The Africa Forum on Rural Development (AFORD) connects experts working with programmes in agriculture or rural development based in Africa . These can be practitioners, decision makers or advisors and they come from the public or from the private sector.

The Africa Forum on Rural Development was established in response to a lack of accessible information on Programme-Based Approaches (PBAs) for the agriculture and rural development sectors. The PBA instrument dates back to around 2001. Since then information on this development tool has accumulated in the internet. However, much of this material deals with the social sectors (e.g. Health and Education) with information on PBAs in Agriculture and Rural Development more difficult to get by. The Africa Forum on Rural Development aims to address this niche.

The mission of the Africa Forum on Rural Development is to promote networking and foster peer learning among practitioners and implementers of programmes in agriculture and rural development. By bringing together the available experience and expertise in the area, we hope to two things:

• Support decision makers, practitioners and advisors in the implementation of agriculture and rural development programmes at field level and

• Encourage that views and experience ‘from the ground' are utilised in the international (donor) debate on Programme Based Approaches.

This website was created in 2005, upon requests by participants to the Africa Forum , an annual event that began in 1997. The website offers three main categories of documentation:

1. All of the presentations, papers and proceedings of Africa Forums since 1997: Most of this is in the form of country experience, often relating to the challenges and successes of implementing sector programmes in agriculture.
   
2. A growing database of Agriculture Sector Programme documents, consisting mostly of policy and strategy papers, with some examples of associated instruments such as Memoranda of Understanding or MIS tools.
   
3. General information on Programme-Based Approaches in Agriculture and Rural Development (including Sector Programmes and Sector Wide Approaches).

To further support a ‘South-South' exchange as well as a ‘South-North' exchange, this website lists the contact details of the advisory or coordinating units that are set-up in different countries with the aim of supporting the national Agriculture Sector Programme there. We have given these units the collective name of Country Advisory Teams. Finally, we are in the process of developing a database of African and Africa-based resource persons in agriculture and rural development.