Public-private partnership experienced by PAEPARD

Despite efforts over recent years to improve the status of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, little change has been noted, due partially to the fact that efforts have come from individual entities, which had short-term funding or lacked the necessary expertise to scale up research outputs. Disconnect between researchers and end-users has further hindered the success of such efforts. The Platform for Africa-Europe Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD), therefore designed a multi-stakeholder partnership approach to overcome existing shortcomings in agricultural research for development (ARD). Through a variety of brokerage mechanisms, PAEPARD has supported the formation of consortia made up of multi-stakeholder partners from the public and private sectors, which are intended to address priority research issues and respond to user needs. The public sector can be represented by government ministries, such as the Ministry of Agriculture or Ministry of Industry and Trade; regional and locallevel government representative offices; state banks involved in financing rural development; state-owned enterprises, such as seed companies and agroprocessing facilities; and publicly funded research institutions, marketing boards and universities. On the other hand, the private sector encompasses all for-profit businesses that are not owned or operated by the government, as well as independent non-profit organizations, such as non-governmental organizations (NGO) and charities. The private partners involved in PAEPARD consortia include farmer organizations, agro-processing enterprises, input supply companies and NGO.