Four series of two- to four-day technical clinics were organized by IFPRI’s West and Central Africa office (WCAO) from September 2016 to May 2017 at the IFPRI office in Dakar, Senegal. The clinics were delivered as part of the support that IFPRI and ReSAKSS provide to the African Union Commission (AUC) and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA).  

The main objective of these clinics is to support country efforts to appraise existing National Agricultural Investment Plans (NAIPs) and design new plans considering the commitments and targets made by African leaders in the Malabo Declaration of 2014.

This capacity building effort was provided to a NAIP Experts Group of African researchers, which has been formed to carry out the analytical work on NAIPs to guide national country officials in revising these plans. Participants of the Experts Group were drawn from leading African research networks, including the African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium (AGRODEP), the Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes (ReNAPRI), and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC).

Since 2016, more than 100 African experts have attended the clinics. The clinics were conducted by Task Force members from IFPRI and other international institutions, who will continue to provide backstopping support to the Experts Group. The clinics were provided to familiarize the NAIP Experts Group members on tools and methodologies for analysis in the areas of climate smart agriculture, gender, foresight tools, public agricultural expenditure analysis, regional trade, food security and nutrition, inclusive growth and value chain development, and setting agricultural growth and poverty reduction goals and country modeling. Following the clinics, the NAIP Experts Group will begin to carry out the analytical work for NAIP appraisal and design, based on requests from countries and regions.