SHEP Approach and Its Expansion

At the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) held in June 2013, SHEP region-wide development was billed as a key to the future of the agriculture in Africa for its success in boosting the incomes of small-scale farmers.

• During his speech at the opening ceremonies at TICAD V, Prime Minister Abe said that with SHEP, "We would like to transition away from agriculture that enables the farmer to eat, and towards agriculture that enables the farmer to earn money."
• He also mentions that "Women in rural areas go to a market nearby and see directly which vegetables are most sell. This approach is a efficient method to produce value-added horticulture products. "

The message from TICAD V Yokohama Action Plan Agriculture Sector is"Empowering Farmers as Mainstream Economic Actors". The SHEP Approach is one of the four major sectors; Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security.

The indexes related to the SHEP Approach in TICAD V Yokohama Action Plan (2013-2017) are below;

• Transform farmers to move from subsistence to commercial agriculture through SHEP approach in 10 countries.

• Capacity building of 1,000 skilled agricultural trainers.
• Organize smallholders cooperative consisting 50,000 people.

As of 2018, 9,800 agricultural trainers are participated in the SHEP Approach program and assisted 110,000 farmers in 24 African countries.

TICAD VI (Progress after TICAD V)

Refer to the TICAD V commitment in June 2013, JICA organized training sessions on SHEP Approach and their follow up cooperation toward the vision of "Farming as a Business".

Taking the opportunity of TICAD VI, JICA offered a SHEP workshop in order to share and discuss the progress, achievements and challenges of SHEP Approach application in various African countries by 2016 and beyond.

• Concept note of SHEP Side Event
• Summary and Progress of SHEP
• Psychological Implications of SHEP

During the workshop, a new "Cool Japan" brand promoting tool of SHEP Game (for both PC and cellphone) was introduced to promote the understanding of a wider range of people.

• SHEP Game

TICAD 7 (Declaration for one million farmers)

Better lives of one million small scale farmers through SHEP Approach

The previous commitment was achieved three years after TICAD V thanks to the unflagging enthusiasm of each African Government. SHEP Approach is now starting to spread beyond Africa. Some countries in Asia and Latin America have started to introduce SHEP Approach into their agricultural extension system.

Given this expansion, a "declaration for achieving better lives of one million small scale farmers through SHEP Approach" was made at the occasion of TICAD 7 in 2019. It was a joint declaration of representatives of Government, development partners, private companies and relevant organizations.

• We commit to make an effort to support small-scale farmers to do farming as a business by making effective use of SHEP so that at least one million of small scales farmers will achieve better lives by 2030.

TICAD 8 (Progress after the declaration for one million farmers)

The SHEP Side Event of TICAD 8, titled "Innovative Agricultural Extension -Through the SHEP Approach-," will be co-hosted with IFAD on the case studies of initiatives in Africa, the status of collaboration with other donors, and research results on SHEP. Collaborations with various organizations, such as donor partners and NGOs, have been accelerated. Please register below. We hope you will join us.

It will be held on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 from 19:30 to 21:00 Japanese time on zoom.

• TICAD 8 JICA Side Events

Registration deadline is 17:00 (JST) the day before the event

Joint Declaration

• Joint Declaration (Japanese) (PDF/333KB)
• Joint Declaration (English) (PDF/221KB)
• Joint Declaration (French) (PDF/224KB)

• See more information