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IITA news
1967 - 2017
No. 2355
28 November–2 December 2016
Special bulletin: P4D Week, Ibadan, Nigeria
IITA boss warns against paying lip service to agriculture
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he Director General of IITA, Nteranya Sanginga, has said that there would be negative consequences if Africa paid only lip service to agriculture, and failed to invest in the sector.
DG Sanginga also reiterated IITA’s commitment to supporting African smallscale farmers in agribusiness such that agriculture transcends “food for the fork” to “money in the pocket”.
Addressing members of the Board of Trustees of IITA and researchers during the 2016 Partnerships for Delivery (P4D) Week in Ibadan that ended on 25 November, DG Sanginga said the neglect of agriculture would cost $110 billion in terms of food imports by 2025 to feed Africans; up from the current $35 billion.
DG Sanginga.
According to him, IITA will continue to respond to the needs of Africa by developing innovations that will provide answers to Africa’s food insecurity. To this end, IITA will be demonstrating its scientific leadership not only in terms of qualitative research in the lab, but also impact in farmers’ fields.
He commended the African Development Bank for the new initiative—Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)—to transform agriculture on the continent.
DG Sanginga, who began his second tenure recently, said that IITA’s priority for the future would focus on research, capacity development, partnerships, impact at scale, and most importantly, delivery.
TAAT is a new program of the AfDB in collaboration with the CGIAR under the Feed Africa Initiative that aims to drive agricultural development on the continent.
The Director General said IITA’s internal reorganization had put the Institute in a better position to address the challenges confronting Africa more than ever before.
Through the TAAT program, the Bank will invest more than $800 million in the agricultural sector. The funds would be channeled into upscaling of proven innovations that will improve the lot of farmers and address the twin problems of food insecurity and unemployment.
He called on researchers to redouble their efforts and commitment to the ideas, mission, and vision of the Institute which includes lifting 11 million Africans out of poverty and the reclamation of 7.5 million hectares of degraded land and putting them into sustainable use.
Furthermore, a failure to invest in agriculture would deprive the continent of necessary jobs and further fuel the spiraling rate of unemployment among the youth on the continent. He acknowledged that although most African governments have come to the realization that agriculture was one of the ways to save the continent from the mess, most countries were not investing enough in the sector. “Take for instance, the commitment to invest at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture. Not many countries are meeting this goal,” DG Sanginga said.
The Chair of IITA’s Board of Trustees, Bruce Coulman, commended DG Sanginga for the efforts in repositioning IITA for the challenges ahead, stressing that the Board was convinced that “IITA is in safe hands.” He emphasized that IITA would continue to support Africa in achieving the goal of eradicating hunger and poverty in Africa. The P4D Week is a biannual event (alternating with Research for Development - R4D Week) that brings together more than 200 international researchers working for IITA across the world to review, share experiences, and plan the way forward.
IITA’s DG addresses the P4D Week audience in the IITA headquarters in Ibadan.
Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery, Kenton Dashiell said the P4D Week’s emphasis for the year was not just on research but also on delivery at scale.
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P4D Week focuses on transforming African agriculture
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his year’s Partnerships for Delivery (P4D) week, held 21-25 November, focused on unleashing the power of IITA’s research and delivery in transforming African agriculture. Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery, Kenton Dashiell, said, “This year, P4D Week is about delivering IITA’s results and research to the end users…delivery in terms of how IITA has had an impact on the lives of people in Africa and improved income and wellbeing of farmers”.
Director General, Nteranya Sanginga, laid out the Institute’s priorities for his second term. He said IITA’s operations need to be reorganized and to be managed and operated efficiently for delivery and impact for the next five years. According to him, this will be achieved by addressing operational inefficiencies for better delivery both in support services and Research for Development (R4D), and positioning IITA’s support system to manage mega projects. “One of the major objectives in the reorganization of IITA In his talk titled IITA innovations to is to strengthen the corporate services transform African agriculture, IITA and finance functions to be able to
A happy farmer displays bountiful cassava harvest in Nigeria.
improve operational efficiencies in support of improved delivery of IITA’s technologies,” Sanginga highlighted.
IITA Board of Trustees chair, Bruce Coulman congratulating the IITA family for another successful year.
