The Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) serves as governance mechanism to ensure accountability of the Global Partnership Programme (GPP) to the Country Programmes (CPs), their constituencies and donors. The POG is made up of four people from the CPs, one from the International Support Team (IST) and three external people. It has met face-to-face twice a year since its inaugural meeting in 2005 in South Africa; otherwise, it communicates by email. It has drawn up several policies and guidelines for the GPP.

Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG)

• Beatriz del Rosario (Vice-Chair), Philippines (betty_delrosario AT yahoo.com)
• Elizabeth Vargas, Bolivia (elivargass AT yahoo.com)
• Monica Kapiriri, Uganda (mkapiriri AT yahoo.co.uk)
• Oliver Oliveros, France (oliveros ATagropolis.fr)
• Pratap Shrestha, Nepal (pshrestha AT libird.org)
• Scott Killough (Chair), USA (skillough AT wn.org)
• Souleymane Bassoum, Senegal (agrecol AT sentoo.sn)
• Will Critchley, Netherlands (wrs.critchley AT dienst.vu.nl)
• Secretariat: Ann Waters-Bayer & Chesha Wettasinha

Note: replace AT with @ and remove leading and trailing spaces for the correct email addresses.

Beatriz (Betty) del Rosario (bettydelrosario AT apaari.org) from the Philippines chaired the Committee of Means of Implementation of the Philippines Council for Sustainable Development (1997-2001) and was also Director of the Plant Resources of South East Asia (PROSEA) Network Office in 2000-01. Up to 2005 she was Deputy Executive Director for Research and Development in the Philippines Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) in the Philippines, where she advocated for enhanced civil-society involvement in R&D in Asia and fostered farmer-scientist collaboration in agronomic research. Since 2005, she is Assistant Executive Secretary of the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) based in Bangkok, Thailand. Betty has chaired the POG since its inception in February 2005. 

Elizabeth Vargas Solá (elivargass AT yahoo.com) studied Agronomy at the Zamorano University in Honduras, Central America, and Anthropology at the Catholic University in Bolivia. In 2006, she completed her MSc in "Management of Agro-ecological Knowledge and Social Change" at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She has worked as trainer/facilitator with farmers in Bolivia and in Zamorano University, Honduras; coordinated and monitored projects in a protected area in Tarija, Bolivia; and facilitated farmer organisation and multi-stakeholder partnership building on an irrigation project of CIPCA (Centre for Research and Promotion of Indigenous Peasant People) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is now facilitator in policy advocacy of the National Soil Platform, which works in partnership with CIPCA in Bolivia.

Monica Kapiriri (mkapiriri AT yahoo.co.uk) from Uganda has played a key role in Prolinnova from the start. As Co-Chair of the Non-Governmental Organisations Committee (NGOC) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in 2000-2002, she accompanied the conceptual design of the programme, assisted in identifying NGOs that could facilitate the building of multi-stakeholder partnerships and supported the struggle to obtain funding for the programme. As the person who brought a perspective of civil society into the Steering Committee of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in 2003-2006, she continued to advocate for farmer innovation and participatory research and development and for the Prolinnova programme itself. In Uganda, Monica supports Environmental Alert, the NGO that coordinates Prolinnova in that country, in institutional development as the Prolinnova-Uganda programme is growing, as well as in methods of participatory agricultural research and development and farmers’ empowerment. 

Oliver Oliveros (oliveros AT agropolis.fr) from the Philippines holds a BSc in Human Ecology from the University of the Philippines and a Certificate of Management from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. He is currently pursuing his Masters (Acteurs et Nouvelles Territoires) at the Université de Montpellier 3. After working as Senior Economic Development specialist with the Ministry of Socio-Economic Planning in the Philippines, he became an Associate Professional Officer with the FAO and, in this capacity, worked for five years in the Secretariat of the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) in Rome as the contact person for Civil-Society Organisations and the focal point for Rural Knowledge Systems and Innovation Processes. In 2004, Oliver moved to Montpellier, France, as coordinator of the DURAS (Promotion of Sustainable Development in Agricultural Research Systems in the South) programme. This is a French-funded initiative to support the GFAR and especially the NGO- and farmer-led initiatives within it. He has been a staunch supporter of Prolinnova since his involvement in development of the concept in Rambouillet, France, in 1999.

Pratap Kumar Shrestha (pshrestha AT libird.org) from Nepal has more than 19 years of experiences in participatory research and development in the field of agriculture, biodiversity and natural resource management. He initially worked as a Socio-economist and later Head of the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Lumle Agricultural Research Centre funded by DFID (formerly ODA), UK. He joined Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD), a Nepal based NGO, as Programme Officer in 1998 and led numerous research and development projects designed to improve the livelihoods of resource poor farmers. He was a founder member of the organization. He became Executive Director in December 2003 and, since then, manages LI-BIRD with substantial contribution to its institutional growth and development. He is also actively engaged in policy related work. He took the lead in drafting the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers’ Right Bill as a sui generis system of intellectual right protection. He is a member of the National Agricultural Biodiversity Coordination Committee responsible for the implementation of agricultural biodiversity policy in Nepal. He was instrumental in establishing the PROLINNOVA – Nepal programme and serves as Country Programme Coordinator. He also played a key role in establishing a Local Innovation Support Fund in Nepal. He holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of East Anglia, UK and PhD in local knowledge and participatory technology development from the Bangor University (formerly University of Wales, Bangor), UK.

Scott Killough (skillough AT wn.org), an American citizen, is Associate Vice-President for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods of World Neighbors. He has more than 20 years’ experience in participatory development management within an NGO setting, and has field experience in programme development and management, agricultural extension education systems and sustainable agriculture practices in the tropics. Scott worked with the IIRR (International Institute of Rural Reconstruction), based in the Philippines, from 1990 to 2006. At IIRR he was involved in all aspects of institutional planning and management, programme development, monitoring and evaluation, oversight of community-based field projects, coordination of international workshops and training, publication and documentation, and numerous technical assistance assignments. These tasks were conducted in various countries mainly in Central America, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa. In the early 1980s, Scott worked for three years in Guatemala in community-based livestock development and as technical trainer of para-veterinary technicians. He holds a BSc in Agricultural Economics and Political Science from Oklahoma State University, a Master's degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University, and a PhD in International and Rural Development from the University of Reading, UK, with a dissertation focused on processes and impacts of farmer-to-farmer extension in Central America. 

Bassoum Souleymane (agrecol AT sentoo.sn) from Senegal is Director of Agrecol-Afrique, an NGO that promotes ecologically-oriented agriculture and fair trade in West Africa. He has a degree in agriculture and is himself an active farmer. He has been involved in IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements) for many years and is qualified as a certifier of organic agricultural produce. As an expert in sustainable agricultural policies in West Africa, he serves in the ten-person international EcoFair Trade Dialogue panel supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Germany. AGRECOL-Afrique is the NGO that is facilitating the building of multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote local innovation and participatory research and development in Senegal under PROFEIS (Promoting Farmer Experimentation and Innovation in the Sahel).

Will Critchley (wrs.critchley AT dienst.vu.nl), from the UK originally but now based in The Netherlands, holds a BSc in Agriculture from Reading University in the UK and a PhD in Soil and Water Conservation from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Will began his working life with a six-year period (1973–79) as a volunteer in Kenya, before joining two District-based rural development projects funded by the World Bank and USAID in Baringo and Kitui, respectively. Since 1990 he has worked for the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he is currently head of the NRM unit in the Centre for Development Cooperation (CIS), a member of the Prolinnova international Support Team. He carries out a range of activities, including teaching, student supervision, research, writing and project evaluations.