Liberia’s Minister of Agriculture, Jeanine Milly Cooper, will on Monday, September 7 at 11 a.m. GMT, join two Southern African states Ministers of Agriculture and agriculture supremos at the African Union and European Union on a webinar panel organized by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).

“Engaging African Universities to advance Food, Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture in Africa” is the panel’s topic which Dr. Godfrey Bahiigwa, Director of Agriculture at the African Union Commission, will moderate.

The panel, as the organizers put it, seeks “to explore opportunities for coordinated engagement of African and European universities to contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of policies, strategic frameworks and funding programmes under the auspice of Africa-EU partnership and Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP)”.

Minister Cooper will share the panel with Ambassador Josefa L.C. Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA) at the African Union Commission; Thoko Didiza, South Africa’s Minister for Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development; Lobin Lowe, Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture and Dr Leonard Miizzi, Food Security Head of Unit at the European Union's Headquarters in Brussels.

RUFORUM was established in 2004 and housed at the prestigious Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda with a continental network of 126 Universities in 38 African countries including the University of Liberia that joined in 2007.

It endeavors with a vision of vibrant, transformative Universities catalyzing sustainable, inclusive agricultural development to feed and create prosperity for Africa.

It provides an effective platform for University support to smallholder farmers through linkages with national agricultural research systems, the private sector and rural communities as well as championing national and regional policies to support effective postgraduate agricultural training and research.