This book, consisting of 17 chapters, focuses on clarifying the challenges, issues, and priorities of Agricultural Education and Training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa, and provides suggestions for practical solutions that can help guide organisations interested in furthering AET for agricultural development on the continent. It discusses the African context within which a transformed AET system needs to be located; analyses African and international experiences that are relevant to identified AET needs and challenges; dissects AET models that may hold important lessons; and addresses the main critical issues that will impact upon AET in sub-Saharan Africa. The concluding chapter synthesises the ideas, experiences, and evidence from the preceding chapters in order to highlight critical issues for success as well as possible solutions. The book is uniquely positioned to add to a call to action on AET, to pull together state-of-the-art knowledge from within and outside sub-Saharan Africa, and to advance “out of the box” thinking about the principles, values and character of AET for development, with an emphasis on the models that can help to cultivate leaders and change-makers at all levels of the agricultural sector.

Since 2017, in line with COAG’s recommendation, the Research and Extension Unit engaged in the development of a participatory AIS assessment framework including a customizable toolbox for countries with a totally new capacity development perspective. The assessment framework is meant for actors of the national agricultural innovation systems, i.e. research, extension and advisory services, innovation support service providers and universities, policy and decision makers, or development organizations, with a mandate or willingness to catalyze system innovation processes and to identify entry points for developing capacities to innovate in a a sector, a value chain, a territory or at country level. The expected outputs and outcomes of the assessment are: a) to inform and provide evidence-based practical guidance to policy and decision makers to identify concrete actions and investments geared towards strengthening of the AIS, and simultaneously b) to enhance capacities of relevant actors to effectively engage in these actions. Considering high level of complexity and diversity of agricultural innovation systems and CD needs, the assessment implementers need to be guided to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data and information to generate evidence for assisting decision-making and advocacy in their specific context. To meet these objectives, a preliminary assessment framework was developed to be tested and enriched by pilot countries. This document provides the key concepts, the foundations of analytical and operational assessment frameworks and guiding principles for country assessment teams in piloting countries. It contributes to FAO’s Strategic Objective 2 - Increase and improve provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner.

This conference proceedings from the OECD Conference on Agricultural Knowledge Systems (AKS), held in Paris inJune 2011, discusses experiences and approaches to AKS explores how to foster development and adoption of innovation to meet global food security and climate change challenges.

By 2050, climate change is likely to reduce maize production globally by 3–10 percent and wheat production in developing countries by 29–34 percent. Even without climate change, the real costs of wheat and maize will increase by 60 percent between 2000 and 2050; climate change could make the figure substantially greater. Food security, despite the above, may be possible if agricultural systems are transformed through improved seed, fertilizer, land use, and governance.