AGFUND and Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture declare partnership to transition innovations to scale

Dubai, December 4 - His Royal Highness Abdul Aziz bin Talal Al Saud, President of AGFUND and Michael Kremer, 2019 economics Nobel laureate, declared a new partnership to promote the transition of innovations to scale during the Award Ceremony of Prince Talal International Prize for Human Development, which was held on the sideline of COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

The Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND) and the Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture, chaired by Professor Kremer, will collaborate to promote the development, testing, and transition to scale of cost-effective innovations at the intersection of climate change, food security, and agriculture.

"Through this partnership, we're bringing critical issues to the forefront" said HRH Prince Abdul Aziz. "Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture are deeply rooted in the 17 SDGs and we are tirelessly coordinating with our partners to accelerating and localizing them within the partner countries," HRH added. 

As a first step in this partnership, the Executive Director of AGFUND, Dr. Nasser Alkahtani announced an initial AGFUND commitment to advance rigorous research for one of the priority areas of the Innovation Commission: Training for rainwater harvesting. On-farm rainwater harvesting can improve soil quality, increase yields and revenues, and sequester carbon. This commitment will contribute to research efforts in Niger showing that training sessions significantly increase the adoption of demi-lunes, a rainwater harvesting technique.

With the support of AGFUND, researchers working in Niger will generate lessons for other countries in the Sahel and beyond. “Innovation is a global public good,” said Kremer. “Adapting innovations, refining them through A/B tests, and scaling them provides proof of concept and generates global knowledge that can inform scaling regionally and globally.”

The Innovation Commission is an initiative at the University of Chicago that identifies innovations with strong evidence of impact and cost-effectiveness and generates recommendations to transition them to scale. It includes former heads of state and finance ministers, and leaders in international organizations and civil society.

AGFUND is a development institution established by the initiative of the Late HRH Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz with the support from the GCC countries to enhance human development worldwide without any kind of discrimination.