Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development
edited by Ian Scoones and John Thompson, with foreword by Robert Chambers
published by Practical Action, London

Agriculture is an urgent global priority and farmers find themselves in the front line of some of the world’s most pressing issues - climate change, globalization and food security. Twenty years ago, the Farmer First workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, launched a movement to encourage farmer participation in agricultural research and development (R&D), responding to farmers’ needs in complex, diverse, risk-prone environments, and promoting sustainable livelihoods and agriculture.

Since that time, methodological, institutional and policy experiments have unfolded around the world. Farmer First Revisited returns to the debates about farmer participation in agricultural R&D and looks to the future. With over 60 contributions from across the world, the book presents a range of experiences that highlight the importance of going beyond a focus on the farm to the wider innovation system, including market interactions as well as the wider institutional and policy environment. If, however, farmers are really to be put first, a politics of demand is required in order to shape the direction of these innovation systems. This calls for a major rethinking of agricultural R&D, the boosting of the knowledge and capacities of farmers’ organizations to innovate, the strengthening of networks and alliances to support, document and share lessons on farmer-led innovation, and the transformation of agricultural higher education.

For more information, contact farmerfirst@ids.ac.uk.

Innovation Africa: Enriching Farmers’ Livelihoods
edited by Pascal C. Sanginga, Ann Waters-Bayer, Susan Kaaria, Jemimah Njuki and Chesha Wettasinha, with foreword by Peter Matlon
published by Earthscan, London

Agricultural research, extension and education can contribute greatly to enhancing agricultural production in a sustainable way and to reducing poverty in the developing world, but achievements have generally fallen short of expectations in Africa. In recent years, growing economic and demographic pressures - coupled with the entry of new market forces and actors - have created a need and an opportunity for more interactive approaches to development. Understanding the existing innovation processes, recognising the potentials for catalysing them and learning how to support joint innovation by different groups will be the key to success.

This book covers new conceptual and methodological developments in agricultural innovation systems, and showcases recent on-the-ground experiences in different contexts in Africa. The contributions show how innovation is the outcome of social learning through interaction of individuals and organisations in both creating and applying knowledge. It brings examples of how space and incentives have been created to promote collaboration between farmers, research, extension and the private sectors to develop better technologies and institutional arrangements that can alleviate poverty. In 25 broad-ranging chapters, the book reflects cutting-edge thinking and practice in catalysing and supporting innovation processes in agriculture and management of natural resources.

For more information and to order: http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=27831.

 

Welcome to Prolinnova - Nigeria!
Posted: February 16, 2009

As of 1 February 2009, a new country-level initiative has become part of the Prolinnova Community of Practice: Prolinnova–Nigeria. In late October 2007, the International Secretariat in the Netherlands received an expression of interest from a group of people from different governmental and non-governmental organisations in northern Nigeria to launch such an initiative. They proposed a process of identifying further interested people and organisations, and holding a workshop to explore jointly the possibilities of setting up a network to promote local innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and natural resource management in their country. They received some seed money from Prolinnova to cover part of the costs. The coordinating NGO, DRIVE (Development Resource Initiative), based in Kaduna, organised this meeting and asked Prolinnova-Ghana North to send a resource person to support them. The Prolinnova Working Group in northern Ghana proposed Naaminong Karbo, Director of the Animal Research Institute in Ghana and long-time member of the Northern Ghana LEISA Working Group and later of Prolinnova-Ghana North.

The workshop took place in Kaduna at the end of August 2008 and included 26 Nigerian participants from farmer organisations, NGOs, extension, research, agricultural colleges and input suppliers. After learning more about Prolinnova and Participatory Innovation Development (PID) – particularly in Ghana through the inputs of Naaminong Karbo – and about the interests of the participants, they agreed to form a "Learning Group". They selected a small team to develop a proposal for an inception phase of Prolinnova-Nigeria, based on ideas generated by the workshop participants, and asked DRIVE to host the secretariat. A new items on this event, and the proceedings, are posted on the Prolinnova website.

