The First PAEPARD steering committee was held in Brussels on 11 January 2007.
EFARD initiated and now implements with FARA the new project Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD). PAEPARD is a platform to mobilize African and European resources to the achievement of CAADP and European Strategy for Africa. It is a tool for FARA and EFARD to strengthen their constituent’s capacity to deliver new innovations in agriculture. This will be achieved by lesson learning, brokering partnerships among African and European stakeholders, building bridges to open new partnerships among researchers and private sectors. It will open new avenues of partnerships with private sector of Europe and Africa and see how the private sector could be more involved and encouraged to invest in agricultural research for development.
PAEPARD will initially focus on geographic locations by identifying different groups of countries to be used in the case studies. It will look into areas where capacities require strengthening, facilitation will guide concerned partners to link with the most appropriate institutions to create synergies and resources are invested into the right places to achieve the objectives of CAADP and the EU Strategy for Africa.
First results of the PAEPARD project will be presented at the next FARA general assembly in Johannesburg in June 2007.