons from PAEPARD should be
carefully taken into account for the bi-region collaboration.

Some of the partnerships facilitated by PAEPARD involve two or more countries in Africa and the
benefits of this type of within-region collaboration are potentially high. If the bilateral platforms with
Asia and Latin America are established these should be likely to involve 3-way interactions, especially
in sharing information and lessons.

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GCARD2: Briefing paper North-South and South-South Collaborative Actions

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