Awards and recognition
sessions. The following posters won first prize in the various categories: Genomewide association mapping of correlated traits in cassava: dry matter and total carotenoid content by Ismail Rabbi, Molecular Geneticist, et al. for R4D; Design and fabrication of machines, establishment of cottage, small and/ or medium-scale commercial outfits to process agricultural crops by Thierno Diallo, an FMS consultant, under the corporate services category; and finally, the African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) project model, under the P4D Bruce Coulman congratulates Atehnkeng on his award, Awards were also presented to the section by Pieter Pypers, a senior with Ranajit Bandyopadhyay, leader of the Aflasafe team, looking on. best posters shown during the poster Agronomist on the ACAI project. As is the yearly practice at IITA, the scientist, staff, and unit with the best performance in 2015 were honored during P4D Week. The annual Board Excellence Awards were presented to Lava Kumar, Head of Germplasm and Health Unit, outstanding scientist; Idowu Ifaturoti of the Telecommunication Office, outstanding support staff; and the Project Administration Office, outstanding team. The paper by Atehnkeng et al. was named Outstanding Publication.
Lava Kumar (center) poses with his plaque flanked by DG Sanginga (right) and spouse Ranjana Bhattacharjee (left).
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Idowu Ifaturoti with BOT Chair Bruce Coulman (left) displays his outstanding support staff award plaque.
Kayode Awobajo with the BOT Chair, receives the outstanding team award on behalf of PAO.
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Capacity Development to support country implementation of ENABLE Youth and TAAT to transform Africa’s agriculture
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issemination and delivery of technologies at scale is now an important part of IITA’s work as it seeks to have impact in its effort to transform Africa’s agriculture. The Capacity Development Office (CDO) has an important role to play in this. During the inaugural P4D Week, the head of CDO, Zoumana Bamba, presented on the changes that have taken place.
CDO will now support countries in pre-incubation, incubation, and postincubation activities of the ENABLE Youth Program. “Pre-incubation activities include assessing existing technologies and resources, developing training programs, and setting up the incubation centers. The incubation period will have a lot of training and capacity building activities on areas such as technical and business skills to support the youth with their start-ups. And in postincubation, the program will continue to mentor and support them.
Bamba said CDO will work more to support countries implement the Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE Youth) project that the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) is rolling out across many African countries and to which IITA is providing technical support. ENABLE Youth especially targets countries such as Central Africa Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Sudan where IITA has little or no presence.
Bamba highligthing the new changes in the structure of the capacity development office.
Bamba said the unit has been focusing on training individuals but now realizes this is not enough as IITA moves into large-scale technology dissemination.
The unit has three new objectives: provide technical assistance to improve capacity to deliver technologies at scale along the value chains; support IITA’s capacity to achieve its mission and contribute to development; and share learning materials, methodologies, and tools.
Mechanization unit – supporting Africa to get rid of hand hoes and cutlasses
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ne of the main constraints to transforming Africa’s agriculture is low mechanization. IITA has therefore set up a new unit on Mechanization to look at how to reduce drudgery in the farm using appropriate
agricultural tools. Presenting on the new unit’s progress, Peter Kolawole said the Mechanization unit seeks to introduce appropriate technologies for African conditions for land clearing, preparation, and for harvesting and postharvest processing. “There are many machines available but in Africa, hoes and cutlasses are still the most popular tools. The World Bank shows the use of tractors in Africa is at a ratio of 13 tractors per 10,000,000 ha while in Asia we have 200 tractors per 10,000 ha,” Kolawole said. “Over 80% of grains are manually threshed and nearly 100% of harvested crops are sun-dried.” Some of the constraints he said were affordability of these technologies and skills to operate these machines. Therefore the unit will work closely with IITA’s Business Incubation Platform
(BIP) and through the ENABLE Youth and TAAT initiatives to increase the number of commercially active farmers and entrepreneurs and introduce service providers and machine hiring services, and train tractor operators and encourage farmers to use available machines and add value to farm produce. “Our plan therefore is to adapt technologies by pushing for the most appropriate and affordable; knowledge transfer by creating a cadre of welltrained technicians and farmers who can operate these machines; and extension services to provide farmers with the technologies they need and communicate with wider audiences,” Kolawole said. “The youth will have a very important role to play in sending the machetes and hand hoes to the museum!” he concluded.
Kolawole.
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What is IITA’s position in ongoing systems research and site integration of the CGIAR?
