Drs. Rose Omari, Richard Ampadu-Ameyaw of CSIR-STEPRI and Sylvester Dery, the Director of CSIR-OPRI were in Nairobi, Kenya to attend a two day Annual Research and Planning Meeting from the 7th-9th December, 2016. The main objectives of the meeting were;
- To present and discuss the scientific outputs achieved in 2016
- To outline the PARI work plans for 2017
- To harmonize activities to deliver the project objectives
The discussions mainly centered on as presented in the objectives, exploring the successes of research and innovation initiatives in African agriculture and in consideration of the concept of integrated agricultural research and development (IAR4D), a pet dream of FARA. Through this framework, the year under reviews activities sought to build an independent accompanying research programme that will focus on scaling up of agricultural innovations in Ghana as a way of contributing and transforming agricultural sector. This aims at reducing poverty, ensuring food and nutrition security and ensuring socioeconomic development of rural farming communities. The programme essentially took stock of achievements made so far while noting the challenges and to plan for the following year.
Generally, one can report that the meeting was successful and the good news is that although funding for such research and development activities are dwindling, the sponsoring group, GIZ through the German government in principle has agreed to continue funding country activities in the coming three years. For purposes of harmonization, the countries will be meeting in February, to draw up plans and programs for the year 2017 based on the current plans submitted by the countries.