Abstract:

National Agricultural Research (NAR) Act 2005 mandated NARO to undertake research in all aspects
of Agricultural activities in Uganda including crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry, agro-machinery,
natural resources management and socio-economics. This mandate is guided by SDGs 1, 2, 3 and 12;
CAADP pillars 3 and 4; the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa, aspiration one of Agenda 2063;
NDP III; Uganda’s Vision 2040; the objectives of the Agricultural Sector Strategic Plan and NARO’s
10-year development strategic plan 2018/19-2027/28. These policies have guided the development
of the workplanrun under the theme “Agricultural Research to spur Agro-industrialization”. The
workplan serves as a one-point reference for research and development activities during the fiscal
year 2021/22, it further acts as a framework for effective and efficient implementation of research
activities based on budget. It is a means of ensuring delivery of planned deliverables and, efficient
monitoring and evaluation and learning.
NARO Governing Council approved the work plan which was developedafter a thorough
participatory exercise that involved reviews and planning processes from different Public
Agricultural Research Institutes (PARIs) and NARO Top management.The workplan highlights
key deliverables for the FY2020/21, which were: 22 new varieties, 128 production technologies,
38 CGS mode run studies, 78 technological innovation platforms established/supported and 131
technological innovations delivered to uptake pathways from the different research components
in NARO’s sixteen (16) PARIs, 228 scientific publications were published in pear review jounals.
Furthermore, it summarizes advances made under various research extension interfaces promoted
and strengthened. These include: partnerships, technology promotion and dissemination, as well as
strategic positioning of NARO for improved visibility.
Progress for improved internal controls,
satisfactory financial management, strengthening agricultural research capacity, collaborations,
good governance and management;as well as planning, monitoring and evaluation are highlighted.
The workplan and budget is benchmarked to the previous years’ (2020/21) budget that was funded by
government of Uganda under GoU development, GoU recurrent and Non-Tax Revenue (NTR). The
organisation received UGX 90 (%) out of the annual budgeted UGX 110.03 billion, and spent 99.9% of
the released budget. This release was UGX41 and 38 billion more than the UGX 57.1 billion received
in 2019/20 and the UGX 63.8 billion for 2018/19 respectively, indicating a continued increasing
trend in budget allocations. Given this this financial support, NARO was able to implement only
90% of the FY2020/21 workplan and most of the achievements arose from implemented research
activities under the CGS mode. The CGS mode targets specific products with inbuilt mechanisms
for tracking progress that inform management decisions. Other successes came as a result of support
from funding off-budget projects. During the implementation however,there were a number of
challenges faced that included; inadequacies in funding, human resource, research infrastructure,
and stakeholder engagement. Other challenges wereCOVID-19 pandemic,limited information
dissemination, dynamic change in technology, rationalization of agencies, and competing land use
interests. This resulted into implementation gaps in capacity to handle biotic (emerging pests and
diseases) and abiotic (climate change and declining soil fertility) factors. Additionally, gaps also
appeared in sustainable use and conservation of plant and animal genetic, limited linkages with
markets and Industry, limitedeffective partnershipsand technology transfer, among others. This was
coupled with limited capacity for postharvest processing, storage and packaging of seed produced
by PARIs and inadequate ICT integration in agricultural research as a support tool for decision
making and real time data management. Inspire of this, the FY2020/21 consolidated efforts towards
improved research capacity to develop new or improve existing technologies and management
practices with increased resilience to biotic and abiotic constraints aimed to boost production and
productivity under different environments. This workplan will enable NARO further its efforts
towards Agro industrialization. The priority research areas will focus on food and nutritional
security, Improved Production and productivity, Agricultural research products for the market and industry, Agriculture research products for post-harvest, value addition and food safety and
improved Agricultural research infrastructure. It will further give NARO a chance to again focus on
areas of Bio fortification, development of gender and nutrient sensitive crop varieties for healthier
diets, improve pest and disease surveillance.Furthermore, NAROs’ laboratory capacity will be
improved for pathogen diagnostics and development of demand led products and services suited
for niche markets. NARO shall further improve her capacity in production of early generation seed,
conduct core field based research, develop human resources and infrastructure research capacity.
Additionally, NARO shall exploit the potential of the youth and women, and to share and collect
information that will trigger accelerated agricultural research for people impact. This year’s workplan
will be mainly funded by GoU, to the tune of UGX 110.607 billion compared to UGX110.030 billion for
2020/21. This funding will be invested in; Development of agricultural products and services suited
for industry UGX 22.149 billion, Establish, equip and accredit Agriculture Research laboratories UGX
11.881, Partnerships 2.504 billion, securing Agriculture research land UGX 1 billion, Research support
infrastructure UGX 13.273, Modernizing NARO breeding programs by integrating genomic UGX
1.23, Promotion and Transfer of NARO Technologies UGX 8.275 and human resource management
and development UGX 53,303, and other critical spending areas. Additional funding is expected to
come from development partner to fund projects which are currently under formulation. Additional
funding valued at UGX 69.733 billion is expected from the 143 off-budget projects. With the planned
funding, the required governance and human resource, it is hoped that NARO’s advanced research
agenda will directly contribute to rapid transformation of the agricultural sub-sector. The NARO
Top Policy Management (TPM) is committed to the aspirations as ascribed herein and will use this
workplan for disbursement of resources and accountability during the FY 2021/22.