ACT Participation in CESAAM and CREATES Short Courses Development Workshop
Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture and Agribusiness Management (CESAAM) at Egerton University and Centre for Research, Agricultural advancement & Teaching Excellence and Sustainability (CREATES) at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology collaboratively organized a three-day short courses development workshop in Nakuru Milele Resort on April 25th to 27th, 2018 with an objective to develop curriculum modules for short agri-based courses focused on enhancing knowledge and skills of actors in agricultural production sector. These courses are intended to be mounted and offered at these centres and in other agri-based training institutions in the region. Experts, professors and researchers from Agricultural training institutions, Research Centre, graduate students from East African University; Private Sectors, NGOs in Kenya and Tanzania with expertise and knowledge in the identified sectors participated in this workshop. African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) as a regional expert on conservation agriculture and sustainable land management participated in the workshop.
The two centres, CESAAM and CREATES, were created through the support of the World bank as part of Africa Centres of Excellences (ACEs) to facilitate and contribute to sustainable agriculture and agribusiness management through capacity development, research, innovation and technology transfer for enhanced food security and livelihoods.
Several short courses on Sustainable Agriculture and Agribusiness Management were drafted and Conservation Agriculture (CA) was among them. In this workshop, Meaza Melkamu (Policy and Strategy adviser) and Weldone Mutai (Senior Knowledge Management officer) participated and contributed to development these courses, particularly Conservation Agriculture course. These courses will be offered at various agricultural training institutions in Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
In designing the short course outline for CA, researcher from ACT’s CA Centre of Excellence in KALRO Njoro, Professors from Egerton University, experts from Nakuru Agriculture Training Centre, expert from Access agriculture and PhD students from Burundi participated. .jpg)
The team developed the CA short course outline which includes, course objective, methodology, targets, course delivery methods and course contents. The group work was presented to the larger stakeholder audience for plenary validation. The CESAAM centre head, Prof. George Owour, reported that the courses will be mounted as soon as possible and requested for all actors to collaborate in producing skill full experts who will solve the challenges Africa is facing.
Professors at Egerton were tasks to further enrich the course outline and develop ttraining materials for the courses. ACT’ was requested to continue supporting the conservation Agriculture course formulation and implementation which include facilitating the course and organizing field excursion during the actual course implementation. ACT also committed to support the course material development, re-tooling of professors lecturing the short course, organizing exposure visit and creating linkage with other relevant stakeholders around CA in each country. Partners from Nelson Mandela University and Egerton University has shown interest to strengthen collaboration and partnership with ACT and other CA implementing actors.
More information on the centres available at:
o Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture and Agribusiness Management (CESAAM) at Egerton University, www.cesaam.ergeton.ac.ke
o Centre for Research, Agricultural advancement & Teaching Excellence and Sustainability (CREATES) at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, www.creates.ac.tz