According
to AfricaRice Deputy Director General Dr Marco Wopereis, there are four key
elements to achieving impact from the research for development in Africa
conducted under the CGIAR Research Program on Rice – known as the Global Rice
Science Partnership (GRiSP). “First, we
need to rebuild critical mass in rice research in Africa—this is what we do
through our Africa-wide Rice Task Forces.”
This
is crucial on a continent where specialist researchers are few and far between.
For example, there may be just one rice agronomist in a particular country,
with the risk that they become isolated and out of touch with what is going on
elsewhere on the continent and beyond.
Attaining
critical mass is not only a matter of pooling resources but also re-building
human capacity through short training courses on specific topics, degree
training, and training of trainers.
“In
the Breeding Task Force, we found a disconnect between thesis research and the
real problems that breeders should be addressing in their home countries,” says
Rice Breeding Task Force Coordinator Dr Moussa Sié.
“I
believe that a solution to this would be to offer sandwich courses in which the
students spend as much time at their home institution tackling real-life
concerns as they do at the university learning the principles and methods.”
This
ties in with Dr Wopereis’s next point: “We need to ensure that these
researchers are connected with the real rice world (avoiding ‘scientific
islands’).” Consequently, Task Force activities are, as much as possible,
integrated into and conducted in the Rice Sector Development Hubs in a
value-chain context.
“Through
our work in the hubs, we also concentrate our efforts in certain geographic
areas while covering the whole rice value chain. And, last but not least, we
need to communicate what we are doing to learn from our successes and
failures,” Dr Wopereis says.
This
requires working in well-defined partnerships with clear roles and
responsibilities. The Africa-wide Rice Task Forces are aligned with the main
thematic areas of GRiSP, and can therefore leverage knowledge from other
continents and from within Africa. They also serve as on-the-job training grounds
for young scientists.
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