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CDA Celebrates 10th Year Anniversary Wednesday Feb 16
By Nura Garba
HOTPEN – Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria has concluded all arrangements to celebrate its 10th Year Anniversary on Wednesday, 16th February, 2022.
The anniversary will mark an Open Day which will showcase the Centre’s research products, exhibitions, presentation of seeds and seedlings to farmers, as well as awards presentation to some outstanding individuals who have contributed immensely to the growth and development of the Centre.
Deputy Governor of Kano State, Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, who is also the Kano State Commissioner of Agriculture, will be the Special Guest Honour, while the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC) is expected to grace the occasion.
The Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) is a World Bank – supported Africa Centre of Excellence (ACE) established to serve as a regional training hub for the West and Central Africa (WCA) sub-region.
Bayero University, Kano (BUK) established the Centre in 2012 as part its effort towards addressing the development challenges of the dryland areas of the sub-region.
This was borne out of the realization that addressing the myriad of problems in the WCA drylands requires generation of knowledge and applied research products that will produce outcomes focussed on reducing poverty, improving agricultural productivity, enhancing food and nutrition security, improving natural resources and ecosystem services, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and reducing conflicts and human migration.
The CDA was established through a competitively won take-off grant from MacArthur Foundation. In 2014, the CDA won a USD 7.8m Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) grant from the World Bank to become a regional Centre of excellence specialized in dryland agriculture. In 2019, the Centre won another 5-year grant (USD 5m) from the World Bank to consolidate its achievements and positively impact on the development of the region.
The CDA runs MSc and PhD programmes in Agronomy (Dryland Crops and Cropping Systems), Natural Resources Management and Climate Change, Agricultural Economics (Natural Resources Economics), and Animal Science (Livestock and Range Improvement).
A new programme, MSc in Agricultural Technology, took off in the 2019/2020 academic session domiciled in the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering. The Centre also runs a Postgraduate Diploma in Dryland Agriculture, and specialized short courses to impart specific skills that address the practical needs of career professionals and sectorial stakeholders.
The programmes of the Centre have full national accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC) and full international accreditation from the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES), France.
Earlier, the Centre Leader/Director CDA, Professor Jibrin M. Jibrin presented the Centre’s activities, achievements and challenges to the NUC Executive Secretary.
Prof Jibrin said the Centre had installed facilities such as video conferencing, high speed internet, subscription to databases and completed the renovation of international students’ hostel.
He said, presently, contracts for the procurement of additional equipment had already been awarded.
The Centre Leader told the NUC Executive Secretary that the Centre was facing some challenges especially the provision of incentives to staff assigned responsibilities in the implementation of ACE Project.