CORAF/WECARD, CSIRO- DFAT and Convergence of Sciences (CoS -SIS) are jointly organizing an international conference on agricultural innovation systems in West and Central Africa. The theme is “Facilitating changes in farming systems in West and Central Africa through the implementation of the Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D)”. The conference provides an opportunity to bring together several institutions and other stakeholders to share experiences on agricultural innovation systems in West and Central Africa, to assess the successes and weaknesses of the IAR4D approach and to explore together the perspectives and solutions for its improvement.

The application of integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) is seen as an approach that facilitates change in agricultural systems in West and Central Africa. IAR4D integrates the following four “defining principles”:

• Perspectives, knowledge and actions of different stakeholders around a common theme;
• Learning by stakeholders achieved through working together;
• Analysis, action and change across the economic, social, environmental, spectrum and livelihoods and welfare of end users and consumers;
• Analysis, action and change at different levels of spatial, economic, and social organisation.

IAR4D fundamentally encourages multi-stakeholder Innovation Platforms (IP) which comprise stakeholders and/or collaborators of various social and economic strata and the institutions that govern their functioning, all working towards a common objective. In principle, the platform considers the innovation as a systemic and dynamic process and it recognises that innovation can emerge from many sources of complex interactions, and knowledge sharing.

Over recent years, CORAF/WECARD, DFAT, CSIRO and CoS-SIS have promoted IAR4D principles in exploring opportunities for the smallholder producers and the institutions in West and Central Africa. This conference provides the opportunity to gather these institutions and others stakeholders together to make a situational analysis on the current state of agricultural systems in West and Central Africa, to assess the successes and weaknesses of the IAR4D approach and jointly explore its future.

The conference aims at facilitating change in agricultural systems in West and Central Africa through application of IAR4D. This objective will be achieved through the delivery of the following outputs:

• Knowledge on the historical evolution, in theory and practice, of an integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) approach to delivering impacts are improved;
• Achievements and challenges of IAR4D implementation in Africa and elsewhere are better understood;
• Recommendations for implementing IAR4D within the context of second five- year Operational Plan 2014-2018 [OP2] of CORAF/WECARD are formulated;
• An updated frame of investment prospectus for IAR4D in West and Central Africa are presented.

Download the First Announcement of the CORAF-AFSI conference in February 2015 (PDF).

Download the Second Announcement for Call for Papers of the CORAF-ASCI conference (PDF).