Projects

Strategies and development programmes,Expertise and research work,

Assessment of the Agriculture and Animal Applied Research - Sudan

Sudan

The European Commission in Sudan

Ministry of Science and Technology in Sudan

Sudan has 38.1million inhabitants. It enjoys 134.19 million hec. of agricultural land and 117.18 million hec. of pasture and grazing areas. The animal population exceeds the 130 millions of cattle, sheep, goats and camels. A sizable number of wildlife, poultry and fish also exist. Sudan has a huge water resource (60% of the River Nile runs in the country). In spite of all these resources the people has been experiencing erratic food shortages. Food cost is also relatively high compared to incomes. This is partly attributed to low productivity and high cost of production. A number of people in the South and in Darfur regions are currently depending on international humanitarian aid. The eruption of civil war in 1983 crippled development in Sudan. Over the last 22 years the infrastructure of research centres and stations nation wide were greatly compromised. This undoubtly had a negative effect on the quality of research needed to boost productivity in agriculture and animal resources. On the 9th of January 2005 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was reached between the Government and the SPLM of the south ending the 22 years civil war. The peace accord opened new horizons and paved the road for real development in the north and the south. Peace offers an opportunity to assess and evaluate research infrastructure in Sudan to gear for take off in applied research and development. The Government on 11th Feb. 2001 established a new Ministry for Science and Technology (MOST) to shoulder the responsibility of applied research and to enhance technology transfer to all sectors of production in Sudan. The research centers in Sudan backdates for more than a century. Since that time to date no thorough assessment or evaluation has been done of them. Their actual impact on the ground has been much less than expectations and ambitions. It is felt that it is high time to stop and look into these research centers in order to evaluate their infrastructure, research conditions and technologies running, researchers’ qualifications, training, technology transfer and to see means and methods to rehabilitate them. Against this background, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of the Government of Sudan is requesting the EC’s support for a mission to assess, evaluate, analyze and identify possible interventions needed in the research centers in the Northern part of the country to upgrade them and improve their conduct. To provide decision makers in the Sudanese Government and the European Commission with sufficient information to make an informed judgment about the performance of the Agriculture and Animal Research Centres and Stations in the North of Sudan, to document lessons learned and to provide practical recommendations for follow-up action. •To evaluate the Relevance, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Impact and Sustainability of the Agriculture and Animal applied research conducted in Northern Sudan under the responsibility of the Ministry of Science and Technology. •Help to identify research priorities and technology needed to achieve the goals setup in the National Strategies. •Recommend appropriate recovery interventions for the centres to upgrade their performance.

Start date: 2006-06-01

End date: 2006-07-31