Agricultural Innovation in Dryland Africa (AIDA) Project
In Dryland Africa (annual rainfall between 300 and 800mm), poverty and recurrent drought affect millions of people as testified by the severe food crisis faced by Niger and Kenya in 2005-2006. The natural resource base of drylands in Africa is under continuous threat from erosion and nutrient mining resulting in severe land degradation and desertification. Climate change may still aggravate this situation.
The African Union and NEPAD recognize that, although agriculture is the mainstay of the African economy and the main source of food of rural livelihoods, current allocations devoted to agriculture and rural
 development are too low and need to increase to at least 10% of national budgets.
Despite this general ‘gloom and doom’ picture, recent studies show that dryland people are resilient and open to innovation. The AIDA project will deliver a comprehensive and critical assessment of initiatives for rural development in dryland Africa to identify key drivers for success or critical analyses of failed interventions and to share this knowledge with all stakeholders involved. Such knowledge is needed to guide policy making and allocate resources in the most efficient and equitable way.
The assessment will involve a number of case studies undertaken by inter-disciplinary groups of postgraduate students supervised by international experts from Africa and Europe. These endeavours will build capacity among African agricultural research and development communities to identify best-bet approaches to sustainable agricultural development, efficient and reliable monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and up- and out-scaling of the results.
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The CTA is organizing his Annual Seminar on the theme : "The role of the media on the agricultural and rural development in ACP countries" in Brussels from 12 to 16 October 2009.
http://annualseminar2009.cta.int/
The final Meeting of the AIDA Project will be held as parallel session of the CTA Annual Seminar
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