1. Call for extended abstracts
The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a network of 163 Universities in 40 African Countries, will hold its 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM) from 28th October to 2nd November 2023 at Palais de Congres in Yaoundé, Cameroon. During the AGM, RUFORUM also holds scientific sessions to present, show case and draw lessons from ongoing scientific endeavours in African Universities. The theme of the 19th AGM is “Transforming Higher Education to Sustainably Feed and Create Prosperity for Africa.” The scientific conference will include oral and poster presentations as well as exhibitions. The RUFORUM Secretariat now invites researchers, opinion leaders, and development experts to submit extended abstracts under the sub-thematic areas listed below. High-quality papers will be published in the RUFORUM Working Document Series https://repository.ruforum.org/
Please download the full call [ English ] || [ French ] || [ Arabic ] || [ Portuguese ]
Please download samples of extended abstracts [ Sample 1] || [ Sample 2 ] || [ Sample 3 ]. Please use this template to write your extended abstract.
Deadline of Submission : 1st October 2023
Thematic areas for the scientific sessions
- Thematic area 1: Africa’s new harvest: Preparing Africa’s agriculture and related sectors to feed and grow the continent’s economy.
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Parallel Session 1: Regenerative agriculture
Parallel Session 2: Reducing food losses, evening food supply and creating market opportunities for Africa’s food systems
Parallel Session 3: Africa’s Blue Economy: Sustainable marine and fresh water exploitationDownload a PDF Format || Tuesday, 31st October 2023
- Thematic area 2: Access, equity and quality of African Higher and Tertiary Education
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Parallel Session 1: Transformative education: Experiences across the continent
Parallel Session 2: Leveraging regional and collaborative capacity for building capacity (case studies/updates)
- Thematic area 3: Accelerating economic growth: Trends, Youth, Policy Practice and Futures
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Parallel Session 1: Smallholder agriculture: feeding and growing Africa? Case studies across the continent
Parallel Session 2: Enhancing value chain functionality; methods, approaches and inclusive policy design: Experiences for VCA4D
Parallel Session 3: Policy coherence for economic growth and sustainable development on the continentDownload the PDF || Tuesday, 31st October 2023
- Thematic area 4 : Accelerating and scaling-up Africa’s climate change adaptation and mitigation actions: Experiences and lessons learned.
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Climate change is one of the major challenges the African continent is already facing. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, extensive areas of Africa will exceed 2 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the last two decades of this century under medium scenarios. Predictions show that global warming of 1.5°C or 2.0°C, a now more than likely scenario, will shorten maize growth duration, aggravate droughts, and consequently reduce yield for Africa major cereal staple. The area under production of other key staples will also likely decrease further exacerbating the situation. Effective mitigation strategies that are underpinned by technologies can reduce the probability of worst-case scenarios. Climate change adaptation is necessary to reduce the likely impacts of increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather, for example by improving resilience to drought, changing where and how crops are grown, managing water resources better, addressing sea-level rise, and making infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather. Mitigation actions are also required. Extended abstracts in this thematic area should cover:
(1.) Climate change mitigation research (including estimates of carbon emissions)
(2.) Climate-adaptive agriculture Climate change governance:
(3.) Strengthening disaster risk planning and governance.