Africa Rice Center

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Africa Rice Center (WARDA) is an autonomous intergovernmental research association of African member states. It is also one of the 15 international agricultural research Centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

It was created by Constitution in 1970 by 11 West African countries with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Until late September 2007, it comprised 17 member states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. On 28 September 2007, four more countries joined WARDA: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Uganda. The number of WARDA member states went up from 17 to 21.

It was constituted as the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA)—a name that it carried until 2003 when it was designated by the WARDA Council of Ministers as the Africa Rice Center in recognition of its increasing and leading role in rice R&D in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Its mission is to contribute to poverty alleviation and food security in Africa, through research, development and partnership activities aimed at increasing the productivity and profitability of the rice sector in ways that ensure the sustainability of the farming environment.

The modus operandi of the Center is partnership at all levels. Its research and development activities are conducted in collaboration with various stakeholders—primarily the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), academic institutions, advanced research institutions, farmers’ organizations, non-governmental organizations, and donors—for the benefit of African farmers, mostly small-scale producers, as well as the millions of African families for whom rice means food.

The Center hosts the African Rice Initiative (ARI), the Regional Rice Research and Development Network for West and Central Africa (ROCARIZ), and the Inland Valley Consortium (IVC). It also supports the Coordination Unit of the Eastern and Central African Rice Research Network (ECARRN), based in Tanzania.

Since January 2005, the Center has been working from Cotonou, Benin, having relocated from its headquarters in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire, because of the civil conflicts in the country. It has regional research stations near Saint-Louis, Senegal and at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria.