The RUFORUM Community Action Research Programme: A Programme to Link African Universities to Communities and Agribusiness

The Community Action Research Programme of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is an initiative that aims to support universities in Africa to better support rural communities to improve their production systems by better targeting their knowledge and expertise to the needs of the rural communities and contribute to meeting the targets of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme. Universities have mandate for teaching, research and extension and are often staffed with a significant pool of trained experts, many at Masters and PhD level but are challenged by their inability to respond to the needs of small farm holders. This paper highlights the underlying design of the CARP Programme and describes its underpinning: 1) African universities need to be able to improve their ability to identify research priorities based on local issues and challenges and mobilise the relevant funding, particularly from local sources to support research; 2) Universities should enhance their ability to learn and adapt ongoing research and development efforts to ensure that they can improve the targeting of research and enhance the impacts of their research on the target population, the rural African farmer; 3) Universities should design and implement better mechanisms for integrating the lessons learnt from research into curriculum as a means of improving the sharing of knowledge and providing the next generation of leaders with the relevant knowledge required to enable them support African production for the coming generations, and 4) Universities should support the private sector through the strengthening of specific value chains to improve the competitiveness of African products.