Eastern and Southern Africa

Previous South Asia
The ACIAR region of eastern and southern Africa currently takes in 11 countries where there are ACIAR-supported projects and programs. Our footprint, however, extends beyond these borders due to our association with the four CGIAR centres and many regional organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. The regional strategy focuses on promoting regional collaboration while helping create new opportunities, particularly for Africa's smallholder farmers.
15 ACIAR projects, 11 countries, 2 locally-based staff, A$7.3 million invested in to research projects, 11.2% of ACIAR project investment, 19 organisations commissioned to lead ACIAR projects, >60 fellowship alumni

Countries where we work

Burundi | Ethiopia | Kenya | Malawi | Mozambique | Rwanda | South Africa | Tanzania | Uganda | Zambia | Zimbabwe

Region highlights

September 2019: ACIAR attended the 2019 African Green Revolution Forum in Accra, Ghana—a flagship event for African agriculture. The forum’s theme was ‘Grow digital: leveraging digital transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa’. The ‘Insects for feed for poultry and fish production in Kenya and Uganda’ project was among the projects showcased in a side event on making research and innovation work for women and youth in Africa held by ACIAR partner, the International Development Research Centre.

October 2019: The Australian High Commissioner to Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, Ms Alison Chatres, joined the ACIAR team in Uganda for an end-term review of the ACIAR-funded and ICRAF-implemented ‘Developing value chains innovation platforms for food security’ project. The project sought to identify principles and drivers that support scalable establishment of effective and equitable innovation platforms that enhance food security through greater engagement of smallholder farmers with markets.

November 2019: The World Agroforestry team hosted the ACIAR forestry research manager, Dr Nora Devoe, and the ACIAR Africa team and project coordinators in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya for a two-day meeting on the ongoing ACIAR-funded ‘Trees for food security’ project. The project coordinators presented their research results as well as challenges encountered during implementation.

November 2019: The World Agroforestry team hosted the Research Program Manager, Dr Nora Devoe, and the ACIAR Africa team and project coordinators in Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya for a two-day meeting on the ACIAR-funded ‘Trees for food security’ project. The coordinators presented their research results and challenges encountered during implementation. The Africa team held its second ACIAR Fellowship Alumni event via the Science Communication Series workshop, ‘Stakeholder netmapping workshop for enhancing use of research outcomes’. Two alumni from the Australia Awards Africa cohort in Kenya joined 18 alumni (from both John Dillon and John Allwright fellowships) from Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda.

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