G20 Development Working Group Submissions
will assess and share lessons learned in due course.
In-Depth Assessment: Support for building
capacity in tropical agriculture technologies and
productive systems - the Tropical Agricultural
Platform (TAP)
Following the commitments made by G20 Agriculture
Ministers in 2011, the TAP was launched by the
FAO at the first G20 Meeting of Agriculture Chief
Scientists (Guadalajara, 26 September 2012).
The Platform aims to achieve greater coherence
of capacity development and knowledge sharing
in order to improve agricultural production and
productivity in tropical countries, with a particular
focus on smallholders. Those benefitting from the
initiative are policymakers, institutions and actors
from the private sector and civil society involved in
agricultural innovation in the tropics. The partners
of the platform comprise a coalition of national
agricultural research, education and extension
institutions, the private sector, civil society and
farmers' organizations in G20 and developing
countries, as well as key regional and international
fora, networks and agencies (totaling 37 constituents
in April 2013).
The rationale for the initiative stems from the
importance of addressing bottlenecks to agricultural
innovation in the tropical region, which encompasses
almost all of the least developed countries (LDC)
«Men weighing food India.» Credit Photo:
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THE WORLD BANIC GROUP
in the world. These countries often lack resources
and capacities to develop their innovation systems
effectively (investments in agricultural innovation
among low-income tropical countries amount to
less than 10% of the total global investment in
agricultural R&D) 4. Yet, previous attempts to address
this agricultural innovation gap in tropical areas
had limited success due to insufficient alignment
with country and regional policy needs and/or
insufficient coordination and synergies among them.
Alignment with Core G20 and DWG Mandate:
By focusing support on capacity building and
knowledge sharing within some of the poorest
countries, the TAP can enhance G20 efforts to
achieve strong, sustainable and balanced economic
growth in LICs.
COMMITMENT 21: Call for support to build
capacity in tropical agriculture technologies and
productive systems
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Implementation:
Following the TAP launch, in October 2012, Punta
Del Este, Uruguay, hosted the first meeting of partners
to develop the Platform's constituency, the definition
of its operational framework (encompassing the
General Assembly and the Steering Committee)
and a work program for its inception phase. A six-
month inception phase was initiated in December
2012 (completed on 30th May 2013). This
phase included regional assessments to define
the priorities, capacities and needs of agricultural
innovation systems in selected target countries in
Africa (facilitated by the Forum for Agricultural
Research in Africa - FARA), Asia (facilitated by the
Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study
and Research in Agriculture - SEARCA) and Latin
America/Caribbean (facilitated by the International
Center for Tropical Agriculture - CIAT).
Ray Witlin/World Bank
http://www.tropagplatform.org/about
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