2005 Mid-year Report
South Africa Country Programme

PROLINNOVA-South Africa had its first National Workshop postponed from 2004 to 2005. It was held in February, back to back with a POG (PROLINNOVA Oversight Group) meeting. The workshop had 20 people participants, representatives of different stakeholder groups, and resulted in a comprehensive action plan for the next years. A well written brochure with information on local innovation in SA collected in 2004 was published early 2005 and launched during the national workshop.

In what concerns the institutionalisation of PID approaches, the Agricultural Research
Council (ARC) has agreed to incorporate Participatory Innovation Development in their ARD capacity building programme for researchers.

PROLINNOVA-South Africa coordinator presented the experience of the CP at different
occasions. She presented case studies at two conferences on ARD (Switzerland and
Uganda), and actively participated in the formation of a NGO Consortium for ARD in Sub- Saharan Africa (in a side event of a FARA meeting in Uganda).

The CP sees as main challenges: the coordination of such a national programme with limited resources, Core team members living quite far apart, the demands from many international initiatives and opportunities, while still having to manage their own institutions. A programme coordinator is being presently recruited in response to these felt difficulties.

Finally, South Africa played a leading role in the development of the proposal on Innovation Support Funds to DURAS.