The African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) is the continental umbrella organization that aims at strengthening national Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (AEAS). Its mission is to promote lesson learning and add value to initiatives in AEAS through policy advocacy and lobbying, sharing of knowledge and information through increased professional interaction among AEAS providers. Each member country is ultimately expected to establish a Country Forum (CF) through which its activities shall be implemented.
Currently AFAAS is spearheading the AEAS initiatives for sustaining the momentum of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the African Union. In this regard it works in close collaboration with other continental and sub-regional bodies contributing to CAADP -most notably those in the areas of agricultural research, organizing farmers and fostering private sector involvement.
Through this alignment, AFAAS has been contributing to African Union’s goal of delivering average growth rate of 6% GDP. Cognisant of the fact that the African Union Commission (AUC) has recommitted itself to enhancing CAADP momentum based on the Malabo declaration of June 2014, which emphasises accelerating agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. AFAAS is reaffirming its partnering with AUC in translating the commitments of the Malabo declaration into results; this is strongly articulated in the 2015 April MoU between AFAAS and AUC. In particular, AFAAS will play the pivotal role of enhancing the utilisation and adoption of: productivity enhancing technologies; value adding processes; and, loss reducing practices; largely among smallholder producers.