The Prolinnova Learning Group in Nigeria is now starting up a 12-month inception phase to: 1) identify and document local innovations, innovation processes and innovators among farmers as entry point for joint investigations in ARD; 2) facilitate establishment of multi-stakeholder platforms for testing and using innovations in agricultural research and development (ARD); 3) build capacity in PID approaches in Nigeria; 4) raise awareness of PID approaches among policymaking institutions in the ARD sector; and 5) document lessons learned from implementing PID approaches in Nigeria and share these more widely.

The coordinator of the Learning Group is Yemi Adeleye from DRIVE. Other members come from the Kaduna State Agricultural Development Programme, the Federal Department of Fisheries, Ahmadu Bello University, the Institute of Agricultural Research (Zaria) and the Ginger Farmers Cooperative in southern Kaduna State. The group plans to start in Kaduna Region of northern Nigeria but hopes to be able to extend activities gradually to other regions with the guidance of a National Steering Committee and working through regional teams.

Prolinnova-Nigeria, like the initiatives in Kenya, Mozambique, the Andes and PROFEIS (Promoting Farmer Experimentation and Innovation in the Sahel), is not among the original nine country programmes receiving core funds from the Netherlands government. It will therefore have to pool existing resources of partners in pursuit of a common aim and raise additional funds for further support needed.

We welcome the Prolinnova–Nigeria Learning Group and invite all other Prolinnova partners to support this group by providing information and advice – both by email and during face-to-face meetings such as at the upcoming International Partners Workshop in Nepal in May 2009. Warm thanks go to Prolinnova Ghana North for helping the group in Nigeria to start the ball rolling!

World Conference on Animal Production, Nov 2008, Cape Town, South Africa
Posted: January 26, 2009

An invited paper on Promoting gender equality and empowering women through livestock (PDF file: 1.29MB), co-authored by Ann Waters-Bayer and Brigid Letty, was presented by Ann at a symposium on The Role of Livestock in Developing Communities. This symposium, organised by the University of the Free State (UFS) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), highlighted the importance of livestock in alleviating poverty and promoting human health, and provided a forum for analysing the contribution of livestock to social and economic development. The Prolinnova paper looks at key issues that impact on gender equality when livestock-related interventions are made in the name of development: issues related to men's and women's roles and responsibilities, rights of ownership over livestock, access to livestock services and markets, and decision-making powers regarding inputs, outputs and income. It points to positive initiatives that empower women, such as through recognising and stimulating their innovativeness in livestock-keeping, and enhancing their ability to organise themselves so as to strengthen their negotiating position and access to benefits. The UFS/ILRI symposium was part of the Tenth World Conference on Animal Production (WCAP), held 23-28 November 2008 in Cape Town, hosted by the South African Department of Agriculture. Brigid and Ann also prepared a poster on Local innovation by women livestock-keepers in South Africa (PDF file: 1MB), which was displayed at the WCAP. The Prolinnova paper will be a chapter in a book to be edited by the symposium organisers in 2009.

Innovation Asia-Pacific Symposium, 4-7 May 2009, Katmandu, Nepal
Posted: November 27, 2008

First Call for Contributions

An international symposium on agricultural innovation systems in Asia and the Pacific, focusing particularly on southern and eastern Asia, will be held on 4–7 May 2009 in Kathmandu, Nepal. It is being jointly organised by CIAT (International Centre for Tropical Agriculture)–Asia, ICIMOD (International Centre for integrated Mountain Development) and Prolinnova (Promoting Local Innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and natural resource management) in collaboration with the Prolinnova-Nepal partners LI-BIRD (Local Initiatives for Biodiversity Research and Development) and Practical Action–Nepal. It is being funded by these organisations and Research Into Use (RIU)/UK Department for International Development.

The Innovation Asia–Pacific Symposium will bring together researchers and practitioners to share their latest experiences and insights in enhancing innovation processes in smallholder agriculture and natural resource management (NRM), and to draw lessons for policy, research, development and practice. The Symposium will include plenary keynotes, thematic mini-workshops and an interactive information market. It will open with a Nepalese fair on local innovation to celebrate the creativity of women and men farmers, farmer organisations and other local entrepreneurs and institutions.

