The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a consortium of 29 universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, was established in 2004. The consortium originally operated as a program of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1992. RUFORUM has a mandate to oversee graduate training and networks of specialization in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries. Specifically, RUFORUM recognizes the important and largely unfulfilled role that universities play in contributing to the well-being of small-scale farmers and economic development of countries throughout the sub-Saharan Africa region.
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Research Programmes

RUFORUM is involved in a number of research initiatives. These involve:

  • Engaging with communities to strengthen innovation capacity and knowledge generation
  • Increasing productivity and enhancing sustainable natural resource use and management
  • Conducting risk analyses and designing coping strategies for mitigating against climate variability and change, and associated crop-animal-human health epidemics
  • Exploiting potential of indigenous vegetables for food security and nutrition
  • Strengthening leadership, management and cross-cutting professional skills of university managers, lecturers and students.

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Training Programmes

The RUFORUM training programme is designed to augment the pool of agricultural researchers and policy professionals in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting graduate studies in agriculture and related fields and by enhancing the capabilities in the member universities. We use three approaches: The regional MSc/M.Phil and PhD programmes, attachments (linking students to field-oriented research) and short targeted courses for professional and skill development.

  • The Regional MSc Programmes
  • The Regional PhD Programmes
  • Professional and Skill Development

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The 3rd Biennial Conference, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. For more information Click here