**4. Gaps and opportunities for biotechnology advancement**

This section examines areas or issues constituting either challenges which if addressed, or opportunities which if harnessed, will enhance research and commercial applications of agricultural biotechnologies in SSA. Besides selective breeding as well as germplasm characterization based on phenotypes, tissue culture in crops, clonal propagation in trees, sex reversal in aquaculture, and artificial insemination (AI) in livestock, use of modern advanced technologies remains limited in SSA, mostly confined to research projects. However, use of molecular and genomic technologies, while still low, is increasing rapidly especially in research. A major constraint to the application of most of these technologies in SSA relates to capacities (human resources and facilities) and several dimensions of enabling environment especially political will, low public awareness, and associated effect on acceptance, lack of financial investments, and limited organizational capacities. Five key gaps can be identified for SSA, corresponding to opportunity areas for action: (1) policies and biosafety frameworks, (2) awareness and public participation, (3) utilization of research products and public-private partnerships (PPPs), (4) human capacity and research infrastructure, and (5) financial resources for R&D.
