في عربي

Prolinnova
PROmoting Local INNOVAtion in ecologically-oriented agriculture and NRM

In several countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific, diverse organisations have joined forces to promote local innovation in agriculture and natural resource management (NRM). After analysing their own experiences in agricultural research and development (ARD), they have drawn up their individual Prolinnova Country/Regional Programmes (CPs/RPs) as well as joint international activities for mutual learning and policy dialogue. This Global Partnership Programme (GPP) is a Community of Practice that is built from the bottom up, in the spirit of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR).

Prolinnova is an NGO-initiated programme to build a global learning network to promote local innovation in ecologically-oriented agriculture and NRM. The focus is on recognising the dynamics of indigenous knowledge (IK) and enhancing capacities of farmers (including forest dwellers, pastoralists and fisherfolk) to adjust to change – to develop their own site-appropriate systems and institutions of resource management so as to gain food security, sustain their livelihoods and safeguard the environment. The essence of sustainability lies in the capacity to adapt.

The programme builds on and scales up farmer-led approaches to development that start with finding out how farmers do informal experiments to develop and test new ideas for better use of natural resources. Understanding the rationale behind local innovation transforms how research and extension agents view local people. This experience stimulates interest on both sides to enter into joint action. Local ideas are further developed in a participatory process that integrates IK and scientific knowledge. Joint action and analysis lead to joint learning and further action.

How it all started

Prolinnova was conceived in December 1999, when Southern and Northern NGOs – supported by GFAR, the NGO Committee (NGOC) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs – met in Rambouillet, France, to consider how participatory approaches to ARD based on local initiatives could be scaled up. At this meeting, ETC EcoCulture, a Netherlands-based NGO, was asked to facilitate the launching of a Prolinnova programme built up from country level. NGOs in Africa and Asia facilitated multi-stakeholder design of Country Programmes (CPs) which, in turn, designed international activities to reinforce their own activities. The Prolinnova partners are developing country-specific ways to:

• document local innovations and experiments by resource-poor farmers and communities;
• strengthen partnerships between farmers, development agents, research scientists and other actors to refine local innovations and to encourage others to try them out;
• create wider awareness of and skills in participatory innovation development (PID) through a variety of learning mechanisms;
• develop and expand mechanisms that give farmers more influence over formal research, extension and education; and
• integrate local innovation and PID approaches into formal agricultural research, development and education institutions.

Participatory design of the GPP

In 2003, key stakeholder organisations in ARD in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda – supported by IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) – collected in-country experiences in recognising local innovation and promoting PID. They held workshops to analyse their experiences and developed plans to scale up these approaches. Since 2004, DGIS (Netherlands Directorate General for International Cooperation) partly funds these CPs to realise their plans and supports similar processes in Cambodia, Nepal, Niger, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania.

In 2006 a francophone programme PROFEIS was launched to expand the activities in the West African Sahel (to include also Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal) and an Andes programmes was launched, initially in Bolivia. In 2007 Prolinnova–Kenya joined the network. Local NGOs are starting up similar programmes in Mozambique and the South Pacific.

The activities of the CPs/RPs differ according to their experience and self-identified strengths and weaknesses in recognising the dynamics of IK, engaging in PID and scaling it up. However, common elements include:

• developing inventories and databases of local innovations, innovators and organisations working together with them
• bringing farmers, development agents and formal researchers together to plan and implement participatory experiments, starting from jointly prioritised local innovations
• creating national and sub-national multi-stakeholder platforms to share information about local innovations and to learn jointly about PID and its institutionalisation
• building capacity to identify and document local innovation and engage in PID, through training workshops for farmers and scientists
• participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) of joint activities, outcomes and impacts
• creating awareness (through innovator fairs, mass media etc) and engaging in policy dialogue with decision-makers in agricultural research, extension and education to create enabling institutional and policy environments for PID.