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umidtropics has been shut down but systems research is still alive and thriving and the concept has been mainstreamed in all CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs). The challenge now is the mechanism for the mainstreaming,” said Kwesi Atta-Krah as he updated IITA staff on the systems and site integration initiatives of CGIAR. Systems research, he said, is a holisitic approach that aims at integrating the human dimension and agroecological systems to improve overall productivity and livelihoods in a sustainable manner. It has two elements: integration and aggregation.
research, and to be able to look at institutional dynamics and make use of multi-stakeholder processes to ensure sufficient engagement of P4D and R4D parties. It also calls for institutional innovations to ensure effective partnerships. This calls for a new and wider spectrum of partners some of whom IITA has not interacted with adequately in the past.
On site integration, Kwesi said this was important for greater efficiency and impact at country level. Site integration includes aspects of coordination at site level, coordination of CGIAR activities in a country, better thematic In the new CRP phase, the systems alignment, and a more strategic CGIAR dimensions calls for expertise in engagement with the government and situational analysis, integrated systems partners.
Atta-Krah making his presentation on systems research.
He said site integration was taking place stepwise starting with six primary countries to be followed by 14 others. IITA was coordinating this in three countries―DR Congo, Nigeria, and Tanzania. It would also work closely with the other lead CGIAR centers in countries where the institution has a strong program. “The most important question for IITA was how we position ourselves and our research and delivery so we are seen as a significant partner to help countries achieve their strategic agriculture goals,” Attah-Krah said. This, he said, will include aligning R4D activities to country priorities and having good links with govern ments and other CGIAR centers and partners. The changes, he also said, are part of the reform at CGIAR to have centers working together more efficiently. The push has also come from donors who have felt that centers need to be better coordinated and aligned to country priorities as well as within the centers themselves such as IITA, which seeks to have more impact.
Food crops of importance to Africa on display.
Got a story to share? Please email it with photos and captions every Wednesday to Katherine Lopez (k.lopez@cgiar.org), Jeffrey T. Oliver (j.oliver@cgiar.org), Catherine Njuguna (c.njuguna@cgiar.org), or Adaobi Umeokoro (a.umeokoro@cgiar.org).
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Vox Pop: What does P4D mean to you? Elizabeth Sibale, Activity Manager, Feed the Future IITA, Malawi: P4D Week this year provides strategic guidance for development of future programs and an opportunity for knowledge and experience sharing among scientists. Due to its good research and development track record, IITA has built great trust in its donors so much so that they are willing to invest in IITA to do research, and give IITA a leadership role in research consortiums; and others are keen to partner with IITA to deliver IITAgenerated technologies to farmers. The DG has a great vision, as described in the TAAT. For over 50 years, development partners have been investing funds in the agricultural sector with very little impact. Investment should be targeting the youth who can quickly absorb new ideas and new technologies to provide that positive impact in the sector. As they say “one cannot teach an old dog a new trick”; it is true with technology. Bernard Vanlauwe, Director R4D, Central Africa hub: It was very refreshing to have a P4D Week and remind ourselves about the need to have our research products create change for smallholder famers in sub-Saharan Africa. The quality of the various presentations and contributions was very high this year. We can only be optimistic about the future for IITA as long as we can continue to put our research at the heart of agricultural development and transformation. IITA’s research products can only contribute to agricultural transformation in partnership with the many sectors that create the necessary enabling conditions for this transformation to happen. I wish IITA at 50 super research achievements. Pamela Pali, Coordinator, PASIC – planting effective policy, based in Uganda: The program was well structured. Participation of the
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Board of Trustees, the DG, Management, and scientists was very interactive and impressive. P4D Week has created an opportunity for us to see the need for boundary partners from the private sector to further our novel technologies. We can also partner with the advocacy partners to ensure an enabling policy environment for the uptake of our technologies. The DG’s vision is excellent especially because it ensures that our research is relevant. Our science and technologies will be better communicated and utilized using appropriate knowledge delivery mechanics. This is a critical case for scaling and impact. IITA’s golden jubilee is a confirmation of more strength in many years to come. Therese Gondwe, Te c h n o l o g y Dissemination Specialist, Zambia: Planning this year is much better than in previous years. I love the zeal Sanginga has. His plans will be achievable especially with good team work. Our research is developing speedily and partnership is all right too but I think we need to discuss more on partnership because there are many challenges. The challenge with partnership is people have different cultures and are difficult to convince. Rony Swennen, Banana Breeder, IITA-Arusha: It is a necessary step to think as a team together in a sitting, to use our research results for impact in farmers’ fields to accelerate the pace for improving livelihoods. There are many untapped opportunities; scientists need to push themselves to use their discoveries for application, not just for science. IITA scientists need to be strengthened, get more financial incentives, and need to start agribusiness. Research support is great. It takes vision and perseverance to succeed; hence the entire IITA team is needed. I wish IITA greater ideas for better development.
