CGIAR launches a Regional East and Southern African Scaling Hub in Kenya to transform food, land, and water systems amid the climate crisis.
The launch marks an important step in strengthening agricultural innovation and collaboration and in ensuring that science-based solutions developed by CGIAR and its research partners around Africa are reaching and benefiting farmers and other users.
The hub will improve collaboration, knowledge exchange, and innovation scaling by leveraging multi-stakeholder partnerships.
It will also connect diverse scaling actors, including farmers, farmer cooperatives and associations, government, International Financial Institutions (IFIs), National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES), national and international universities, civil society organizations, and youth agricultural influencers as well as the private sector.
Appolinaire Djikeng, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) pointed out, that the Hub, a partnership among the members of CGIAR systems, is a new construct that ensures the solutions are sought and found with urgency to mitigate the impact of the issues at hand.
“We are aiming to translate our research results into practical solutions that small-scale farmers can use in the Global South,” said Djikeng.
He further emphasizes that the Hub will ensure significant consultations amongst farmers, with researchers, cooperatives, and scientists to ensure that specific problems are assigned concrete solutions at the operationalization levels.
The Hub, an integral part of CGIAR’s 2025-2030 portfolio, is a global initiative dedicated to delivering lasting agricultural solutions through science.
As part of the Scaling for Impact Program, it aims to address agricultural challenges worldwide. Timothy Krupnik, serving as the Interim Director, brings a passion for expanding the reach of scientific solutions to benefit millions.
He highlights the Hub’s role in sharing best practices, particularly from the Nairobi Hub, to tackle similar issues in regions like Asia and Latin America.
The Hub enables experts to collectively develop, test, and scale solutions, focusing on supporting smallholder farmers in remote areas.
By 2030, Scaling for Impact will leverage systems and financing to support over 62 million people, including 30% women, youth, and marginalized and underrepresented groups, who will gain access to innovations that enhance their livelihoods and health.
This would mean creation of more than 250,000 jobs will be created or enhanced, and 480,000 people half of them women will access healthier diets.
Inga Jacobs-Mata, one of the visionaries behind the Hub revealed with joy how this is a dream come true for a scaling science hub that is physical. She emphasized that through the hub, a physical space for CGIAR and scaling partners to co-locate and together, development of the most effective scientific solutions for Africa by Africa will be eased.
Inga said, “We want to push the science frontier in advancing ‘science for the last mile’ and finding ways to get innovations adopted and scaled in a cheaper, better, faster, more inclusive, and sustainable way.”
The Hub will provide an environment for innovative and synergistic thinking, vibrant interactions, creativity, and collaborative problem-solving.
The Regional Scaling Hub will help to concretize the Scaling for Impact Program in the region through its alignment with the local context. With a physical space for scaling talents and experts to work together across organizations and disciplines, the solutions will be diverse and suited to the probabilities of problems.
Sandra Millerk, the new Chief Scientist of CGIAR, commended the step taken by partners in the formation of the Hub. Revealing that the diversity of partners foresees solutions to financing for implementation by the small-scale farmer because it’s only possible with unity.
“The urgency for action has become more than timely we need to act immediately. These actions are more significant in the last mile as we implement the research from scientists with the farmers in the ground,” said Sarah.
This new scaling hub is anticipated to allow these innovations to be deployed at scale by bringing partners into a dynamic co-design process.
A stride that is aimed at bringing solutions to the farmers on the frontline faced with the challenges of climate change and climate shocks.