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit abstracts for Symposium papers relating to one or more of the following themes:

1. Concepts and methods in innovation systems approaches
2. Building and maintaining partnerships in innovation
3. Strengthening adaptive capacities through local innovation processes
4. Private-sector engagement for market-oriented innovation
5. Building capacity and mainstreaming innovation systems approaches
6. Policy dialogue and institutional change to support pro-poor innovation

The papers should draw on diverse fields and disciplines of the social, agricultural and natural resource sciences, and should present good practice in studying and enhancing innovation processes. Although the main focus of the Symposium will be on innovation in southern and eastern Asia, experiences from other parts of the world relevant for these areas will also be welcome.

Abstracts should be no longer than 600 words and contain a short description of the conceptual or methodological development, partnership, innovation experience or supportive processes and mechanisms; this should include an explanation of the type of innovation involved (technological, social, institutional, etc); the current stage in the innovation process; the actual or potential outcomes and impacts of the work; the gender issues involved; and conclusions and any recommendations. The abstract should also include the theme (referring to one of the above), title of paper, name/institutional affiliation and address of author(s) and e-mail address of the proposed presenter, and key words including country and region.

Deadline for submission of abstracts for papers and/or proposals for "marketplace" exhibits has been extended to Sunday, 18 January 2009 (originally set 20 December 2008). Abstracts should be submitted to the Secretariat of the Innovation Asia Pacific Symposium on info AT innovation-asia-pacific.net with copy to Chesha Wettasinha at the PROLINNOVA International Secretariat on c.wettasinha AT etcnl.nl.

More information on the symposium can be found at http://www.innovation-asia-pacific.net.

More detailed PDF version of this announcement (PDF file; size : 137 KB)

Innovation Asia-Pacific Symposium brochure (PDF file; size : 353 KB)

Starting up in Nigeria
Posted: October 22, 2008

A meeting of stakeholders in Agricultural Research and Development (ARD) was organised by Development Resource Initiative (DRIVE) on 20 August 2008 to facilitate the establishment of Prolinnova in Nigeria. The meeting was attended by 26 stakeholders drawn from farmers’ groups, NGOs, National Research Institutes, National Extension Systems, Colleges of Agriculture, Association of Agricultural Input Suppliers and International Development Agencies. The specific objectives of the meeting were to raise awareness of Prolinnova among stakeholders in ARD, to discuss and agree on a management structure for the programme and to shape the implementation of the programme in Nigeria. Naaminong Karbo from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Animal Research Institute and member of Prolinnova-Ghana provided technical input with respect to facilitation and experience sharing.

Following the presentation of information on Prolinnova, participants were of the opinion that the programme was quite relevant to the situation in the ARD sector in Nigeria. They highlighted the opportunities and the challenges to be addressed for successfully establishing the programme in the country. The resource person shared the experiences from Prolinnova–Ghana regarding the history of the programme, identification of issues for joint experimentation by farmers and researchers, challenges in programme management, lessons learned from programme implementation and the way forward. Of particular importance to the Nigerian situation was the challenge posed by coordination of Prolinnova- Ghana when it had a national spread and how the problem was addressed by adopting a regional approach to programme coordination.

As regards the management structure for Prolinnova-Nigeria, it was agreed that a platform comprising of participants at the workshop should be constituted, while a certain number of individuals would be selected – based on commitment and availability – to serve as members of the national steering committee. Participants also discussed the development of a programme for the inception phase of Prolinnova-Nigeria and concluded that members should be selected to finetune the ideas generated by the larger group on the issue. Detailed information about the proceedings can be found in the report (MS word document; size : 374 KB).

Special thanks to the Prolinnova International Secretariat at ETC Foundation Netherlands for funding and Prolinnova-Ghana for technical support. For more information, contact Yemi Adeleye (yemiolayemi@yahoo.com).