Bill Cunningham, BOT member: This is my first time being here but what I have seen and heard here this week is very positive and I think it is a very excellent idea to organize this sort of program. The arrangement in terms of presentations, organization, and the content of presentations were also impressive. The Board of Trustees from my own view is motivated with the Director General’s aspirations and accomplishments. I am very glad to be part of this. Amare Tegbaru, Gender Specialist, Tanzania: The interface of research and delivery has come out clearly and the presentation has demonstrated both research for development and partnership for delivery. It is obvious that IITA has to strive to bring new partners beyond the traditional research partners and particularly the private sector for outscaling of proven technologies for agricultural transformation to happen. I am happy with the way the DG shared his vision and emphasis in the next 5 years which includes quality of science, resource mobilization, advanced technology and professionalism, driven transparent financial and resource management system, and staff/institutional health and well-being. Christian Borgemeister, BOT member: This year’s P4D is in a new phase. In P4D, we are talking about delivery, about research output; it’s a quality control program and this is a continuous platform. The P4D Week program is well organized. The presentation deliveries are good. On the DG’s presentation, his vision for IITA for the next five years is a challenging task ahead. From his overview of what he has done in IITA, and with the progress so far, I think he is completely doing the
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right thing. He has the right partners. The implementation is going to be a challenge because it requires lots of mind changing of people to be able to deliver so daily hard work with cooperative team work is very important. It’s a rousing time for me. Bruce Coulman, BOT Chair: It is important to have partnership for development. I’m looking forward to hearing about the youth and agribusiness progress in the future. The debate on whether IITA research should focus on substantial farmers or on agribusiness was interesting to me, but I think both are very important. Josephine Okot, Managing Director of Victoria Seeds Ltd, BOT member: It is a great transformation from R4D to P4D because IITA’s mission is to reduce poverty for at least 11 million Africans and also transform 7.5 million hectares of land into sustainable land for production. I think it is an excellent week--we are now moving away from just the research agenda to deliverables and that is what makes a difference to agribusiness and business to the farmers and to government that intend to engage the youth in employment. I am very passionate about what IITA is doing. I can’t wait for IITA’s 50th year celebrations; whenever I make a presentation, I always mention this and invite everyone to support us. My message and encouragement to IITA is to have a more strategic forecast to enable the Institute to cope with the new global trends and bring more transformation to Africa. Roel Merckx, BOT member: IITA is doing something noble, so it is a learning process; there is the traditional R4D meeting which usually concentrates more on scientific findings and breakthroughs. This time it’s more about IITA Bulletin 2355
delivery of findings that have been done for the last decades. Everything is going well. It is very interesting to see that the changes introduced here are compelled to last. As a board member always participating in the annual R4D and now P4D it gives a better idea of what is going on. IITA having a new directorate for this program is very much needed. I have been working with IITA for 30 years and there are a lot of changes so I wish they continue on the good path they have chosen, the success path with the DG. Victoria Salin, BOT member: Partnership for Delivery is a very impressive strategy that has the advantage of building on the story of IITA known across the world. I work in Texas in agribusiness and IITA is known as a strong source of research that is relevant for Africa. To aim at improving the impact, there have to be other entities involved or necessarily research institutes, so getting relationships with the private sector with national or local government is a brilliant idea. It’s a pleasure to be in this great activity. My visit here has been wonderful. I liked the chance I had to tour the business incubation facilities and meeting a great deal of inspiring people. I want to say how proud we are for IITA and they should keep up the good work, spread the message about what is needed to the rest of the world because there are people around the world that are interested in agriculture as a business. Siva Chamarthi, postdoctoral fellowCowpea molecular breeder, IITA-Kano: This is my first time to attend the P4D programs in IITA. I was excited to know about IITA`s research and programs going on with the partners. Apart from this I got an opportunity to meet scientists from the different stations. All presentations are informative and IITA has made tremendous progress in terms of research and development especially in our mandate crops. The future of IITA is very challenging and I am sure it will succeed with its excellent vision
