ReNAPRI is pleased to announce that it has finalized a 2 year partnership agreement with FoodTrade East and Southern Africa. FoodTrade ESA is a 5 year trade enhancement and promotion programme, with a focus on staple food crops making it a strategic and highly relevant partner for ReNAPRI.
Funded by the UK Government, FoodTrade ESA operates in nine East and Southern African countries, and works with the private sector and relevant institutions to innovate in areas such as improved storage, inputs and service markets, information and coordination mechanisms and policy and regulation with the aim to increase the number of people trading in regional staple food markets.
The signing of the partnership agreement between the 2 institutions was concluded shortly after the 2nd ReNAPRI Stakeholders Conference, and details specific activities and approaches that will be implemented by ReNAPRI in collaboration with FoodTrade and other key partners such as; africapractice, the East African Grain Council (EAGC) and the Alliance for Commodity Trade in East and southern Africa (ACTESA) over the course of the next 2 years.
More specifically, ReNAPRI will be working with FoodTrade ESA to deliver knowledge management, communications, and dissemination to ensure that key programme stakeholders are able to secure timely access to relevant information for evidence-based decision-making. In this regard, one of the major outputs and expected deliverables under the partnership includes the development of a knowledge management system that collates available knowledge relating to food staples into a one stop portal. This portal will be hosted and managed by ReNAPRI positioning both institutions as thought leaders in the regional staple food markets.
Further to this, over the course of the partnership, ReNAPRI will undertake both country-specific and regional studies on issues relevant to the development of the regional staple food markets with the support of FoodTrade ESA. These studies and their outcomes will be communicated to various stakeholders such as policy makers, traders, and farmers through targeted outreach activities such as private/public sector policy dialogues and dissemination workshops that will ensure that relevant information is shared with stakeholders that can facilitate future actions.