Pro-poor innovation highlighted at IFPRI conference
Posted: July 10, 2008

The International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) held a conference on "Advancing Agriculture in Developing Countries through Knowledge and Innovation" on 7–9 April 2008 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The conference provided a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences on knowledge and innovation for development among researchers, practitioners and decision-makers from the public, private and civil sectors, and to identify areas for further research, advocacy and cooperation. It was attended by almost 200 people, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa. In a plenary panel session on the final day, Ann Waters-Bayer from the Prolinnova International Support Team gave an invited paper on "How can technological and socio-institutional innovation processes have more impact at the local level?" (MS word document; size : 47 KB). This gave an opportunity to introduce the vision and concepts of PROLINNOVA. Tesfahun Fenta and Amanuel Assefa from the PROLINNOVA-Ethiopia coordinating NGO AgriService Ethiopia, Teklu Tesfaye from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and Chair of the PROLINNOVA-Ethiopia Steering Group, and Working Group member Elias Zerfu from ISNAR attended the conference and displayed posters on local innovation in the lobby of the conference venue. A summary of the conference can be found under www.ifpri.org/events/conferences/2008/20080407.asp

New resource: PID in Spanish!! / Desarrollo Participativo de Innovación – publicación en Español!
Posted: May 27, 2008

Maria Omonte, working with Prolinnova-Bolivia, has recently compiled a publication on PID in Spanish. Besides an in-depth discussion on PID and its practice, it also brings an introduction on Prolinnova in general. The document hopes to trigger reflection and discussion on the role technicians and policy makers are to play towards a more supportive role to farmers' own development efforts.

A timely and well elaborated document for those working in Spanish!!
For any comments or suggestions, please contact the author at: mariaomontef@yahoo.es

-------------------------------------
En un esfuerzo por entender y reflexionar sobre el rol protagónico que los agricultores deben tener en el proceso de desarrollo social y la importancia de partir de sus conocimientos y su experiencia, se presenta este documento, DPI: Desarrollo Participativo de Innovación, que es la compilación de varios documentos, la mayoría de ellos producidos por Prolinnova, por Maria Omonte, de Prolinnova-Bolivia

El objetivo de esta compilación, lograda en nuestro idioma, es dar una información general, pero sustancial de lo que es y significa el Desarrollo Participativo de Innovación (DPI), como enfoque y metodología de trabajo. Este material, puede ser la base para discutir, reflexionar y orientar el trabajo de los técnicos, investigadores, decisores políticos y otros, hacia un real aporte a la vida de los agricultores, ayudándoles a ser protagonistas de su propio proceso de desarrollo.

Comentarios y sugerencias son bienvenidos, y pueden ser enviados directamente a la autora: mariaomontef@yahoo.es

The document can be found in the Andes Regional Programme section of this website and also available below in:
(Word Document; size: 317kb)
(PDF format; size: 404kb)

South Africa Event Announcement: Good Practices Exhibit
Posted: April 30, 2008

As part of PELUM South Africa's Food Sovereignty Indaba (important meeting) on 20-21 June 2008 in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, to bring together producers, consumers, retailers, chefs, NGOs, government and other stakeholders to explore ways to make SA's food and agriculture system more sustainable, PELUM and Prolinnova-SA will be co-hosting a Good Practice Exhibition "Sustainable Technologies and Processes for Improved Livelihoods". View the detailed event announcement.

Support from Rockefeller Foundation for continued piloting of Local Innovation Support Funds
Posted: April 24, 2008

Earlier this month, the Rockefeller Foundation (one of Prolinnova's core donors) confirmed its interest in supporting a second phase of Piloting Local Innovation Support Funds (LISF) by Prolinnova. These pilots aim at finding best ways to make resources available directly to farmers to experiment and innovate, where needed jointly with support agencies and researchers. Initial pilots in five countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and South Africa) have given indications of the potential of the LISF approach but many issues need to be addressed and studied to ensure that LISFs become sustainable over longer periods of time. The new phase will have three main components: the actual pilots including major attention to M&E of their functioning and impact, capacity building at farmer and staff level and dissemination of findings and policy dialogue to ensure longer term local support. The Rockefeller Foundation will contribute USD $1,330,000 of the total budget for this phase of just below USD $2,000,000. The Prolinnova DGIS-supported country and international budgets, together with country specific donors, will provide co-funding. The funding allows three new countries (Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania) to join the Piloting LISFs sub-programme of Prolinnova.

