Is there life after N2Africa? A question I keep asking myself as we are in the final month of the very generous funding we have received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The answer of course is a resounding YES! – although we will not be able to support the same degree of activities in future many activities will continue. To ensure the legacy of our work we are busy writing research papers and various other reports and outputs. We bring you summaries of the last year reports from the N2Africa Core Countries in this Podcaster as well as reports on a closing workshop in Ethiopia and a policy workshop in Tanzania. The Ethiopia workshop addressed engagement with policy makers to see how the goals of N2Africa could be embedded into national policy. This was also the topic of a policy workshop we report on that was held in Tanzania which was the culmination of many earlier consultations.
| Photo: The latest N2Africa Doctor – Ilse de Jager – who received her PhD on the 18th June for her thesis entitled “Harvesting nutrition” supervised by Inge Brouwer and Ken Giller |  |
Many of the N2Africa staff are also in the process of writing applications for grants and contracts and we are confident a number of the strands of work that N2Africa has started with continue into the future. We highlight one example is strengthening the soyabean sector in Ghana where N2Africa and partners have been requested to help by the Minister of Agriculture. In Uganda, a platform is active comprised of private sector actors including ICT extension, microfinance and input and output markets together with NGOs which is continuing large-scale dissemination activities.
We are very proud of the efforts of many N2Africa partners and staff in translating the outcomes of research – Esther Ronner has brought these together in a summary document with hyperlinks to enable these to be shared with partners. Please see the report below and spread the word!
As we have a lot of ongoing activities and will continue writing up outcomes and impacts from N2Africa we have decided to continue with issues of this newsletter at least until the end of the year. If you have news from N2Africa or related activities that you would like to share please do get in touch.
Ken Giller