Republic of the Congo Officially admitted to ASARECA family
ASARECA General Assembly as officially accepted the admission of the Republic of Congo into ASARECA family, making RoC the 12th member of ASARECA.
“Given that ASARECA was mandated by the six ECAATP countries to be the regional coordinator of ECAATP, inclusion of RoC into the Association ensures that it gets the same status as the other countries in the Governance Structure of the Association,” said Dr. Agona, the Board Chairman.
Based on the foregoing, the ASARECA Management and the Board of Directors initiated the process of enlisting RoC into the Association following the procedures laid down in the ASARECA Constitution and Governance Manual. This process begun in July 2018.
The Chairman of the Board sent a formal invitation to the Minister for Scientific Research and Technological Innovation in RoC, under whose docket ECAATP falls and the National Agriculture Research Institute (INRA-Congo). Subsequently, the Minister submitted a formal application to the ASARECA Board of Directors to enlist RoC as the 12th member of the Association. The 27th ASARECA Ordinary Meeting of the Board of Directors held from 12th – 15th December 2018 favourably received the application.
Inclusion of RoC into ASARECA will ensure the spectrum of sharing. The admission of RoC is strategic for ASARECA as the institution seeks to expand its influence and mandate to cover countries in ECA that are missing out on benefits of regionally coordinated AR4D initiatives. Already RoC is set to participate in ECAATP, a mega transformation project, which ASARECA is slated to coordinate
“It is with pleasure that I take this honour to inform you of the formal admission of the Republic of the Congo (RoC) as the 12th and newest Member State of ASARECA,” said Dr. Ambrose Agona, the Board Chairman, to a thunderous applause.
Dr. Agona said the RoC is located in the Central Africa sub-region that ASARECA is also supposed to cover. RoC experiences the same challenges that call for regional collaboration in agricultural research for development just like the current 11 member states.
“Furthermore, RoC is one of the countries that will be implementing the Eastern and Central Africa Agriculture Transformation Project (ECAATP), others being: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. RoC will focus on cassava, oil crops, beans and poultry. These will significantly contribute to the Association’s delivery of some of the highly demanded sustainable technologies, innovations and management practices to other member states,” he noted.
Date Published:
Thursday, 02 May 2019