Prolinnova featured at EFARD conference, April 2005
Coordinators
of the Prolinnova Country Programmes in South Africa and Nepal presented
experiences in North–South partnerships in agricultural research
for development (ARD) at the EFARD (European Forum on Agricultural
Research for Development) conference held in Zurich, Switzerland
on 27–30 April 2005. In the session on “Innovation through
ARD partnerships”, the GFAR (Global Forum on Agricultural
Research) organised a workshop on North–South research partnerships:
guidelines, challenges, success stories and the way forward. The
poster (PDF File; size : 438 KB) and presentations made for this session by Monique Salomon, Farmer Research Group, South Africa, and Pratap Shrestha, LI-BIRD, Nepal, are available on this website for viewing and download.
In
a plenary session of the conference, Ann Waters-Bayer from the Prolinnova
International Support Team gave a paper on “Social
dimensions in ARD:(Word Document:
size : 107 KB) how civil society fosters partnerships to
promote local innovation by rural communities”, in which she
outlined the justification for and the approach of the Prolinnova
programme.
Abstract: "Agricultural innovation to
alleviate poverty and achieve food security is a social process
involving many actors and needs to take full account of social dimensions
– referring to the motivations, attitudes, behaviour and beliefs
not only of farmers but also of scientists and policymakers. Using
the example of an international partnership programme, we show how
the R&D capacities of resource-poor farmers can be strengthened
and agricultural services can support them. It is based on the realisation
that farmers, on their own initiative and using local resources,
are innovating, that their innovations can provide a focus to examine
development opportunities and research needs, and that recognition
of this local creativity is a prerequisite for genuine partnership
in R&D."
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