The 2008 International Partners Meeting successfully completed
Posted: April 16, 2008

The 2008 Prolinnova International Partners Meeting has just been completed in Tamale, Ghana. The meeting brought together 33 advocates of participatory innovation development (PID) from 22 countries including farmers, NGOs, and staff of government ministries and extension agencies, research organizations and universities. The meeting extensively discussed experiences in the various countries with participatory innovation development, formulated lessons learnt and mapped out strategies to strengthen this important component in the Prolinnova programme. The Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture presented the key note address during the opening session confirming his support for PID. He later joined other guests and invitees including the Regional Minister for Northern Ghana in visiting the information market showing the work done in the various Prolinnova countries.

The meeting provided ample opportunities to review and discuss recent development and challenges within Prolinnova. Participants thus looked at the relevance of PID for climate change adaptation, reviewed the attention to gender concerns in their activities, re-strategized efforts to integrate PID into curricula for centers of higher learning and discussed ways to improve existing M&E efforts. In a separate session, the findings of the first phase of the FAIR Action Research on Local Innovation Support Funds were presented as formulated during a three day writeshop with partners involved just prior to the main IPM event.

A full report of the IPM will be prepared and posted at this website before the end of May. All decisions taken during the meeting have been summarized in the 2008 Prolinnova Action Plan (MS word document; size : 66 KB) already available on this website. In the final evaluation participants stressed that the meeting, in spite of a few logistical hiccups, has been a great event for learning and joined planning and thus a source of inspiration for the year to come. Nepal has been kind enough to offer to host the 2009 IPM.

For more details, you can visit the IPM 2008 sub-site. More photos and output documents will be posted soon. For those who wish to upload photos and documents to the IPM 2008 sub-site, please email me at jonathan.dayrit AT iirr.org.

More photos of the 2008 IPM in Ghana.

Innovation by communities confronting HIV/AIDS: new sub-project
Posted: March 6, 2008

A subgroup of Country Programmes within Prolinnova jointly developed ideas for learning and action related to Participatory Innovation Development (PID) in the face of HIV/AIDS. In January 2008, the HAPID (HIV/AIDS and PID) subproject was launched. The initial two years are funded by the Netherlands Directorate for International Cooperation (DGIS) under the Community-Led Natural Resource Management programme implemented jointly by Prolinnova and COMPAS (Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development). The Prolinnova programmes involved initially in HAPID are those in Ghana–South, Mozambique and South Africa.

The local organisations responsible for coordinating the HAPID activities in each country are:

• Ghana–South: ECASARD (Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development)
• South Africa: FSG (Farmer Support Group), University of KwaZulu-Natal
• Mozambique: VetAid.

The HAPID subproject is guided by an international team composed of Brigid Letty (Prolinnova–South Africa), Romuald Rutazihana (Prolinnova–Mozambique), Ann Waters-Bayer and Chesha Wettasinha (Prolinnova International Support Team, ETC EcoCulture), Carolien Aantjes (ETC Crystal) and Michael Loevinsohn (Applied Ecology Associates). View self-introductions of the HAPID international team.

A new sub-section has been created on (this) Prolinnova website for HIV/AIDS and PID under Thematic Programs. Learn more about HAPID here.

Farmer First Revisited: reflecting on farmer innovation
Posted: January 14, 2008 / Updated: March 5, 2008

Several Prolinnova partners were invited to the 3-day workshop "Farmer First Revisited: farmer innovation and agricultural research and development twenty years on" organised by Ian Scoones, John Thompson, Robert Chambers and their team at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, on 12-14 December 2007. The workshop brought together about 80 people, some of whom had been part of the initial Farmer First workshop at IDS 20 years ago, some who were at the Beyond Farmer First workshop 15 years ago and several younger people who are applying participatory approaches to farmer-led research and development in agriculture and natural resource management.

