East Africa Demonstration

Background

The countries involved include Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Most of the activities are being conducted in the Lake Victoria Catchment. The region is very relevant for Towards INMS as it consists of the too little and too much paradox. The N used for production is too little due to insufficient use of N inputs, whereas the eutrophication of Lake Victoria at selected sections has been related to high loading of nutrients mainly N and P. This is a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices, deforestation, erosion, encroachment to marginal lands because of population pressure and low crop productivity on unit area and nutrient inputs from municipal wastewater.
Recent studies have shown that the nitrogen load into the Lake includes significant sources from municipal and industrial waste, atmospheric deposition, agriculture and natural sectors. The contribution of each source is not well understood and the available information is in some cases contradictory. There is a need to apply state-of-the-art techniques to improve the estimates. There is also almost a consensus that the current equation of nitrogen use efficiency applied in regions with sufficient application of N does not fit to the regions with too little N (East Africa).

There is a need to determine the best approach to assess the N use efficiency in Africa and the interventions to improve it. This project is building on lessons learned from previous and other ongoing initiatives. The audience and baseline analysis are identifying the past and current initiatives with similar goal to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency.
The East Africa Demonstration of ‘Towards INMS’ is cooperating in close engagement with the other demonstrations of Component 3 in order to facilitate the development and implementation of a common approach, while allowing for priority issues according to regional needs to be incorporated. This process was ongoing during the INMS PPG phase, with contributions from the Director of the INI African Regional Centre, IITA, ILRI and LVBC in attending both the Demonstrations Preparatory Meeting (March 2015, Germany) and the INMS Plenary Meeting (April, 2015, Lisbon). The background for this contribution was supported by earlier strategic development through INI and with UNEP, including at the First United Nations Environment Assembly (INI, IITA, ILRI, NERC).

Innovation platforms are being created to explore the best way of making the knowledge gained in the context of this initiative useful to the communities in and beyond the region. It is expected that good practices intended to improve N use for production, while minimizing environmental pollution will be adopted by the key stakeholders to improve food and nutrition security in sustainable way. Policy decisions to support the implementation of the good practices are also anticipated. The key stakeholders therefore include farmer organizations, extension services, industry, suppliers of N inputs, agricultural NGOs, the Civil Society, regulatory bodies, policy makers, national and regional organizations inter-and national organizations, partner-state governments, etc.

For more information on the partners that are part of this Regional Demonstration please see our Regional Case Study Partners page.