At annual meetings since 2004, the country-level partners define the international networking, learning and other support mechanisms needed to support their work. Thus, the participatory planning at international level mirrors the approach taken at national and grassroots level: the partners develop and own a programme based on their self-defined needs and interests.

Structure of the decentralised programme

In each country or region, a local NGO convenes the major ARD stakeholders. It serves as secretariat for a National Steering Committee (NSC) made up of people from government research, extension and education, other NGOs and farmer groups. The NSC defines the CP/RP activities, ranging from farmer-led research to policy advocacy. It gives the CP/RP strategic guidance, helps mobilise resources and is the apex structure for accountability. A smaller core team is responsible for day-to-day implementation of programme activities.

The International Support Team (IST) supports country-level activities through overall programme coordination, networking, capacity building, coaching, web-based knowledge management, publishing and advocacy. The IST is made up of IIRR in the Philippines, ETC EcoCulture and CIS-VUA in the Netherlands, and the coordinators of the FAIR (Farmer Access to Innovation Resources) and PROFEIS and HAPID sub-programmes.

Participatory learning and mentoring

In March 2004, CP partners first met in Ethiopia for an international workshop hosted by Prolinnova–Ethiopia, coordinated by AgriService Ethiopia (ASE). Local farmers explained how their innovations and PID activities helped them meet food-security needs. The NGO and government participants shared their experiences in building farmer-extension-research-education partnerships to promote local innovation and planned joint international activities.

Capacity building formed part of this plan of action. IIRR offered international training of PID facilitators in the Philippines (2004), in Uganda (2006) and in Ethiopia (2007). The participants then trained research and extension staff in their own countries.

In June 2005, the CP coordinators met in Uganda to learn from good practice in enhancing multi-stakeholder partnerships and to harmonise their PM&E activities. Environmental Alert, the NGO coordinating Prolinnova–Uganda, hosted the meeting. It was held prior to the FARA (Forum on Agricultural Research in Africa) General Assembly so that Prolinnova partners could also attend the FARA pre-plenary meeting of NGOs to set up a consortium on ARD in sub-Saharan Africa.

The March 2006 international partners’ meeting (IPM) was hosted by Prolinnova–Cambodia, coordinated by CEDAC. Participants updated each other on progress and discussed PM&E, information-sharing strategies, LISF implementation, process documentation and resource mobilisation.

The IPM in March 2007 was hosted in Senegal by PROFEIS, a regional network of CPs in francophone West Africa coordinated by IED–Afrique (Innovation, Environnement et Dévéloppement en Afrique).

Prolinnova–North Ghana is hosting the 2008 IPM, together with a "writeshop" on CP experiences in piloting Local Innovation Support Funds.

On request of the CPs, Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM)–Tanzania held an international training workshop on policy dialogue in August 2006, which was followed up by mini-workshops in experiences in policy dialogue and curriculum development during the 2007 IPM.

South-South mentoring between the CPs/RPs helps strengthen capacities to build partnerships in ARD.

Multi-country thematic initiatives

CPs with common interests in specific themes have joined forces in their own initiatives:

• Local Innovation Support Funds (LISF). FAIR won a 2-year grant from the French-funded DURAS (Promoting Sustainable Development in Agricultural Research Systems) for action research on LISFs in Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Africa and Uganda. The Nepal CP does this with own resources. Using locally-managed funds, farmers finance their own research and learning activities related to agricultural innovation. Prolinnova–SA coordinates this initiative. Additional funds are being sought so that LISFs can be scaled up and institutionalised.
• Farmer-Led Documentation (FLD). Participatory video to allow innovators to make their own documents for sharing with other communities and influencing policy was piloted in Ghana, working with facilitators from Insight and COMPAS (Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development). In late 2006, Prolinnova, PELUM–Uganda and Novib held an international FLD workshop in Uganda, and pilot activities have now started also in other countries.
• HIV/AIDS and PID (HAPID). In January 2008 a two-year initiative, coordinated by Prolinnova–SA, was launched in Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa to explore implications of HIV/AIDS for PID activities and possibilities of PID in working with people confronted with HIV/AIDS.
• PID and climate change. In January 2008 a one-year study was started in Ethiopia, Nepal and Niger to explore how farmers are innovating in the face of perceived climate change.
• Curriculum development (CD). To reinforce current activities in several CPs to influence the curriculum in education and training in agriculture and NRM, these CPs have drawn up a proposal for funding of CD activities. CIS-VUA coordinates this initiative.

