(Photo: ©FAO/Ethiopia)

20 - 22 June 2016, Addis Ababa - The FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa (FAOSFE) and the Seeds and Genetic Resources Team of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division (AGPMG) organized a workshop to enable Eastern African countries assess where they are in the process of development and implementation of their national strategies for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), and to chart the way forward.

The seven countries that participated are Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. This is the first workshop of its kind since the publication of the new (FAO, 2015) guidelines for development of national strategies for PGRFA.

FAO Sub-regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa and Representative to AU & UNECA, Patrick Kormawa stated, “With climate change drastically affecting agriculture in Eastern Africa, there is an urgent need for the development and implementation of national strategies for PGRFA to help farming communities build resilience, sustain or increase production and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change.”

He further stressed the need for increased collaboration in the conservation, sustainable, and fair use of PGRFA, without which Africa’s struggle against poverty, hunger, malnutrition, land degradation and climate change cannot be won. “To maximize the availability and optimize the use of a wide range of PGRFA for current and future requirements, it is critically important to ensure more systematic conservation and sustainable use efforts at national level”, he added.

Strengthen national strategies

Therefore, the main objective of the workshop was to support Eastern African countries to be able to identify where they are in the process of developing and implementing a National Strategy for PGRFA and initiate the steps and tasks that have not been completed.

According to Mr Mathew Abang, Crop Production Officer FAOSFE, “The workshop provided a useful platform for knowledge and experience sharing, as some countries in the sub-region are far more advanced than others in the management of PGRFA.” In order to maximize the availability and optimize the use of PGRFA for accelerated agricultural development, countries will have to promote investment in PGRFA so that the full potential of our rich plant biodiversity is harnessed for agricultural development.

This need has been recognized by international conventions and agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (International Treaty) and the Second Global Plan of Action for PGRFA (2nd GPA). They each underline the commitment of governments to ensure that conservation and use of PGRFA continues to be a key element in the efforts to alleviate poverty, increase food security and provide us with a safety-net for the future of agriculture. They also highlight the need to develop and implement national strategies as a means to attaining these goals.

FAO Expert Chikelu Mba said: “The PGRFA landscape varies from country to country in Eastern Africa, and consequently, both the formulation and implementation of a National Strategy for PGRFA differs from country to country. For instance, South Sudan and Somalia are “aspiring” but not yet contracting parties of the Treaty, they have not yet developed national strategies for PGRFA, and there is very limited work being done on conservation, exploration, collection, characterization, evaluation and documentation of PGRFA.”

The workshop has enabled countries to:

• assess the status of development of national strategies for PGRFA and implementation of the 2nd GPA in Eastern Africa;
• enhance the capacity of the countries to develop/revise their national strategies for PGRFA;
• share information, knowledge and experiences on different aspects of PGRFA;
• identify priority activities for as a framework for work plans and budgets for development/revision of national strategies for PGRFA;
• identify priority areas for developing regional PGRFA collaborative activities.