Boosting Agricultural Studies in Sub-Sahara AfricaAccording to numerous authors, agriculture and farming are a major source of livelihood in the countries of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), contributing between 15 % and 40 % of the gross domestic product, providing livelihood for over 70% of SSA population through family farming and employing at least 34% of the active workforce with its potential heavily underexploited. One of the reasons are poor connections between tertiary education as the knowledge base and immediate agricultural producers (farms). Furthermore, according to various authors, gender is an important factor in understanding every aspect of agricultural and rural development in SSA. Women are essential to agricultural production but they lack adequate access to land and inputs, they tend to be excluded from decision-making and have less chances of accessing tertiary education, along with so many poverty-stricken individuals coming from remote areas.BASIS addresses the aforementioned issues by introducing interventions in higher education curricula towards a more field-based and competence-oriented knowledge and skills highly valued at the labour market. This will establish lasting and systemic exchange between the tertiary education and smallholder farmers in SSA. Likewise, BASIS introduces mechanisms and measures to increase access to tertiary education for women and poverty-stricken individuals from remote areas, and provide them with more equitable chances of employment and growth. Project outcomes will create opportunities for further innovation and modernization of higher education and agricultural production in SSA, equipping higher education institutions, their staff and students with different social and economic background, as well as smallholders in remote rural areas with essential mechanisms for sustainable advancement and growth.

DALILA project aims to support the modernization, accessibility and market-oriented of higher education in the Partner Countries in order to contribute to the development of sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth (in addition to national ownership, social cohesion, equity, proper geographical balance and diversity). The main priority of the project is to enhance the capacities of the target higher education institutions (HEIs) in Tanzania and Uganda on Renewable Energy and Green Economy and to strengthen the connection of HEIs with local labor market demand for skills, giving to the new experts suitable competences to invest on the field with own business challenges.The project proposal aims to answer to the growing request of energy in both countries and to the new market job opportunities in the renewable energy sector in order to contribute to poverty reduction and to identify solutions and create more access and opportunity for all students.The main objective of the project proposal is to establish n. 6 new courses on “Renewable Technologies” and “Green Business creation and development” in 2 Universities in Tanzania and 2 in Uganda. The courses will be based on an innovative approach that includes the promotion of an equal access to higher education and the facilitation of students’ transition to work.

In most African countries, there is need for revitalizing HEIs to deliver agricultural science curricula that will produce graduates with requisite skills for employment, job creation and agricultural development. AgriENGAGE aims at strengthening HEIs to provide excellent training programmes in agricultural sciences responsive to evolving labour market demands of stimulating agricultural transformation and enhanced agricultural sector competitiveness. The specific objectives of the project are: availability of updated agripreneurial and Community Engagement Training programmes at HEIs; enhanced teaching compentences in business development services and community engagement in HEIs’ academic staff; students skilled in demand driven agripreneurship, agribusiness development services and community engagement and enhanced collaboration between HEIs and industry. The project is envisioned to upscale the hands on approach to agricultural science teaching by skilling staff and students through reviewing existing curricula and developing modules in agripreneurship and community engagement, training staff and students in community engagement and agribusiness development services and working with farmers and industry. Moreover the project will conduct agribusiness clinics, farm attachment, entrepreneurship and community engagement challenges to build the skills of students in entreprenurship and community engagement. This will enhance academic staff pedagogical skills to deliver curricula for agripreneurship and Community engagement, strengthen students’ skills in agripreneurship, business development services and community engagement as well as enhance collaboration between HEIs institutions, farming community and industry. The target groups in AgriENGAGE are students, academic staff and the higher education institutions. Indirect target groups like farmers and employers will benefit through ability of graduates to work with farmers and industry to transform smallholder en

PrAEctiCe will provide a novel agro-ecology indicator set for East Africa, aimed at helping smallholder farmers in their agro-ecological transition. The project goes beyond the existing indicator frameworks by putting the “concept into action” with a decision support tool for agro-ecology advisors supporting the selection of the best suited combination of agro-ecological practices in a local context. In addition, it puts a focus on circular water-energy-nutrient systems of integrated aqua-agriculture, an practice with high potential for efficient farming with minimal climate impacts, which has not been sufficiently explored in previous indicator work. Through a multi-stakeholder approach, new insight on agro-ecological practices in East Africa will be gathered to inform on existing successful practices as well as the barriers and drivers of East African smallholder farmers. This insight will help develop an indicator framework for agro-ecology, which, while building on existing frameworks, is adapted to the East African context and captures integrated aqua-agriculture practices in detail. The PrAEctiCe decision support tool will then, at the farm level, help assess environmental and socio-economic impacts, with a particular focus on impacts on climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as financial viability. The tool will be validated in three living labs, situated in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, covering different integrated aqua-agriculture farming set-ups. Knowledge sharing activities through trainings, student exchanges and events, ensure the dissemination of results across East Africa and between AU and EU. To reach practitioners at every level, a cascade training mechanism with a train-the-trainer course will help agro-ecology advisors train farming representatives at the local level who then will help the farmers in their agro-ecological transition. Policy recommendations for AU and EU policies will round off the project.