The 120 Workshop participants were welcomed by the host, Dr. Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), who underlined the common elements in the mandates of ICRAF and PROTA regarding the sustainable utilization of African plant resources.
The Chair of the PROTA Board of Trustees, Prof. Martin Kropff gave an overview of the PROTA output during the First Implementation Phase and officially launched PROTA 14: Vegetable oils, fresh from the press.
He stated that “….. Africa first of all needs to accomplish its own brand of ‘green revolution’ to ban hunger and malnutrition and reach food security. Then there is a general feeling that Africa might find a niche in high-value and specialty crops in the bio-based economy. A green revolution programme focusing on a small number of major food crops carries the danger of marginalization of other useful biodiversity, and it is exactly in this category that Africa’s specialty plants might be identified. PROTA’s work will help in mitigating the negative side-effects of a ‘green revolution’ programme…”
In his keynote address, Dr. Sloans Chimatiro (NEPAD Secretariat) noted
“….. that the need to improve access to multi-sectoral data on the plant resources is critical if agricultural scientists in Africa are going to develop sustainable ecosystem management plans that will enhance rural and agricultural development. NEPAD is delighted with the work PROTA is doing and fully endorses this initiative because it has the potential to add value to the ongoing continental and regional programmes by enhancing the role of science, technology and innovations in agricultural productivity…”
“…. As PROTA is moving into the Second Implementation Phase, NEPAD is calling on PROTA to undertake the following:
- harmonize its strategies in line with sub-regional and country level initiatives using the CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme) and FARA (Forum on Agricultural Research in Africa) frameworks;
- using the current PROTA data base as a benchmark for guiding African scientists into information gaps and areas which require more scientific research to generate new knowledge;
- pay particular attention to scientific capacity gaps and facilitate capacity strenghthening of sub-regional and national institutions to assist the continent to accelerate implementation of CAADP.
Dr. Kyetere, Chair of FARA, confirmed that PROTA’s elaborate information on traditional as well as modern food crops makes an important contribution to fighting hunger and arriving at food security, but commended PROTA also for planning other commodity groups with largely untapped economic potential such as the Ornamental plants (PROTA 4).
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