Summary

This report highlights key achievements and progress made during the period 1st October-31st December 2021 (the second quarter of the Financial Year 2021/2022, the fourth year of implementing the Operational Plan-2018-2022 of RUFORUM Vision 2030). The Operational Plan is designed around four (4) flagship programmes underpinned by activities to support regional collective action and learning. The flagship programmes drive the achievement of the RUFORUM vision for vibrant transformative universities catalysing inclusive agricultural development to feed and create prosperity for Africa. The four flagship programmes are:

• Transforming African Agricultural Universities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s Growth and Development (TAGDev) seeks to transform African agricultural universities and their graduates to better respond to developmental challenges through enhanced application of science, technology, business and innovation for rural agricultural transformation. This flagship programme is largely supported by the Mastercard Foundation.
• Cultivating Research and Teaching Excellence (CREATE) seeks to realign universities’ research and teaching functions into a more integrated model with a focus on problem solving and enhancing the capacity of the entire university academic practice and outreach system mainly.
• Regional Anchor Universities for Higher Agricultural Education (RANCH) seeks to escalate the setting up of a network of linked universities as African anchor universities/African centres of excellence and academic leadership in agricultural higher education and learning.
• Knowledge Hub for University Networking, Partnership and Advocacy (K-Hub) builds on RUFORUM’s convening power and facilitates the creation, capture, organising, sharing and refining of information and content across teams and geographic locations – thus increasing access to latest evidence based information and knowledge.

Key highlights for the Quarter were in light of the Seventh Africa Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Triennial Conference held 6th-10th December, 2021, namely:

1. The Conference attracted a total of 2401 participants from 46 countries with 901 physical (40% female) and 1,500 virtual participants. The event further involved 23 pre-Conference meetings and side events. It was officially opened by the Hon. Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, Minister of State in charge of Development and Coordination of Government Action, Benin. Her Excellence Madamme Chabi Talata, Vice President, Republic of Benin was the Chief Guest for the session on Promoting Inclusivity in Research and Development. Invited keynote speakers included Her Excellency, Prof Ameenah Gurib, former President of Mauritius.
2. RUFORUM facilitated dialogue of Ministers responsible for Agriculture, Education, Science, Technology and Innovation in Africa to review progress and map out a pathway for the operationalisation of the Cape Coast Ministerial Communiqué and other continental initiatives for universities to contribute to the regional and global agendas. The meeting approved the Action Plan developed by Technical Experts from the Countries of Benin, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo and Uganda.
3. The 17th Annual General Meeting held on 10 December 2021 (a) elected a new RUFORUM Board Chair – Prof Theresia Nkuo-Akenji, Vice Chancellor-University of Bamenda, Cameroon and will be deputized by Vice Board Chair Prof Avlessi Felicien, Vice Chancellor, University d’Abomey Calavi, Benin; (b) admitted 17 new member universities bringing the network membership to 147 member universities in 38 African countries; and, (c) appointed Ernst & Young Uganda as RUFORUM External Auditor for the period 2021/2022.
4. In collaboration with the African Development Bank and Mastercard Foundation, dialogue on academia-policy partnership for transformative institutional leadership, skills development and youth employability was held on 6th December 2021. The Global Dialogue provided an opportunity for joint learning and sharing of successful models such as the university-research institutes-industry linkages model of Korea and EARTH University of Costa Rica and, the Science and Technology Backyard (STB) and RUFORUM TAGDev Model.
5. Convened a session on 9th December 2021 on Promoting inclusivity in research and development which brought together a high-level panel of female leaders in policy and agricultural higher education. The session highlighted strategies to enable policy makers at university and public sector level promote inclusive participation in research and development.
6. Seventeen (17) senior policy, higher education leaders and researchers were recognised for their distinguished contribution to agriculture, education and science development in Africa. Additionally, five (5) young scientists and three (3) farmers from the Republic of Benin and twenty two (22) young innovators from across the continent were recognised for excellence.

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