Access to highlights of NL-CGIAR research in 26 countries

The country overviews facilitate easier and targeted access to the results for policymakers, embassies, practitioners and researchers interested in and working in the countries or regions where SEP and SSD research was carried out. The overviews were prepared at special request of and for use within the NL (funding) partners, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Agriculture, Nature and Food quality.

The SEP and SSD programmes

The Senior Expert Programme (SEP) strengthened the cooperation between Dutch research and knowledge institutes with CGIAR to share expertise and co-create synergies on jointly defined knowledge domains contributing to improved food security. Seventeen Senior Experts received funding for being part-time assigned to CGIAR. The Seed Systems Programme aimed to generate insights into how to get improved seed and animal seed stock of good quality from breeders to smallholder and family farms in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Nine collaborative SSD-projects were carried out by consortia with multiple partners (NL research organisations, CGIAR institutes, NGOs, for-profit partners, practitioner organisations).

Aim and outcomes

The aim of the NL-CGIAR Research programme phase I (2018 – 2022) was to facilitate successful partnering of CGIAR Research Programs and Centers with Dutch knowledge institutes and stakeholders from the public and private sector, both for-profit and not-for-profit, as well as enhancing mutual research priorities. For both the Senior Expert and the Seed Systems Development programme, the overviews provide main results and highlights per country. These range from the production of Food-based Dietary Guidelines that were incorporated in a national Food and Nutrition strategy to showing that support for access to improved chicken breeds is a good strategy to enhance empowerment of women farmers, or that open information on quality of seeds supported the increase in sales of improved seed varieties and encouraged farmers to use quality seeds.

Country overviews

In total, the Senior Experts and SSD research consortia worked in 26 different countries in Africa, Asia and South-America. Two country overviews are available, one for the 17 Senior Expert assignments and one for the nine Seed Systems Development (SSD) projects.

• SSD country overview
  The SSD country overview contains information on the composition of the project teams, summaries of the research projects, highlighted results and highlighted publications, organised per country. Countries where research was carried out are: Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam.

• SEP country overview
  The SEP country overview contains information on the affiliations of the Senior Experts with CGIAR host institutes and CGIAR Research Program/Platforms, the aims of the assignments and the alignment of the work to one or more of the four priority knowledge domains of The Netherlands-CGIAR Strategic Partnership. In addition, the final popular summaries and several highlights are provided for each Senior Expert assignment. Countries were the assignments were carried out are: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Malawi, Nigeria, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, The Philippines, Tunisia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe.