Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Tenth edition of the European Development Days


15-16 June 2016. Brussels. The tenth edition of the European Development Days. Key players from across the world come together for the 10th anniversary of European Development Days. The European Development Days is a two day event to generate new ideas, take action and shape the future with world leaders, young leaders and hundreds of speakers, civil society organisations and international organisations.

This edition is of particular importance, since it marks 10 years of European Development Days. Often referred to as the ''Davos for Development'', the EDDs comes at a crucial time for the future of international development, shortly after the ''Agenda for Sustainable Development'', which is a universal framework to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030, was adopted in September 2015.

The European Development Days focused on implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, building upon 5 vital ''P''s for sustainable development: Partnership, Peace, Prosperity, Planet and People.

The European Development Days 2016 draws over 500 speakers and prominent decision makers, including representatives of international organisations such as Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank Group, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women and numerous Heads of State, including Uhuru Kenyatta, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces of the Republic of Kenya, Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim, President of the Republic of Mauritius, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, President of Burkina Faso, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, President of the Central African Republic, Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime Minister of Samoa, Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Rui Maria de Araújo, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, along with many others.



Events related to agriculture: 
Extracts of the programme
15 June
Recent Global Developments in Agricultural Trade and ACP SDG Pursuits
Consensus among panel experts on solutions needed to bring small-scale farmers out of poverty once again ran into examples of the manifold practical difficulties of making them happen on the ground. No doubt, more practical problems would have been discussed had there been adequate time for questions from the floor.
Assessing Sustainable Development in Global Value Chains



EU support to research and innovation for development
Seniors experts presented recent evaluation work findings of EU co-operation for Research and Innovation in partner countries, with specific insights on lessons learned within four sectors: 1) Food security, nutrition and agriculture, 2) Health, 3) Environment and climate change, 4) Science, information society and Space.



- 45% of the DevCo budget for research and innovation for development was spent on food security.
- The needs of the researchers are often different from the programme cycle of DevCo

The contribution of Paul Engel (ECDPM) on agricultural research can be listened at 17:20 to 32:50
  • European partners are mainly in the lead of research projects
  • We took a large sample of 115 projects
  • We checked the likeliness of policy uptake
  • Local researchers managed to make the research with their European partner very relevant for their local needs
  • Limited institutional strengthening
  • Working in least development countries is a specific problem for research
4 Lessons:
  1. Development countries need a minimal research infrastructure and capacity to be able to scale up 
  2. Opportunity for more collaboration between different cooperation instruments
  3. For science and community to meet the needs several intermediate organisations are needed (and often lacking)
  4. Essential to define and invest in the innovation system of a country
Recommendations:
  • DevCo and the EC delegation need jointly to prioritize researh
  • EU should have a more differentiate approach towards LDCs as it has fundamentally another impact (including the private actor)
  • EU is doing too little to document it's experiences, systematizing it and share if with the wider public (how did it work /did not work / do it differently the next time : CAPITALISATION)
At 32:50 Nienke Buisman of DG Research:
  • impact depends heavily on the national innovation system
  • need for a more strategic and differentiated approach 
  • start with 3 to 6 countries and adapt the support to the type of countries
  • documentation: DG Research and Development have to coordinate on results of research
  • some 300 researchers from developing countries participate in Horizon 2020 research projects
  • We have started to set up the partnership of the AU + EC Road map on food and nutrition security. It will be entirely co-financed by a minimum of 10 countries on both sides."If you manage to collect 20 million we will top up with 10 million".
16 June
Forest and Farm Producer Organisations: Operating Systems for the SDGs


Making Coffee the First Sustainable Agricultural Product


Gender and agricultural entrepreneurship

Le Fonds Bêkou : agriculture et résilience dans le contexte de la Centrafrique


Agribusiness alliances in support of local and sustainable food in the ACP
At the moment, Caribbean countries export jams, jellies, snacks, juice, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and condiments. Saint Lucia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Belize are witnessing the biggest growth in the food sectorsin the region. One key area for the food sector in the future is organic food production. The challenge is that there is no support from the governments and the farmers are not willing to take high risks or pay for expensive insurance.

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