Brussels, 12 December 2014/ ACP: Top officials representing the Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the French agricultural research center CIRAD signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 9th December 2014, with the aim to foster further collaboration in common areas of interest related to agricultural and development issues.

In the margins of the ACP Council of Ministers, the ACP Secretary General H.E Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni and CIRAD Deputy Director General in charge of Research and Strategy Philippe Petithuguenin, who represented CIRAD President Michel Eddi, signed the agreement in Brussels in front of African, Caribbean and Pacific delegations.

CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement) is a French research centre working with developing countries to tackle international agricultural and development issues. The agreement will allow the two institutions to conduct joint projects such as training, research and capacity building initiatives, exchange information and materials, and work on collaborative actions in the field of open scientific databases on public goods, as well as expertise and foresight.

The MOU signing builds upon a study tour of the CIRAD facilities in Montpellier, France undertaken by the ACP Sugar Subcommittee in April 2014. CIRAD has a wide experience on sugarcane and has been working in collaboration with tropical countries (including some ACP countries in Africa and Caribbean) for many years on agronomy, crop modelling, crop protection, breeding, genomics, mechanization, water management, supply chain management, biotechnology, biochemistry and technology, economy.

– Press ACP