Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Dr. Gbadebo Odularu

Member since
Organization: CREPOL
Country: Senegal
Field(s) of expertise:

This member contributed to:

    • My contributions will be focusing generally on how best to support African youth in agriculture after they have gone through youth-specific capacity development initiatives. 

      • A workable science policy could be the springboard for sustaining the impact of capacity development initiatives for African youth in Agriculture.
      • Do we need to have a look at the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA), S3A and other related strategies, and how they address the importance of Science (and Science policy) in sustaining the impact of capacity development initiatives for African youth in Agriculture? Comparatively, at the global level, Africa needs more scientists in order to fully appreciate how to champion more quality (monetary) investment votes in sustaining the impact of capacity development initiatives for African youth in Agriculture.
      • At the political level, there seems to be a disconnect between the roles of science and legislation in illuminating these non-sustainability challenges in capacity-enhancing initiatives, and the relevance of science in advancing the solutions, as well as its implications for achieving the UN SDGs, amidst complex and competing interests.
      • Fostering and implementing strategies for building highly skilled, inclusive and diverse youth in STI is one of the effective pathways to sustaining capacity development initiatives for African youth in Africa.

      Lastly, though the discussion focuses on how best to support African youth in agriculture after they have gone through youth-specific capacity development initiatives, it is also very crucial for Africa to be able to nip the challenge at its bud. In other words, the science of sustainability in capacity-enhancing programmes for African youth in Agriculture hinges on how are Africa's most intellectually talented and brightest high-school leavers nurtured into Agriculture-related disciplines to help solve these numerous challenges confronting Africa - hunger, malnutrition, stunting, joblessness, climate change, etc

      An efficiently functional capacity building value chain, which comprises relevant activities, processes, policies, programmes, strategies, etc, should operate an inbuilt mechanism that ensures the sustainability and long-term impact of youth-specific CD initiatives? With the support from international partners, development agencies and African governments, African Agribusiness Incubators Network (AAIN)'s and FARA's programmes, strategies, tools and activities are increasingly being enhanced towards responding to the issue of ensuring post-capacity building support to youth in order to retain them in agriculture-related sectors.

      In spite of increasing investment in capacity building programmes in SSA, It is interesting that 'young people, and in particular female youth, still lack access to finance, land, markets, technologies and practical skills,' and the university graduates from most SSA countries are still largely underemployed and unemployed within agricultural sub-sectors and sectors.

      Though multiple capacity-development initiatives (CDIs) exist in a number of communities, there is still a need to ensure that increasing number of youth and women engage in more industry-driven knowledge, skills, training and education. This represents one of the sustainability dimension of CDIs. These types of CDIs should be implemented by both medium to large scale farms in collaboration with selected universities or colleges of agriculture and CG centers. In fact, continuous acquisition of knowledge and technical agricultural skills by youth is the viable currency of the emerging African economy.

       

    • One of the pathways to ensuring the long-term impact of youth-specific CD initiatives in Africa is to effectively consolidate on the achievements of current CD programmes, and striking strategic alliances with regional/international partners to continually upgrade youth’s capacity to harness the enormous potential of ICT, especially access to high-speed digital services in benefiting from the huge agribusiness opportunities on the continent. One of the recent global CD-financing frameworks in this regards is the G20 Compact with Africa (CWA)'s initiave which is G20-Africa coordinated and concerted efforts on capacity development cooperation towards launching the G20 Initiative for Rural Youth Employment, and contributing to creating 1.1 million new jobs by 2022 and to providing innovative skills development programmes for at least 5 million young people over the next five years.