Young women, refugees, displaced persons and people with disabilities across Africa will be among the expected 1.2 million beneficiaries of the second and more ambitious cycle of the Transforming African Agricultural Universities to Meaningfully Contribute to Africa’s Growth and Development (TAGDev) programme, which will run until the end of 2033.
The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the Mastercard Foundation have just signed the new 10-year funding deal for the TAGDev agricultural education programme. RUFORUM oversees the programme’s implementation.
The TAGDev 2.0 programme will build on TAGDev 1.0 that had run for eight years since 2016. The new cycle of the programme aims at impacting 820,000 young women. It is also targeting 300,000 refugees and displaced persons, and 120,000 persons with disabilities across Africa, critical groups who had not been deliberately targeted under the 2016-24 TAGDev 1.0.
It will also seek to update 1,600 courses across 80 academic programmes taught in African universities, besides incorporating an even wider consortium of partners, beneficiaries and implementing universities.
Implementing universities
While the previous programme was implemented by Uganda’s Gulu and Kenya’s Egerton universities, it is now being expanded to include 21 institutions across the continent. This was disclosed during the TAGDev 2.0 launch at the RUFORUM Triennial Conference that took place in Windhoek, Namibia on 12-16 August. It was themed 'Operationalising Higher Agricultural Education and Research Ecosystems for Innovation, Industrialisation and Economic Development in Africa: A Call for Action'.
New participating institutions will include the Africa University in Zimbabwe, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco, the University of Bamenda in Cameroon, and the University of the Free State in South Africa.
Also taking part in TAGDev 2.0 are Ghana’s University of Cape Coast, the University of Eldoret in Kenya, the Malawi University of Science and Technology, the Uganda Martyrs University, the National University of Agriculture in Benin, and the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. These are in addition to the original partners, Gulu and Egerton universities.
The universities will host hundreds of students from marginalised segments of society under scholarships over the next eight-year period for undergraduate studies, to conduct research and transfer their research to farmers, while partnering with technical and vocational education and training institutions (TVETs) to domesticate technical knowledge.
Agri-business entrepreneurial skills
The project will also equip students with agri-business entrepreneurial skills necessary to own and run a business successfully, ultimately creating jobs and promoting self-reliance.
It was developed in collaboration with 12 leading universities and the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA), the aim being to equip the continent’s most vulnerable young people with the skills and opportunities needed to transform their futures and that of their communities, said Tina Muparadzi, the executive director, education and transitions, at the Mastercard Foundation.
It has also been designed to ‘revolutionise’ agricultural education and empower young people across Africa through strengthening agricultural universities and TVETs.
“TAGDev 2.0 represents a bold commitment to transforming the lives of Africa’s most vulnerable young people through the power of education. By methodically targeting and supporting these individuals we are, not only opening doors to their success, but also creating a ripple effect that strengthens agricultural and TVET institutions and communities across the continent,” she noted.
“This programme is a catalyst for sustainable agricultural development,” the director added.
The initiative will take African universities from their comfort zones and challenge them to take their place as facilitators of development, with the continent’s youth being at the centre, and acting as drivers of the change process, said Professor Patrick Okori, RUFORUM executive secretary.
He stated: “TAGDev 2.0 represents RUFORUM’s commitment to advancing a greater value proposition of universities and TVETs to Africa’s agricultural and higher education ecosystem by demonstrating the development contribution of universities.
“No young person in Africa should be academically starved when there is so much capacity from our universities to explore their full potential. Academic hunger in Africa must stop,” Okori added.
He further observed that the TAGDev 1.0 initiative, which began with Gulu and Egerton universities in Uganda and Kenya, has demonstrated significant success in supporting students from economically challenged backgrounds.
The first phase of the project has, since 2016, benefited more than 350,000 farmers and community members, and 243 enterprises created by young people who have been supported directly by the project, and by extension directly employed 1,600 people, in what can be described as a transformative effect on higher agricultural education and entrepreneurship, said Professor Anthony Egeru, the programme manager, training and community development, RUFORUM.
Implementing universities under the phase had to make tough decisions to ensure they accommodated and met the education needs of all the students, including those who already had families or had other unique circumstances, he said.
“There were instances where difficult decisions had to be made, such as whether or not to accommodate students who were pregnant at the time of enrolment. However, the choice was made to support these students, resulting in successful outcomes and timely graduations,” he recounted. “The same spirit of understanding and support is now being encouraged among the universities joining TAGDev 2.0,” he added.
The TAGDev 2.0 phase, he disclosed, had been built on a solid foundation established through various RUFORUM community development programmes and training initiatives at the various member universities that included the Collaborative Action for Scaling Agri-Entrepreneurship and Industry Engagement in Food and Agribusiness Training in Sub-Saharan Africa, or AgriSCALE, and the Sharing Innovations and Experiences from Korea for Higher Education Transformation in Africa, or SIKET, project, among others.
The collaboration enabled a socially and gender-inclusive strategy to recruit, train and equip young people in entrepreneurial skills for the 21st-century job market.
Image: Istock
