Background
The 4th AFAASAEW will be held in Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) back to back with the continental Agricultural and Animal Resources Fair (SARA) under the theme “Private Sector and Agricultural Advisory Services: What Synergies for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Africa”. The context of the 4th AEW is characterized by growing efforts at national, regional and international levels to make agriculture in Africa more productive, profitable and sustainable. This transformation expected to lead to increased technical, economic and environmental performances of agricultural value chains entails a paradigm and operational shift from farming for subsistence to farming for business i.e. sustainable wealth creation and sustainable development. Agricultural Extension and Advisory services and Private sector amongst other actors have a key role to play for the achievement of this transformation.
The potential added-value and mutual benefits of enhanced synergies between Private sector and AEAS are huge, and necessary for achieving sustainable agricultural development. However, in most places in Africa, the collaboration between AEAS and private sector is still weak, erratic and informal more often, occurring generally in the frameworks of projects. The 4th AEW intends to contribute to filling this gap and explore efficient strategies and modalities for fostering and harnessing synergies between AEAS and private sector in the framework of agricultural transformation.
Terms of participation.
Participants of AFAAS Extension Week include: AEAS providers from public (Ministry of Agriculture officials especially Directors of Extension from AFAAS member and non-member countries), Farmer based organisations, farmers, fishermen/folks, Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs)as well as institutions and programmes actively involved in Agricultural and Rural Development. Private sectors3 (e.g. Telecommunications companies, agro-processors etc.)
The African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) is inviting individuals and organizations to prepare proposals or abstracts of papers or posters on topics related to the central theme of the conference or any of the below related sub-themes:
- Addressing new demands for AEAS, ensuring fruitful private sector – farmers synergies for post-harvest management and value addition of agricultural products;
- Professionalizing AEAS for successful rural youth and women agripreneurship;
- Strengthening Private sector and AEAS collaborations for the development of smart farming;
- Improving efficiency of social investments in rural sector through enhanced involvement of AEAS;
- Building efficient and sustainable frameworks for partnerships between Private sector and AEAS.
All proposals will be peer reviewed and for this purpose the following is required: (If your proposal does not comply to this, it will not be accepted.)
A summary of a minimum of 200 words, with clear reference to (a) Introduction (b) Purpose of the paper (c) Methods or data sources, (or reasoning used in theoretical/philosophical papers) (d) Results, (e) Conclusions and extension implications.
Separate title page with name(s) of author(s) and full contact information. E-mail address is especially important.
An indication whether the proposal / abstract is intended as a paper or as a poster.
PROPOSALS (in Microsoft Word) ARE DUE NOT LATER THAN 06 August 2019 and should be sent to : Dr. Patrice Djamen: p.djamen759@gmail.com
Presenters will be required to register for the conference. The due date for completed papers and posters are 06 September 2019. If we do not receive your final paper by then, you will not be allowed to present at the conference. The paper must be in MS Word format for publication in the proceedings. MS PowerPoint presentation will not be accepted for publication. You may use MS PowerPoint for your presentation at the Conference. Posters can be in MS PowerPoint or MS Word.