The Lab Innova For Africa project was launched in virtual mode in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, the integrated assistance and training program promoted by Ice Agency (Ita) for African companies in the agrifood sector, which for the first time since the launch will also extend to the poultry sector.
The initiative is being carried out in collaboration with the Italian embassies in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali as well as the Italian Agency for Cooperation (Aics) and in partnership with the international Macfrut fair.
The official launch ceremony took place on Monday simultaneously via videoconference. Alessandro Gerbino, Director of the Ita Office in Accra, Ghana, presented the main lines of the project focused on poultry farming, “an absolutely strategic and priority sector in which Italy has confirmed its potential and solid experience”. Gerbino ensured that Italy will offer partners training in terms of capacity building, knowledge, skills, know-how, techniques and technological innovations.
He also underlined that at the end of the training course a group of participants will have the opportunity to participate in a Study Tour as well as exhibitions and fairs in Italy, including Macfrut and FierAvicola, both project partners, with the aim of deepening their knowledge of the market and Italian companies, “a journey that the Lab Innova Sahel project will partially financially support”.
Even Aldo Cera, Deputy Director of Aics Dakar, during the first session dedicated to the agricultural sector, congratulated the approximately 50 participants from the three countries present in the classroom, which include top managers and marketing directors of as many companies and cooperatives of the local supply chain of Agro-food, identified by the ICE Office of Accra (Ghana), competent for the Sahel.
The ambassador of Italy in Niger, Emilia Gatto, took the floor to welcome the inclusion of Niger among the priority beneficiary countries of this initiative. “Italy and Niger have, in fact, very important relations which are strengthening more and more and at great speed, in the fields of development cooperation, humanitarian action, the management of migratory flows and also in strategic sectors such as the military and political. He took the opportunity to recall the efforts that the Italian Embassy in Niger is carrying out in the context of the “IN Action” (Italy and Niger on the Move) initiative, which aims to strengthen economic and commercial cooperation between Italy and Niger, in particular through the mobilization of businessmen and entrepreneurs from the two countries.
Andrea Romussi, ambassador of Italy in Burkina Faso who also welcomed the launch of this Lab Innova project in the Sahel, a region that suffers from security problems”, underlining that it is a step in the right direction to see bilateral relations grow between Italy and Burkina Faso. The same goes for Stefano Antonio Dejak, ambassador of Italy in Mali, where the Italian embassy was only opened in the summer of 2021. He indicated that this project will make it possible to further promote the commercial partnership between the two countries and above all to open opportunities for Malian exporters and their Sahel counterparts on the Italian market, one of the largest and most important in the European Union.
After being successfully tested in Ethiopia, Uganda and Mozambique in 2019, in the last 3 years the Lab Innnova for Africa initiative has been replicated in Angola in presence and in Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal in online mode before returning to Cameroon in November 2022, involving a total of over 240 African companies and 60 Italian companies. The project focuses on managerial training, innovation and technology transfer in the African agricultural and agro-industrial sector, in order to support the transition process towards more efficient, sustainable and export-oriented economies, and highlights the potential linked to collaboration with Italy, leader in technologies for food processing and packaging, and target market for quality agricultural products.
The program dedicated to the poultry sector will end on 3 April. [Da Redazione InfoAfrica]
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