Curricula reviews and development
Building on various studies carried out to assess human and institutional capacities within its member institutions, and leveraging on support initiatives from development partners ANAFE has developed curricula guides for application at Certificate, Diploma, Graduate, Post Graduate and Vocational levels (Agribusiness, Agroforestry, Neglected and Under Utilized Species (NUS), Risk management and others) in which various stakeholders including farmers, students, industry, researchers, educators, policy-makers and investors can participated. Over 70 universities and colleges have been assisted to review, improve and diversify the content of their certificate, diploma, graduate and postgraduate curricula in Agriculture, Agroforestry, Forestry and Natural Resources Management in respect to new and emerging issues like Risk Management, Agribusiness, climate change and Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS). The developed curricula have been successfully piloted with four institutions and many more teaching institutions have expressed interest to implement the curricula. This proven experience by ANAFE in curriculum development and piloting will come in useful in strengthening capacities for developing competitive regional agriculture value chains in Africa.
Postgraduate research support
To expand capacity for agricultural innovation, ANAFE regularly runs fellowship programmes, which provide research and internship support to undergraduate and postgraduate students in African universities and colleges. So far, over 400 students from different universities and colleges have benefited from research and internship grants. This facility is very vital in providing solutions to the various Agricultural value chains limitations and challenges, but also for building research capacity, and transformative knowledge/innovations pool for the agriculture sector.
Building the capacity of lecturers and leaders
ANAFE regularly offers regional and continental training lecturers and leaders of member institutions’ on various areas such as pedagogy, andragogy, governance and other specialized areas of Agroforestry, Forestry, and Agribusiness. Over 700 lecturers have attended regional and sub-regional retooling courses organized by ANAFE.
Contextualized Learning materials
Working closely with member institutions, ANAFE has supported collaborative development and publication of contextualized learning materials on Agroforestry, Forestry, Agribusiness and Risk Management. These initiatives are driven by the realization that African education and training institutions and agencies do not have adequate learning resources that match the continent’s unique educational needs, especially within the realms of Agroforestry Forestry, Agricultural Risk Management and Agribusiness. This approach will be very helpful in putting together teaching materials/aids for the upstream and downstream value chains management capacity development initiatives.
A functional network
ANAFE has facilitated regular meetings, scientific symposia, communication, information sharing and exchange of expertise among persons and institutions straddling Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Social Sciences. The exchange of faculty and students across colleges and universities is an example of South-South collaboration that makes better use of available expertise. To reinforce the networking process, various monographs on education networking, curricula and teaching manuals have been produced by members and are widely used by the Network and others. A quarterly newsletter, Agricultural Education News, provides peer information that acts as a bridge to improve contacts for better teaching and learning.