The mission of AfricaSeeds is to meet the development needs of the seed sector in collaboration with stakeholders and funding partners through integrated actions, public-private partnerships and networks, in order to develop sustainable national, regional and continental seed programs and industries, in line with the African Seeds and Biotechnology Program (ASBP) of the African Union.
To implement its mission, AfricaSeeds cannot act alone. Understanding that the assignment of building a credible and effective seed sector for Africa will be a shared responsibility of all actors and partners acting together, based on the AU Malabo Declaration on Accelerated African Agricultural Growth and Transformation as it relates to the seed sector, AfricaSeeds recognizes the below key areas as its agenda of required intervention, to be addressed by all partners, which will enhance the critical role of seeds in African agriculture growth and transformation.
Small and medium sized enterprises
AfricaSeeds will promote a rapid development and growth in seed enterprises in which small and medium scale seed entities are prioritized with demand-driven marketing arrangements which efficiently and profitably assure farmers of continuous access to quality seeds adapted to their farming areas.
Policy and regulatory regimes
AfricaSeeds will promote the development of a facilitatory regime of policy and regulatory processes at national, regional and continental levels which will ensure the right technical, operational and investment climate and provide the required basis for actions by governments, farmers, the private sector enterprises, civil society organizations and other stakeholders in the short, medium and long term.
Expanding crop improvement benefits
AfricaSeeds will support the adoption of a corrective program of expanding the benefits of modern crop improvement to the large number of traditional and minor crops which have hitherto been sidelined by research and the seed companies. In line with this, interventions are required to widen the seed industry portfolio and incorporate several key seed types of vegetatively propagated crops, indigenous and traditional vegetable crops, tree crops and minor cereals; and further enhance the contributions of the informal seed sector through the introduction of variety improvement and quality assurance into the sector.
Coordination and monitoring
AfricaSeeds will ensure a holistic coordination and monitoring of all seed sector efforts with a view to enhancing collaboration by all stakeholders, deploying public-private partnership strategies, eliminating duplications, assessing possible gaps and facilitating the actions required to address the gaps as well as taking advantage of emerging opportunities. The establishment of credible targets and benchmarks as well as progress measurement indicators linked to the CAADP Results Framework will be important aspects of coordination.
Strategic action
The above agenda will need to be implemented through a strategic sharing of roles among seed sector development partners, under a purpose-built coordination system, and supported by a continental seed sector development financing mechanism. To enable this agenda, AfricaSeeds strategy for 2016-2025 has been adopted by the Governing Board in December 2015. For the implementation of this strategy, a medium-term action plan has also been defined.
The mission of AfricaSeeds is to meet the development needs of the seed sector in collaboration with stakeholders and funding partners through integrated actions, public-private partnerships and networks
