By Prof. ‘Wole Fatunbi (Ag. DRI, FARA)
Developing the Regional Hub to coordinate regional actions for the Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA) and the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan (AFSH-AP) is a key component of the structure to implement the AFSH Summit outcomes. The overall implementation structure (Figure 1) was approved for use over a series of exchanges that involve partners in African agriculture under the oversight of the AUC and the AUDA-NEPAD. The structure that supports the “Africa owned, and Africa Led Process” agenda for the SIA and AFSH-AP devolves overall leadership to AUC and AUDA-NEPAD as the authorizing environment.
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) secretariat is designated as the coordination secretariat for the initiative. The Regional Economic Communities (RECS) and the Sub-Regional Organizations (SROs) in each of the subregions of Africa are expected to establish a regional hub to coordinate the member countries’ actions, among other roles. The West Africa Hub seems to have a structure in place, however, each region needs to develop its regional hub structure that aligns with the socio-cultural circumstances and the REC political system. The SIA secretariat attempts to provide a template for the Hub development and function in the guiding Terms of Reference (ToR) document for the RECS to domesticate.
The SADC secretariat, CCARDESA, with support from AUDA-NEPAD, is running a stakeholders’ workshop to review its Hub establishment document and validate it for subsequent regional endorsement and implementation. The workshop will take place from December 9th to 13th, 2024, at the Rainbow Towers Hotel and Conference Center in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Representing the SIA Secretariat in FARA, Prof Wole Fatunbi presented an overview of the SIA and the AFSH-AP and the progress so far; he further gave a clear insight into the ToRs of the different structures in the implementation framework.
In another section, a presentation titled “Leveraging Agricultural Innovation Platforms for the Implementation of AFSH-AP” discussed the use of innovation platforms for the implementation of the country and the Hub action. It is expected that the Hub and countries in the Southern Africa sub-region will embrace the multistakeholder approach and the key principles in the IAR4D concept.
The SADC had requested its sub-regional organization coordinating agricultural research, CCARDESA to host the regional hub and run all the functions as Secretariat on behalf of the REC.
The workshop addressed the partnership gaps and stakeholders model, finetuned the implementation arrangement, and proposed modalities for drawing support from the six established coalitions. As agreed in other stakeholders’ workshops, the coalitions will provide implementation support at the continental, regional, and country levels.
The final document from the workshop is expected to be validated by stakeholders for implementation. The implementation of SIA/AFSH-AP is already being implemented in the countries while the secretariat and the hubs are being established. The issues of soil management in Africa cannot wait for another day; Africa needs to halt the pace of land degradation and start the implementation of effective management practices to ensure soil health. This informs the need for structured coordination of efforts, allocations of mandates to organizations, and implementation of real action rather than unending talks and workshops.
This time, Africa is poised to get it right with the “Africa-owned and Africa-led process” mantra supported by ambitious declarations by the head of state at the May 2024 Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit supported by action-ready experts on the continent.