In August 2022 we organized two TICAD8 Official Side Events: first being the “HEALTHY SOILS FOR FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA -POTENTIAL OF REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE”, co-hosted by the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), and second, held three weeks afterwards, the “MULTIDIMENSIONAL DIGITALLY-ENABLED AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION IN AFRICA -ACCELERATING AGRICULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE FACE OF GLOBAL CRISES-”, co-hosted by the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS).

Both events were held as a hybrid meeting with a streaming studio set in Tokyo to host representatives, emcee and a number of speakers, and other presenters accessed the event online. To ensure smooth operation during the side events, we conducted connection tests in advance with the speakers joining online. We also had a simultaneous interpretation service, making the side events available both to domestic audiences in Japanese as well as to overseas viewers in English.

All in all, the side events were a great success, with more than 500 active participants from various countries. The live broadcast recordings will be further used for archive streaming by the host, making the events available to a wider audience who could not join us during the event.

                                                                                                                            （JN）