Press release on the First Networking Symposium on Innovations in Agricultural Advisory

First Networking Symposium on Innovations in Agricultural Advisory Services in Sub-Saharan Africa, 11-14 October 2004, Kampala, Uganda

Background:
Transformation of rural livelihoods requires a re-think of agricultural programmes among others, that are intended to deliver specific services. Delivery of agricultural advisory services is one of those public services that has come under immense pressures to effectively respond to the challenges posed by recent trends in the global economy.

Though each country has approached this dilemma in a unique manner relevant to its own concerns, all have in common the need to improve accountability to clients, to put in place a demand- and market-driven service provision system, ensure decentralisation of agricultural advisory service (AAS) delivery and promote increased pluralism and especially participation of the private sector in provision of agricultural extension services. Thus, a wealth of knowledge and innovations has arisen in different countries and it is now important that these experiences and lessons learnt are shared and documented and a mechanism put in place for ensuring that future innovations are captured. There is need for an effective information exchange system and other mechanisms to ensure that future experiences can be exploited.

This will enable countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) obtain and share best practices as basis for future strategy and adoption.

As part of efforts to foster and enhance experience and lesson-sharing on agricultural advisory services (AAS) in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) Secretariat, in collaboration with development partners, is holding a four-day Networking Symposium on Innovations in Agricultural Advisory Services in Sub-Saharan Africa, 11-14 October 2004 in the Hotel Africana, Kampala, Uganda. The Symposium has brought together 130 participants from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Mali, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. From each country, participants have been drawn from the public sector, civil societies, the private sector and farmers.

Symposium objectives
The overall objective of the four-day symposium is to review existing strategies and innovations in the Sub-Saharan Africa in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural advisory service delivery in the region. Specific objectives are to:

1. Share experiences and knowledge on country-specific strategies and innovations to improving effectiveness of AAS delivery in SSA;
2. Identify specific innovations, lessons learned and challenges to improving efficiency of AAS delivery in SSA;
3. Agree on mechanisms for engaging related initiatives in AAS delivery in the region, and globally;
4. Put in place a framework to capture synergies; and,
5. Identify and agree on model(s) on sustainable information sharing for AAS innovations and agree on future strategies.

REMARKS BY THE RT. HON. PRIME MINISTER PROF. APOLLO NSIBAMBI:

On behalf of the Government of Uganda, and on my own behalf, I wish to take this opportunity to welcome all delegates to this symposium.

From the theme of the Conference, "sharing for agricultural development", the idea of a network of agricultural advisory service institutions is very important. Researchers have had well organised networks at national, regional and international levels. Unfortunately, extensionists have lagged behind in this area. This had constrained sharing of information, lessons and experiences gained through implementation of different extension approaches.The wave of structural reforms and institutional reconfigurations in many African countries has led many African Governments to experiment with new, demand-driven and market-led approaches particularly in the provision and delivery of extension services to the rural poor farmers in the agricultural sector.

In the case of Uganda, the National Resistance Movement Government has since 1987, put consistent efforts to eradicate poverty, transform and modernise Uganda's economy through private sector-led investment, rapid industrialisation and export-led growth. The NRM Government has put in place a planning framework called the Poverty Eradication Action Plan - PEAP.

The Government of Uganda is committed to ensuring that reforms in the agricultural sector result in a system that is more responsive to farmer demands and to transform their agriculture from predominantly subsistence to commercial production. A special policy framework, the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) has been put in place to direct Government to ensure that the activities that poor people are involved in are made profitable.

Under the NAADS Programme, poor subsistence farmers are now able to access agricultural knowledge, information and technology. NAADS aims at steadily decreasing the percentage of subsistence farmers from the current 82% to 40% within 25 years, and at the same time increasing commercial farmers from the current less than 5% to at least 20%. The experiences of NAADS in Uganda and similar programmes being implemented in other countries, provide an opportunity for us to start sharing and learning from our successes and challenges. The Symposium will assist by providing lessons that can be utilised by NAADS and other sub-Saharan agricultural advisory service institutions to respond to implementation challenges.

STATEMENT BY MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, ANIMAL INDUSTRY AND FISHERIES (MAAIF), HON. KIBIRIGE-SSEBUNYA:

Across Africa and the rest of the developing world, Governments have embraced and implemented a number of policy reforms over the last two or so decades. In the agricultural sector for instance, Governments have divested themselves on many roles including produce and inputs marketing, direct provision of agricultural subsidies on implements, credit, etc.The institutional arrangements have also changed: in many countries, there are no more government supported cooperatives, no government-owned produce marketing boards, and the extension field staff have tremendously been downsized.

These changes have posed significant challenges to the extended chain of individuals and institutions engaged in agricultural development: farmers, inputs and credit providers, marketing agencies, middlemen, extension workers, universities and research centres, local authorities, ministries of agriculture and finance, government institutions, and NGOs. The new environment now requires that things be done in a fairly different way from the past. This is now the case with extension systems across most countries of Africa. Many of these developments demand for change in mindsets. Lessons and experiences being gained in these new ways of doing business need to be shared.

The research are well organised at all levels for purposes of sharing knowledge and information. In extension/advisory services, things are much different. Information on simple things like for instance the history of the past extension systems in Uganda is hard to get hold of. We have been through different systems such as saturation programmes; Young Farmers development and more recently, T&V and Unified Extension Systems. Lessons and experiences from all these have, not only poorly been captured/documented but also not shared.

In Uganda's decentralised extension services delivery -different districts are implementing NAADS and generating their own lessons and experiences. These need to be documented and shared. Countries in the different regions of Africa are initiating their own homegrown or hybridised approaches. These approaches are also generating lessons and experiences - platforms/networks to share these are needed.

This forum will consider the possibility of putting in place an effective knowledge and information exchange system and other mechanisms to ensure that future experiences can be exploited. This will enable countries in SSA obtain best practices as basis for future strategy development, adoption and replication. This will lead to increased farmer access to information, knowledge and technology for sustainable and profitable agricultural production.

WELCOME REMARKS BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NAADS

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this very important Symposium on Networking on Innovations in Agricultural Advisory Services in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is the first of its kind.

The efficient and effective delivery of agricultural advisory services provides the crucial bridge between knowledge, information and technology development, and their utilisation. Such a bridge is important in the continuing struggle by farm households to leverage out of poverty, and with which nations can achieve agricultural and economic growth and development. The current supply mechanisms for Agricultural Knowledge Information System (AKIS) have not enabled the kind of creative linkages among research, extension, farmers and the market. Neither have they allowed the sharing of lessons and experiences amongst different extension programmes. And this is largely due to the weak institutional frameworks as well as knowledge sharing networks and channels for the supply and demand-side of the AKIS

Extension systems need to develop knowledge sharing and learning networks in order for various actors to avoid costly mistakes that might have been learnt from one country. To achieve this, there are a number of critical mechanisms that must be put in place:
1. Building of knowledge Networks:
2. Learning and Feedback
3. Negotiation and articulation of advisory services
4. Influence global reforms in the extension systems across the world

I would like to thank all those who contributed in various ways to enable this symposium to be held. The following contributed towards this conference: The Government of Uganda and its affiliated agencies, EU, IFAD, IDA, DFID, DANIDA, NARO, Makerere University, JICA, SG2000, Irish Aid, the Netherlands, DANIDA, the Local Organizing Committee and others I cant mention by name.

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