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The World Agroforestry Centre West and Central Africa region (ICRAF-WCA) with Regional Office in Bamako-Mali covers a vast geographical area made of 24 countries with a population of 340 million people.
It is made up of two main agro-ecological zones — the dry Sahelian zone, a semi-arid landscape stretching from Chad and Senegal and the Humid Tropics, spreading along the coast and extending to the central part of Africa. The West and Central Africa Region was created in October 2005 by the merging of the former AHT and Sahel regions. The region’s activities are carried out in the Sahel, in Upper Guinea and in the Humid Tropics zones, known as the Nodes of the region.
The region is ICRAF’s flag bearer in Participatory Tree Domestication and tree biodiversity conservation, which aim to enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers through increased income and non-income benefits from indigenous trees and shrubs.
Promoting cultivation of high-value plants
In Participatory Tree Domestication, researchers work with communities to select species from their natural habitats and adapt them for cultivation on farms. The procedure involves the identification, reproduction, adoption and diffusion of quality and high market value germplasm.
The region’s researchers have selected, developed and adapted vegetative tree propagation methods of air layering, rooting of cuttings and grafting. These techniques lead to early fruiting, replication of desired traits or characteristics, easy reproduction of species whose seeds are difficult to collect and conservation of valuable species.
Indigenous fruit trees such as Adansonia digitata, Cola spp, Dacryodes edulis, Garcina kola, Irvingia gabonensis, Ricinodendron heudelotti, Tamarindus indica,Vitellaria paradoxa, Ziziphus indica have been promoted using participatory approaches.
Other include oil tree species such as Allanblakia spp and vegetables including Adansonia digitata, Gnetum africanum, Moringa oliefera; spice species such as Afrostyrax lepidophyllus, Baillonella toxisperma, Monodora myristica and medicinal species, mainly Annickia chlorantha, Khaya senegalensis, Pausinystalia johimbe and Prunus africana
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