After making an initial inventory of organisations and experiences in participatory research and development in Ethiopia and holding a national workshop in August 2004, Prolinnova–Ethiopia drew up an action plan which is jointly revised by member organisations each year. Core activities include:
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Awareness raising and policy dialogue about local innovation and PID
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Documentation of local innovations and innovation processes
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Joint experimentation by farmers, scientists and development workers
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Capacity building to identify local innovations and engage in PID
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Participatory monitoring and evaluation
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Piloting Local Innovation Support Fund (LISF)
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Facilitating Farmer Led Documentation (FLD)
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Studying local innovation in adaptation to climate change
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Integrating PID approaches into institutions of research, extension and education
The work is being implemented in four agro-ecological and social settings in the country: typical Ethiopian highlands (two areas in Amhara and Tigray Regions), coffee-growing areas (including most of Oromia Region), enset-growing areas (most of the Southern Region); and pastoralist areas (the drylands inhabited by Afar, Somali and Borana livestock-keepers). Introductory workshops were held to start off the multi-stakeholder partnership at regional level. Research and development workers in these areas are encouraged to identify local innovators and to jointly plan PID experiments building on local innovations and on innovators' questions or hypotheses.
Some of the member organisations of Prolinnova–Ethiopia include the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR); the Federal Ministry of Agriculture (MoA); several universities e.g. Jima, Addis Ababa, Haramaya, Hawassa, Mekelle, Axum, Ambo; several NGOs e.g. AgriService Ethiopia (ASE), FARM-Africa, Ethiopian Rural Self Help Association (ERSHA), CARE-Ethiopia, Oxfam Canada, Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), Organisation for Relief and Development in Amhara (ORDA), Sustainable Land Use Forum (SLUF) and Pastoralist Forum Ethiopia (PFE) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI. The Core Group drawn from these organisations oversees the network, and its Secretariat is hosted by ASE.
In each agro ecological area, there is a sub-platform composed of multiple stakeholders in agriculture and NRM and hosted by one of the members.
Prolinnova–Ethiopia is testing modalities of
Local Innovation Support Funds in the Southern Region (Amaro area), Tigray Region (Axum area) and Oromia region (Ambo area) and has been implementing a project funded by
ActionAid to integrate the PID approach into the work of Farmer Training Centres.
