The University of the Free State (UFS) is one of 12 African universities and the only one from South Africa selected to implement the Transforming African Agricultural Universities to Meaningfully Contribute to Africa’s Growth and Development (TAGDev) 2.0 programme – a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming agricultural education across the African continent.
The TAGDev2.0 programme is a collaborative effort by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), the Mastercard Foundation, and the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA). It was officially launched on 12 August 2024 at the Second RUFORUM Triennial Conference in Windhoek, Namibia. Attending the conference from 12 to 16 August 2024 were participants from across the continent, including vice-chancellors and principals, deans, university registrars, policy makers, researchers, scientists, and students.
The aim of the TAGDev 2.0 programme is to strengthen universities and TVET institutions to better serve communities by skilling and empowering Africa’s young people and their institutions in order to drive inclusive, equitable, and climate-resilient transformation of agriculture and agrifood systems. The programme will support young African students who are economically disadvantaged but academically competent, to enable them to complete their studies. The scholarship is open to both female and male applicants. However, applications from females, refugees, and persons with disabilities are highly encouraged.
According to Prof Anthony Egeru, Programme Manager: Training and Community Development at RUFORUM, the programme’s impact is already evident. “Since its inception in 2016, TAGDev 1.0 has revised more than 400 courses across 25 academic programmes to include entrepreneurship, with a visible impact on more than 350 000 farmers. Building on this success, TAGDev 2.0 will scale up these efforts by updating 1 600 courses across 80 programmes, ultimately impacting 1,2 million people, including 820 000 young women, 300 000 refugees and displaced persons, and 120 000 people with disabilities,” he said.
According to Prof Jan Swanepoel, Associate Professor in the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development and coordinator of the TAGDev2.0 programme at the UFS, participation in the programme is a huge honour for the UFS. “It provides the university the opportunity to establish itself as a contributing partner to agricultural growth and development on the continent. We have also expanded the UFS’ contribution to the programme by involving South African partner universities such as Stellenbosch University and the University of Fort Hare,” said Prof Swanepoel.
The UFS was selected to participate in the programme – together with Gulu University (Uganda), Egerton University (Kenya), Africa University (Zimbabwe), Malawi University of Science and Technology (Malawi), University of Eldoret (Kenya), Uganda Martyrs University (Uganda), University of Port Harcourt (Nigeria), University of Cape Coast (Ghana), University of Bamenda (Cameroon), National University of Agriculture (Benin), and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (Morocco). The TAGDev2.0 programme runs for 10 years (2023-2033) and is coordinated by the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development at the UFS.
The main theme of the conference was Operationalising Higher Agricultural Education and Research Ecosystems for Innovation, Industrialisation and Economic Development in Africa: A Call for Action. The UFS was further represented at the conference by Dr Molapo Qhobela, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Institutional Change, Strategic Partnerships, and Societal Impact. Representing the UFS in the official opening programme on 12 August 2024, Dr Qhobela said that a conference such as this represented the importance of inter-African partnerships. “There are more African scientists outside our continent than within. There is a huge diaspora of knowledge that universities on the continent should be tapping into. We must not only grow partnerships outside the continent, but also look at those who have left our continent and have assumed knowledge elsewhere and make concerted efforts to bring them back home.” He also said that African universities must keep the best and brightest on our continent and look after the leading lights of the system. “We must look after the professors who are responsible for developing the next generation and retain those who made us who we are,” he said. “It is disheartening when research is done on our continent and taken somewhere else, and we then must buy it back to again use it on our continent. Data must be retained on the continent for the benefit of social, economic, and knowledge retainment,” he said.
Other participants in the conference programme included, among others, staff and postgraduate students from the UFS Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development, staff from the Paradys Experimental Farm who participated in the exhibition programme, and staff from the Department of Communication and Marketing who co-facilitated the training for communication officers on the development of communication and standards for TAGDev 2.0-implementing universities. A meeting with a delegation from the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) – led by the UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Francis Petersen – to discuss support for the 2025 RUFORUM Triennial Conference, also took place; the conference will be hosted by BUAN.