Don’t miss out on learning about the exciting ways champions and practitioners are building resilience in their countries and communities. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PROGRAMME IS IN EAST AFRICAN TIME (UTC/GMT+3)

Important update

In light of the continuing COVID-19 crisis, the Knowledge Share Fair, set to take place in July, has been postponed until October 2020 (20-22nd). The event will also now be fully virtual, with remote panels and presentations all hosted online. With these changes in mind, we have extended the original deadline for proposal submissions to June 30th. 

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), in partnership with the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is organizing The Horn of Africa and Sahel Virtual Knowledge Share Fair: Promoting innovation to build resilience against climate shocks. The virtual event will be hosted online from the 20th to 22nd of October 2020.

In many parts of the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, the scale and frequency of disasters and emergencies have been on the rise. Natural disasters connected to climate change and human-made crises have created conditions of chronic vulnerability. With a limited capacity to cope with the impact of these shocks, the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in these regions are faced with extreme poverty, persistent food insecurity, widespread economic hardships and untold human suffering. Thus, it is critical that stakeholders continue to support these communities in their quest to build their resilience by providing multifaceted and novel solutions.

The overall objective of the share fair is to strengthen resilience knowledge transfer and cooperation between Horn of Africa and Sahel regions. The specific objectives of the share fair are to

• gather the good practices and lessons learnt from Horn of Africa and Sahel regions on preparedness and response to drought and other shocks,
• support evidence- based decision making on key thematic areas,
• strengthen exchanges and collaboration between resilience actors in both regions, and
• support the harmonization of resilience-building language between partners.

The planned 2020 share fair will build on previous efforts by both IGAD and CILSS to promote knowledge management for informed decision-making and investment. It will be an opportunity to consolidate and disseminate the lessons learned from the IGAD and CILSS regional share fairs and learning events to the core community of stakeholders implementing the IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI) and Global Alliance for Resilience (AGIR). 

Therefore, apart from IGAD and CILSS, participants will be drawn from government agencies that are involved in the implementation of IDDRSI, as well as non-governmental partners, civil society organizations, community representatives, the private sector and development partners. The African Union Commission (AUC) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) participants will also be invited collaboration in view of nurturing regional collaboration and exchanges with the Southern Africa region and at the continental level. 

The share fair will provide an opportunity to spotlight collaboration frameworks between humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) partners, such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Union Trust Fund, the German Development Cooperation, the Government of Sweden, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, USAID, among others.

Call for proposals

IGAD, CILSS and FAO would like to invite all partners to respond to the call for proposals and take advantage of this unique opportunity to disseminate and promote good practices for upscaling investments and policies in the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions.

The deadline to submit proposals for the chance to present the good practice at the Share Fair is 30 June.

Selected proposals will be announced on 29 July.

For any queries related to the call for proposals or the event, contact: [email protected]