We recently kicked off inception meetings in eight target countries for Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) Programme. TAAT is a flagship programme funded by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) as part of the bank’s Feed Africa Strategy. The focus of the TAAT programme is to build capacities and mechanisms to scale out proven technologies for African agricultural transformation through raising productivity along nine priority intervention areas or commodity value chains across an initial set of 30 countries in Africa.
TAAT will be implemented by collaborating CGIAR centers, FARA, AGRA, The World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and national agricultural research and extension systems. To be transformative and sustainable, TAAT is to facilitate more private sector participation in production, distribution and processing of agricultural produce and strengthen farmer organization to access remunerative markets for their produce.
High Iron Beans is one of the commodity value chains supported under TAAT. CIAT is the lead implementing partner for the High Iron Bean Compact. The eight countries targeted for large scale deployment of the HIB technologies are Burundi, DRC Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe. We envision that the HIB Value Chain compact will contribute to increased HIB production area and productivity, as well as enhance business opportunities and investments, Income generation for women and youth and to enhance and enhance nutrition and food security of target households.
As this project is commencing, Inception workshops have ben organized in each of the eight targeted countries with attendance from strategic partners to sensitize and understand TAAT programme in general; understand the High iron Bean (HIB) component of TAAT and the country specific component as well as discuss stakeholder involvement, roles and responsibilities; and the overall implementation framework of the HIB work plans for 2018.