By Aoma Keziah,
The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), in partnership with the African Agricultural Research, Innovation, and Education Institutions (AARIEI) including ASARECA, CCARDESA, CORAF, and AFAAS, officially launched the Africa Agriculture Space (AARIEI Space) during the CGIAR Science Week held at the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON).
Dr Silim Nahdy, the Executive Director, African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Service(AFAAS) AARIEI’s partner organization, highlighted how the platform will facilitate harmonized efforts across regions, reduce duplication of research, and a culture of open knowledge sharing.
“With the AARIEI Space, we’re laying the digital foundation for Africa’s agricultural transformation, which is a step toward an inclusive future where innovation is not only created but also accessible and impactful,” he stated.
The AARIEI Space Repository is a digital knowledge platform designed to unify and strengthen Africa’s agricultural research and innovation ecosystem. Developed as a central hub for data, research outputs, and best practices, the platform is poised to enhance collaboration, accelerate innovation, and ensure that agricultural breakthroughs reach the farmers and stakeholders who need them most.
“Knowledge Management is not only about collecting knowledge, but more about connecting people to knowledge, ensuring that we can push (share) and pull (find) the needed relevant knowledge. There’s need for the adoption and operationalization of the KM4AgD agenda and framework in agriculture research, to encourage and enhance, co-creation and cross learning, knowledge sharing and transfer, scaling of innovations and networking,” stated Mr. Benjamin Abugri, Knowledge and Project Management specialist for FARA
Satish Nagaraji, an ICT4D Specialist COMMUT India noted that it’s a platform which helps different local organizations, national partners with content to reach out to their farmer communities and extension workers in terms of through bite-sized WhatsApp courses.
“It’s a skill delivering course content to farmers and extension workers, the last mile actors, through WhatsApp as a medium including AI LLMs to kind of respond to the queries if farmers have any in terms of when they use the platform, when they kind of learn the course. Through this platform, farmers could learn different courses that has been kind of hosted in their own local language, which is also supported through audio, multimedia, video and other content,” he remarked.
Boniface Akuku Digital Developer Specialist, World Bank stated that the event was quite important because, what they are looking at is the value of the knowledge that all these researchers have been doin and scientists are acknowledging to see the impact of what researchers are doing .
“ This knowledge help farmers to become better in terms of improving productivity, managing losses and getting money in the pocket. experts have come to that point where they are realizing the need to turn the knowledge to the scientists, to support, and address the challenges of the farmers. In the past, scientists have been doing research, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and they look for another research to do but today, they are coming to that critical point of acknowledging that they need to actually see impact of what the researchers are doing and now, the knowledge experts are helping researchers because researchers sometimes are very blind to that effect,” he explained.
As Africa faces mounting food security challenges, exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and geopolitical pressures, this move by the AARIEI Space, signals a new era for agricultural science in Africa grounded in partnership, powered by data, and driven by the needs of the continent’s farmers.