Policy dialogue

Often with GFAR support, Prolinnova takes part in various international ARD fora. At the 2003 GFAR meeting in Kenya, ASE told how the CP in Ethiopia was set up. At the 2004 GFAR meeting in Mexico, Environmental Alert presented Prolinnova–Uganda. At the 2005 European Forum on ARD in Switzerland, LI-BIRD and Farmer Support Group presented their partnership experience in Nepal and South Africa. At the 2005 GFAR meeting in Morocco, Prolinnova progress was reported by POG Chair, Betty del Rosario, and at the 2006 meeting in USA by Laurens van Veldhuizen of the IST. CEDAC presented Asian Prolinnova experiences to APAARI (Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions) in late 2006, and LI-BIRD to APAARI in late 2007.

In June 2007, Prolinnova–SA presented the GPP at FARA’s Fourth General Assembly, held in Johannesburg, at an event organised by the UK-funded Research Into Use (RIU) on “Overcoming Challenges in Scaling Out Agricultural Research Successes”. Small-scale farmers showcased their innovations during the Africa Agricultural Science Week. RIU funded preparation of farmers’ posters, brochures and a video documenting local innovation and the farmers’ participation in the FARA events.

..

Wider sharing and learning

Working with existing electronic networks and databases that serve groups with similar interests, Prolinnova shares concepts and experiences in participatory innovation. To bridge the digital divide, printed matter is also disseminated and linkage sought with other media, e.g. radio. Information about Prolinnova activities is spread through inputs to magazines (e.g. Appropriate Technology, Ground Up, LEISA Magazine) and electronic newsletters.

The Prolinnova website (www.prolinnova.net) is the main tool for wider sharing. The CPs asked IIRR to manage the website, so they can focus on action on the ground, but they increasingly take their own initiative in filling the CP webpages. The Prolinnova e-list (yahoogroups) serves as a platform to discuss developments in ARD that build on local innovation.

In November 2006 Prolinnova collaborated with the international research centres CIAT, IFPRI and ILRI to organise the Innovation Africa Symposium (IAS)in Kampala on agricultural innovation systems, co-funded by Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the World Bank. The Ugandan CP and IIRR–Uganda arranged visits to local farmer innovators. For more information, see www.innovationafrica.net.

Several Prolinnova partners joined the Farmer First Revisited conference held December 2007 at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK. For more information, see www.farmer-first.org.

In November 2006, Prolinnova joined forces with three international agricultural research centres (CIAT, IFPRI and ILRI) to organise a symposium in Kampala on agricultural innovation systems in Africa. Prolinnova–Uganda and IIRR–Uganda arranged field visits to farmer innovators. The IAS was funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, the World Bank and the organising institutions. More news on the symposium can be found on the Prolinnova website and www.innovationafrica.net

Sources of programme support

DGIS is the main donor, after inception funding from IFAD. GFAR, CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation), French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rockefeller Foundation, Misereor, ActionAid, EED (Church Development Service), the World Bank and RIU support specific activities, projects or CPs.

Interest of international and national agencies in Prolinnova is growing, as reflected in more and more requests for information and collaboration, and in increasing donor support. Both the international secretariat and individual CPs have mobilised additional funding. The partners in the IST and CPs cover over one third of total costs themselves. Funds are constantly sought to support new national platforms and thematic initiatives.

PROLINNOVA publications and papers

Contact Us