Ghana is among six African countries meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Practicing Agricultural Innovation in Africa to address the key policies that can create an enabling environment for increased investments in agricultural innovation that would spur greater productivity in the agriculture sector.

The other countries are host Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique and Kenya .The conference aims to share findings from case studies of agricultural innovation in six countries: with focus on the agribusiness sector, where the role of public policy is closely examined. The studies were complemented by documentation of a wider range of successful innovations in these countries pertaining not only to agricultural productivity and processing, but also to rural energy, physical environment, and water supply.

The World Bank Institute has partnered with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation to organise this collaborative forum on identifying which policies and targeted interventions best support technological advancements in the above-mentioned sectors. The aim is to identify and support replication, scaling-up and the spread of successful innovations in the six African countries. Additional support is being provided by the Government of Ireland and the Global Development Network.

Each country is represented by a team of experts from agri-businesses, research institutes, NGOs and government agencies that will interpret the recent findings and use their experiences to develop a national action plan for agricultural innovation.

'With the high food prices globally and the significant attention and support that food security issues have gotten, it becomes even more important to think in the medium and long term on how to increase agricultural productivity in Africa. Improving agricultural innovation in Africa is an important avenue to improve food security. Agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. The largest private sector economic activity in Africa is agriculture.' said Mr John McIntire, World Bank Country Director, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi. He says today's fight against poverty will be won or lost in rural areas, home to about 70% of the world's poor.

Recognizing the necessity of engaging this challenge, African governments adopted in 2002 a Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program under the auspices of their New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). This Program states that larger investments in agricultural research, extension and education systems are required to achieve the targeted increase in agricultural output of 6 percent a year over the next 20 years. African governments subsequently committed themselves to boosting their investments in agriculture to 10 percent of GDP by 2015.

Mr. John Nielsen, Head of Technical Advisory Services, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights that it is hoped that one of the important and sustainable outcomes of the Forum will be the development of new partnerships within agriculture and agribusiness development. In addition, it is hoped that the forum will provide new insights and ideas that will contribute to spurring technology and innovation in favour of raising productivity, employment and economic growth in Africa.

Mr. Jacob Fuchs, Head of Division, Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation underlines the commitment of Danish universities to furthering the cooperation in agricultural education and research with partners in Africa hoping to advance the knowledge base and thereby development in general.