and goal. I learned that some of the achievements and developments have already shown impact on poor farmers in Africa. IITA has very good facilities and network partners to deliver our outputs to the poor farmers and also to markets. The idea of an agribusiness platform will especially show good impact on agricultural transformation in the lives of poor farmers in Africa. The DG`s vision and his road map to achieve IITA goals are excellent. Because of his visionary leadership skills today, IITA stands first place among other CGIAR centers. I learned from his talk that IITA has made tremendous progress in the last five years in achieving our goals and changing the lives of poor farmers in Africa, through our research and development, agribusiness, and youth Agripreneurs, etc. I am more confident we will achieve more in the next five years. Kayode Awobajo, Project Development and Administration Unit, Ibadan: This first P4D week was well organized and indeed a huge success. Kudos to IITA management and the organizers. The enthusiasm of partners wanting to collaborate with IITA is quite remarkable. The DG’s exemplary passion towards achieving his great vision has motivated individual staff to redouble our efforts to continue to provide the needed support in the area of performance and quality service delivery. The obvious excitement shown by IITA staff during the DG’s presentation gave a positive impression about the commitment of staff to align with the DG’s vision. I say big congratulations to the pride of Africa, DG Sanginga, and his winning team. I wish the entire staff of IITA a happy 50th anniversary celebration. I’m glad to be part of this historic event and specially appreciate all our past and present leaders who laid the foundation for these huge success stories. David Ojo, Soybean Scientist, SARDSC: It was really a very exciting P4D Week full of hope and aspirations. From the poster viewing, research achievements were progressive with good dissemination/diffusion potentials. However, IITA partners in agricultural
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transformation are not yet there. They need to be identified and well informed. Our DG’s vision for the next 5 years in IITA is progressive, transformative, and fascinating. I want to wish all IITA staff a very great, progressive, and rewarding celebration. Livia Stavolone, Visiting Scientist: It has been an interesting week with quite a lot of information exchange. The majority of the research achievements presented at the P4D Week showed that there’s great potential for the future. I believe that the next years will be critically very productive for building partnerships. It is also very important for IITA to put more effort in product development. Let us celebrate the success built during the last 50 years and plan for even more
fruitful and rewarding results for the following 50 years!
together, and steadily move towards the goal. Yes, we can!
Lade Oke, Human R e s o u r c e s Manager, Ibadan: The P4D week was a huge success. It brought together the various aspects of IITA’s operations— science, partnerships, corporate services, and finance. It was a meeting of one large family reviewing their current status and looking into the future. The DG’s vision presents so much inspiration and energy to carry on with renewed enthusiasm. IITA at 50 is just beginning a new phase of relevance in Africa and the world. The Institute has come a long way and it is cheering that it is highly responsive to the present and future needs of its constituency—sub-Saharan Africa. We all have to keep together, work
Beatrice Aighewi, Yam Seed System Specialist: The theme of the week was very apt and it was very clear that good partnerships must be developed and sustained for a successful R4D. I observed that a lot of research work is going on and much has been achieved but publicity is low. Apart from focusing only on scientific publications, we should put our achievements in formats that development partners can use especially as we celebrate these first 50 years of achievements, and kick off the next fifty years anticipating even greater accomplishments. IITA has never had it so well and so good. Congratulations!!!
Youth Agripreneurs program forging ahead to change youth mindsets to agriculture in Africa
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n the second day of P4D Week, youth Agripreneurs presented on their various activities. The presentations were started off by the leader of the Youth Agripreneurs at IITA, Evelyn Ohanwusi. She said the initial vision of the program was to support youth at the individual level by moving incomes from 0 to $700 a month and at the institutional level to create an independent youth agribusiness center. All these have been achieved. “At the individual level we have been able to prompt a change in youth mindsets towards agriculture. Most of us did not study agriculture but we have seen the opportunities in agriculture. We have seen how we can bring various technologies such as ICT and communication into agriculture. We are also now funding our own activities from our production activities, providing services, and also writing grants. So far we have also raised over $600,000 in Nigeria alone from two projects funded by Chevron Nigeria Ltd. We are also partnering with IITA’s research programs,” she said. Across Africa, the Agripreneurs group now has 15 groups with about 385 members who are running 36 enterprises as part of experiential learning. These are active and present in seven African countries―DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
IITA Bulletin 2355
Agripreneurs from all IITA hubs talk about their activities in Africa.
