UNU Update: INTECH launches ACP workshops

The newsletter of United Nations University and its international
network of research and training centres/programmes

Issue30: March-April 2004

INTECH hosts workshops
for ACP policymakers

Workshop participants and faculty at the launch of the ACP training programme.

UNU Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH) and the Netherlands-based Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) have launched a collaborative research and training programme to generate information on Innovation Systems in the Agriculture Sector in six African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

The programme will boost implementation of related policies and programmes in ACP countries and develop local research capacity to conduct similar studies and to monitor the development of the Agricultural Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (ASTIP) systems. It also aims to enhance national and regional science and technology policy dialogues for agricultural and rural development in ACP.

As part of the programme, CTA is funding a series of training workshops for researchers from selected ACP countries. The inaugural workshop, held at INTECH in Maastricht February 8-14, attracted participants from Jamaica, Senegal, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, Kenya and South Africa, all senior researchers from national agricultural research institutes.

The course was conducted by UNU-INTECH research staff and addressed various dimensions of national innovation systems and technological capability building, drawing on relevant comparative case studies to illustrate specific research problems likely to be encountered by the ACP research teams. Given the central role of trade in agricultural commodities, within the framework of ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, the workshop also focused on developments in the World Trade Organisation process and other international trade agreements, highlighting issues of special concern to ACP countries.

Each workshop participant presented a country report describing the policy making context and identifying the key actors and agricultural commodities around which the country case studies will be developed. The participants were guided through the methodology for undertaking fieldwork for the national innovation system studies and following the workshop, they will embark on fieldwork that will feed into the national innovation studies. Information on the programme and related CTA initiatives is available on CTA's Knowledge for Development website.