The European Alliance on Agricultural Knowledge for Development (AGRINATURA) is a consortium of European universities and research centers with a common interest in supporting agricultural development in a sustainable manner in order to improve people’s lives.

AGRINATURA and FAO entered into an agreement to strengthen capacities to accelerate agricultural innovation processes and partnerships. In the framework of this agreement the partners developed the joint project “Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS)” funded by the European Union, that is currently being implemented in Angola, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Rwanda (implementation period: 2015-2018). 

The CDAIS project aims at making agricultural innovation systems (AIS) more efficient and sustainable in meeting the demands of farmers, agri-business and consumers, taking into account the different dimensions of capacity development (individuals, organizations, enabling environment) as well as functional and technical capacities. A major milestone of the project at global level was the development of the Tropical Agriculture Platform(TAP) common framework on capacity development for agricultural innovation systems and its approval in 2016 by TAP partners to which Agrinatura contributed with expertise. Based on the framework Agrinatura jointly with FAO developed a training package being used to develop a core team of national innovation facilitators that will conduct innovation capacity assessments and interventions in eight countries listed above. 

This collaboration provides access to major universities and research institutions in Europe and other regions, and is able to nurture scientific excellence through capacity development and exchanges and further sustainable development in agriculture.