Enoch G. Achigan-Dako

Prof. Dr. Ir. Enoch Gbenato Achigan-Dako is Geneticist and Plant Breeder, associate professor at the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin. He is an alumnus of the African Plant Breeding Academy of the University of California, Davis and currently Secretary General of the African Association of Plant Breeders. Prof. Achigan-Dako was the winner of the 2008 Vavilov Frankel Fellowship sponsored by DuPont Pioneer and Bioversity International. He contributed more than 80 research papers in high-ranking international journals with a dozen book chapters. E.G. Achigan-Dako is the coordinator of a number of projects including of the program ‘’Enhancing training and research mobility for novel crops breeding in Africa’’ (MoBreed), a project funded by the Commission of the European Union that aims to strengthen the mobility for training and research on orphan crops in Africa. He is also a co-PI of another European Union project on ‘’Mobility for plant genomics scholars to accelerate climate-smart adaptation options and food security in Africa’’ (GENES). Professor Achigan- Dako is the coordinator of the Capacity Building Project in Leadership and Entrepreneurship of Young Academics in Benin, funded by the Mastercard Foundation. He also coordinates other projects and programs at the African level, including: CLEONOMICS, which aims to develop improved varieties of Akaya (Gynandropis gynandra), a neglected leaf vegetable, for the West and East African markets. He is a member of the consortium of the SWEET POTATO Project funded by the African Union, and the local coordinator of the project Biovalor funded by the Partenariats avec l’Enseignement Supérieur Africain of the France Government.