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By Isaac OGANGA
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),the global partnership for a food-secure future has announced the launch of the new Regional East and Southern African Scaling Hub for food, land and water transformation in Kenya.
The launch marks an important step in strengthening agricultural innovation and collaboration and in ensuring that science- based solutions developed by CGIAR and its research partners around Africa are reaching and benefiting farmers and other users.
Inga Jacobs Mata, one of the visionaries behind the Hub said “This hub provides a physical space for CGIAR and our scaling partners to co-locate and together, develop the most effective scientific solutions for Africa by Africa.
We want to push the science frontier in advancing ‘science for the last mile’ – how to get innovations taken up and scaled in cheaper, better, faster, more inclusive and sustainable ways.
The Hub will therefore provide an environment of innovative and synergistic thinking and vibrant interactions, creativity, and collaborative problem-solving.
The hub will improve collaboration, knowledge exchange, and innovation scaling by leveraging multi-stakeholder partnerships.
It will connect diverse scaling actors, including farmers, farmer cooperatives and associations, government, International Financial Institutions (IFIs), National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES), national and international universities, civil society organizations, and youth agricultural influencers as well as the private sector.
The Hub is part of the new CGIAR Portfolio for 2025-2030, a Global science portfolio to deliver lasting agricultural solutions for the world.
The Scaling hub is part of the Scaling for Impact Program. By 2030, Scaling for Impact will leverage systems and financing to support over 62 million people, including 30% women, youth, marginalized and underrepresented groups, who will gain access to innovations that enhance their livelihoods and health. 250,000 jobs will be created or enhanced, and 480,000 people — half of them women — will access healthier diets.
The Regional Scaling Hub will help to concretize the Scaling for Impact Program in the region and provide a physical space for scaling talents and experts to work together across organizations and disciplines.
Appolinaire Djikeng, Director General for the International Livestock Research Institute emphasized: “For CGIAR, it is imperative that we ensure that our solutions for small-scale farmers are appropriate and can be used by different partners to go to scale.
CGIAR and its partners have been developing appropriate solutions for Africa for Decades. This new scaling hub will allow these innovations to be deployed at scale by bringing partners into a dynamic co-design process.”