An 8-man delegation from Angola led by the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Engineer Antonio Francisco De Assis visit NARO-NaCORI to discuss strategic partnership opportunities for support to coffee research in Angola.
Dr. Godfrey Kagezi, principal research officer at the National Research Organization who represented the Director of Research welcomed the team to the institute and emphasized the cultural importance of coffee in Uganda. For example, during a marriage ceremony in Buganda, coffee is shared to symbolize brotherhood. He later made a presentation about the institute and the different research programs and what is done along the coffee value chain.
While addressing the NaCORI team, Engineer Antonio Francisco De Assis expressed their appreciation to Uganda for the hospitality during their stay in the country. He appreciated NaCORI for its tireless efforts to make coffee productivity a priority. He emphasized that the friendship of the two presidents (Uganda and Angola) should yield development in the Agricultural sector and especially coffee as a strategic crop. He also called upon Africans who have studied abroad, to bring that knowledge back home to develop Africa.
He intimated that Coffee Research in Angola is on a small scale making it insignificant for productivity. This is mainly because Angola is still recovering from the 27-year Civil War that significantly devastated Angola’s infrastructure and severely damaged public administration, the economy, and religious institutions. The civil war began in 1975 after Angola attained independence from Portugal and continued with interludes, until 2002. This war was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Other notable causes were the combination of Angola’s violent internal dynamics and the exceptional degree of foreign military and political involvement. He, therefore, advised that once there is a conflict, sit down and discuss it to resolve it instead of resorting to war because it destroys a nation and its people.
The team was later taken on a guided tour around the institute and marvelled at the great work being done which translates to the superb quality coffee Uganda produces and exports. Engineer Antonio Francisco De Assis therefore, requested a team from NaCORI to visit the Angola coffee research institute to help them revive the coffee sector. This visit happened during the 4-day G-25 African Heads of State summit which brought together leaders, coffee authorities, and industry innovators from 25 African Coffee producing countries at Munyonyo’s Speke Resort to discuss ways to elevate the African coffee sector with the theme of transforming the African coffee sector through value addition.
