The mission assigned to CORAF by its founding fathers is to ‘’strengthen national agricultural research programs through better consultation in order to develop a genuine African scientific community’’.

CORAF was therefore conceived as the instrument of strengthening an African scientific community rooted in its environment, by creating an African space for collaborative research. Later, CORAF will become, in fact, the technical arm of ECOWAS in all that concerns agricultural issues.

CORAF aims to contribute to a sustainable reduction of poverty and food insecurity in West and Central Africa. To achieve this, it is working to increase economic growth, generated by agriculture, and to improve the agricultural research system of the sub-region. This vision is based on the principles that govern the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP). It also builds on the vision of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa that the African Union has designated as the Technical Agency for the Implementation of CAADP Pillar IV (Improving Agricultural Research, Dissemination and Adoption of Technologies).

The objective of CORAF is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of smallholder farmers and promote the agribusiness sector. For this, it puts producers and agricultural users at the Center of research.

CORAF reserves the right to collaborate closely with Pan-African or International Organizations, International Agricultural Research Centers of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, as well as with the Regional Economic Communities of West and Central Africa (ECOWAS, ECCAS, UEMOA, CEMAC) which have similar goals and objectives, international financial institutions.

The Organs of CORAF/WECARD are: the General Assembly (GA) which is the supreme body which evaluates with sovereign rights all issues concerning the institution, the Governing Board (GB), the Executive Secretariat (ES), the Scientific and Technical Committee (STC).

Thirty years after its creation, CORAF is at a crossroads. The institution that has grown in maturity and legitimacy, must now address the coming years by taking up the challenge of the dissemination and mass use of technologies and other agricultural innovations it has generated through its 23 NARS. With a covered area of 11.5 million square kilometers where a population of almost 400 million people live, 70% of whom on agriculture, CORAF wants to focus on the transformation of agriculture through technologies and other innovations to create wealth, jobs for young people, but also to achieve food self-sufficiency in these two regions.