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Etienne Hainzelin, advisor to the President of Cirad and Professor, was invited to the EDIM (Ottawa University). He participated on behalf of Agreenium, and attended 2 meetings on 19 and 20 april in Washington (USA) about « Partnering with Universities for a Sustainable Food System in Africa ». The aim of the World Bank was to hold a meeting between academics and politicians from the African continent and major agricultural universities in northern countries to overcome the huge challenge about agricultural education in Africa. Etienne Hainzelin’s participation allowed to provide a better insight into the missions of Agreenium. Around 50 participants assisted of which nearly 30 African public figures and 10 American universities invited by the World Bank.

Etienne Hainzelin demonstrates : « this meeting about education and African agricultural universities was requested by Mouktar Diop, former Finance Minister of Senegal and Vice-President of the World Bank for Africa. His introductory speech and BAD’s President Akinwumi Adesina which was outstanding, have both been extremely voluntarist. Ivory Coast’s Prime Minister considers research and education as the 2 main pillars . A true window of opportunity seems to be opening for a very ambitious plan for agricultural education in Africa and the World Bank is ready to coordinate funding and donors ».

The framework of action which emerged during the discussions aims to :

- improve the quality of education: strengthen university’s ownership programs by Africans, agriculture’s rebranding in order to attract young people (highlighting the profitability factor of the agricultural activity during education), train entrepreneurs and wealth generators, emphasize on innovation, training by doing, enrich education curricula, building  on the success observed in strategic partnership.

-Strengthen interfaces between universities and policy makers as an input to agricultural analysis:

Create and strengthen think tanks, complement academics curriculum in the areas of economic analysis, to develop proactivity academics towards political leaders and stakeholders, strengthen the abilty to collect, preserve and  process  large amounts of data as an input to conduct relevant research to policies, promote local and international strategic partnerships, create local innovative platforms led by universities, encourange experience exchanges and best practice between universities, build efficient communication networks between African universities.

Agreenium and its members provide support to the establishment of the first West Africa’s francophone agricultural university, based on 2014-2018 action plan.

More information

Listen to a sample of the speech of Akinwumi Adesina, President of Africa’s Development Bank (BAD).