Ohanwusi said the youth in agribusiness unit also leads in advocacy, capacity development, and policy dialogue for youth in agribusiness as well as oversee the implementation of the ENABLE Youth program and partner with the Business Incubation Platform (BIP). Testimonials were given by youth Agripreneurs from all over Nigeria, attesting to how the program has transformed them. Presentations were also made by representatives of the Youth Agripreneurs program in West, East, Central, and Southern Africa. They shared on the various activities and enterprises they were running. The groups were involved in vegetable production, processing
and value addition, fish farming as well as provision of services such as weed farming and hiring of equipment. They also presented on various innovative uses of ICTs that they had developed in agriculture. According to Isuwa Zacheus from Nigeria, the Fished Up app developed by the Abuja IITA Youth Agripreneurs was declared a winner during the 2016 Fish Farming Agrihack West Africa competition. Beckie Nakabugo from Uganda who presented activities in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania talked about the online food basket platform that the group was pioneering in Uganda. It enabled their clients to order vegetables online from the comfort of their offices. page 7
Red Ferrari: Journey of an award-winning entrepreneur, Josephine Okot
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he Red Ferrari lecture at this year’s P4D Week was delivered by Josephine Okot, the proprietor of Victoria Seed Company in Uganda and also an IITA board member. Okot has received many national and international awards including the prestigious YARA Prize for Green Revolution in Africa in 2007. In 2014 she was nominated as the Business Woman of the Year at the Uganda MTN Awards. Victoria Seeds Ltd. was also nominated as Best Seed Company of the Year 2013 by Uganda Responsible Investment Award. Okot spoke about her journey to create Victoria Seeds Ltd., a successful seed company in Uganda that looks out for smallholder farmers and the challenges of the seed sector.
“So what does it take to start a seed company? You need confidence and to believe in yourself. When I told my friends I was starting a seed company they thought I was out of my mind. That is a business for men, they told me. But I pushed on and even picked up a name that would inspire me every day,” she said. She added that one also needed to have a passion and perseverance to go beyond obstacles. A month after she started the company, she approached a bank for a loan but the bank shut down the doors on her.
“But what did I do? I went to a research project—the East African Agricultural Productivity Programme and presented my plan. They wrote me a letter to take to the bank to guarantee my loan if I fail Okot recounted how she started Victoria to repay it. The bank then accepted to Seeds in response to the government’s give me startup capital,” she said. plan to modernize agriculture and tackle the many challenges facing the Okot says one will make plenty of mistakes in business but learn from agriculture sector. them and don’t quit. As a woman you The plan sought to improve the also need to constantly keep learning livelihoods of farmers and transform and updating yourself. them from subsistence to commercial producers, improve access to modern On the awards she has received, she farming technologies, and support attributed this to the fact that Victoria private sector development. The Seeds was not a company that simply government also recognized that looked at the bottom line – profits. women needed support to access and “We are not just about making control production assets. profits. We believe if we develop the “This environment motivated me to start Victoria Seeds in 2002 because the policy was favorable,” she said.
communities that we are working in and improve their lives, our business will also thrive. We also focus on women as we believe they do the bulk
Okot.
of the agricultural work and they keep families together during the civil war. So many of the awards we received are as a result of our corporate social responsibility (CSR). Okot said the company was now among the top local seed companies in Uganda with its chain of agro dealers. It had even expanded its business to Rwanda. She hoped the business would continue to grow vertically and move into value addition. The company was ranked second in East Africa in the Regional Access to Seed Index in 2016 outperforming many multinationals and much bigger seed companies in the region. Josephine also noted her journey to becoming an entrepreneur was greatly boosted by a training from the then Gender and Diversity unit of the CGIAR (now known as AWARD). “In 2006 I was an AWARD grantee at IITA and this really transformed me as an individual. The following year I got the YARA award. The training was for scientists but they brought me in as a woman in business,” she said.
IITA is turning 50!
IITA staff and board members came together for this historical shoot.
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