Contributed by Selome Kebede, BENEFIT Senior Communication Officer

BENEFIT-CASCAPE in collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock Resources (MoALR) organized a one-day high level stakeholders’ workshop on “Effective technology generation and delivery through linking agriculture education, research and extension”, on May 24, 2018 at Bin International Hotel in Debre Zeyit.

Over 60 participants including State Minister of MoALR, EIAR Director General and Deputy DGs, presidents and deans of universities, Directors of the Regional Agriculture Research Institutes (RARIs), heads of Bureaus of Agriculture and MoALR Extension Directorate and BENEFIT staff members attended the workshop. The primary objective of the multi-stakeholder workshop (high level meeting) was to strengthen the competencies and leadership capacities of current leaders to promote collaboration along the entire agricultural technology generation and delivery. More specifically, the workshop objectives were:

• To share the findings of a study on gaps  in methods and linkages along technology generation and delivery chain;
• To establish functional linkages among institutions that are working on agricultural education, research and extension;
• To synthesize key policy and strategic inputs the Ministry’s senior leadership team can promote to create demand driven technology generation and delivery and thereby ensure participation of the primary change agents and the farmers in the entire chain.

Three high level presentations were given for discussion – namely, the CASCAPE supported study findings of the participatory action research along with research and extension experiences in implementing the PAR approach and existing gaps. The workshop was a great success in understanding the existing gaps and develop strategic action plans to promote high impact partnership among the three institutions.

The workshop was jointly organized by EIAR and BENEFIT-CASCAPE.