The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has taken the lead in initiating the African Biotechnology and Biosafety Initiative (ABBI), a consensual process to create an enabling environment for the development and safe application of biotechnology in sub-Saharan Africa.

FARA is being backed in this effort by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA), the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), the South African Development Community (SADC), and other institutions such as the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF). The Rockefeller Foundation is providing funding for the project.

FARA has held several consultations with a cross-section of its stakeholders to identify the role it should take in accelerating and improving the development and implementation of African biosafety systems.

At the 3rd FARA General Assembly meeting in Entebbe, Uganda, in June, 2005, the following objectives for action were discussed and validated:

1. coordinate the development of a sustainable African strategy on agricultural biotechnology and biosafety;
2. mobilize enabling conditions for enhancing the application of cutting-edge biotechnology for developing endogenous agricultural products of importance to African farmers;
3. establish mechanisms for facilitating the harmonization of regulatory systems for modern biotechnology at the sub-regional/regional levels;
4. establish mechanisms for creating public awareness among all stakeholders especially policy-makers on the role of modern biotechnology in alleviating hunger in Africa and the need for biosafety policies, legislation, and regulations;
5. facilitate the development of cohesive working relationships between various concerned actors in order to bring them to a common understanding of biotechnology and biosafety issues;
6. establish a strategy to ensure effective and fruitful participation of African delegates in international events concerned with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and related events."

In September, FARA will hold a month-long electronic conference to help it identify priority agricultural biotechnology and biosafety activities that will address these objectives.

All FARA stakeholders, partners, and biotechnology and biosafety experts in and outside of Africa are encouraged to participate. The electronic conference will contribute to the development of an African Agricultural Biotechnology and Biosafety Program, which will be coordinated and facilitated by FARA. The activites of this program will be implemented by the various partners of FARA. FARA was founded in 2001 in response to the need for an apex body to facilitate the coordination and implementation of agricultural research for development in Africa.

Background and contact information for the FARA electronic conference is available online at http://www.fara-africa.org/ under "Events."