All participants prepared papers, which were posted on the website (www.farmer-first.org) and distributed for them to read, but the papers themselves were not presented. Instead, discussants presented 10-minute inputs with key points and critical issues in each cluster of papers and facilitated parallel discussion groups. To kick off the workshop, scene-setting presentations were made by Robert Chambers on the history and future of Farmer First, Andy Hall (UN University) on agricultural innovation systems, and Jacqui Ashby (CIAT) on methodological innovation and institutional change (Ian presented on her behalf because illness prevented her from attending). The group discussions, based on the papers prepared before the workshop, dealt with Farmer Participatory Research, engaging with markets, the politics of knowledge, participatory learning and impact assessment, public/private linkages, the future of extension, farmer organisation, institutionalising participation in public organisations, networking and partnerships for change, and changing agricultural education.

The summaries of the discussions are posted on the website, and a running documentation of the workshop process appeared each day in the weblog (http://community.eldis.org/.5993f6ac/Blog), along with video clips of interviews with some of the participants, including Robert Chambers himself. A wiki-timeline was set up on the Web, into which anyone – whether workshop participant or not – could insert past milestone events and publications, as well as key issues, challenges and opportunities for farmer-led innovation in agricultural R&D. The timeline was also enriched by participants writing and posting cards on "wallpaper" along one wall of the meeting room at IDS; this information likewise went into the digital version on the Web. In this way, IDS managed to involve many people who would have loved to join the workshop but could not be invited because too large a number of participants would not have allowed the relatively informal and interactive character of a workshop.

The most stimulating part of the workshop was indeed the interaction with other people who are passionate about farmer-led R&D, not only during the group discussions but also during the open-space activities such as the information market, the coffee breaks and the joint meals. The papers presented by Prolinnova (including PROFEIS) partners are posted on the Farmer First website (search for first authors: Amanuel Assefa, Ann Waters-Bayer, Assetou Kanoute, Awa Faly Ba, Betty Del Rosario, Elizabeth Vargas, Lydia Sasu, Oliver Oliveros and Scott Killough), as is Ann's input as discussant on the topic "Creating demand and increasing accountability: the role of farmers' organisations". But even more important would be to look at some of the contributions from other organisations from which Prolinnova could learn, especially those dealing with power relationships in partnership building and institutional change.

Later in 2008, IDS plans to bring out a book with highly edited highlights of papers and workshop discussions. The Farmer First website remains open for posting of further papers on farmer-led innovation, and the blog remains open for further bashing around of related ideas and views. Links have been made between the Prolinnova and Farmer First website, so that these complementary networks on interactive science and technology development to alleviate poverty can enrich each other.

Elizabeth Vargas, the Prolinnova Oversight Group member from Latin America, summarised the key points that she took home with her from the workshop [View document] (MS word document; size : 32 KB)

Welcome to new Country Programme in Mozambique
Posted: January 11, 2008

On 11 December 2007, the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) officially welcomed Prolinnova Mozambique into the international Prolinnova community of practice. The idea for this Country Programme (CP) was born in a workshop organised by VETAID-Mozambique in December 2006, which brought together the main stakeholders in agricultural research and development in the country to share experiences in promoting farmer innovation. A two-person interim core team from VETAID and another local NGO (ADCR) facilitated planning of inception activities, including training in concepts and methodologies of Participatory innovation Development, identifying and cataloguing farmer innovations, information sharing, awareness raising and policy advocacy, and strengthening the multi-stakeholder platform. The overall aim is to build capacities in Mozambique to practise a more participatory approach in agricultural R&D.

This CP, like the programmes in Kenya, the Andes and francophone West Africa, is not among the original nine CPs receiving core funding from the Netherlands Government. All these new programmes therefore have to pool existing resources of partners in pursuit of a common aim and raise funds for further support needed. Prolinnova Mozambique has the additional task of translating materials from English to Portuguese and vice versa to be able to communicate better with other members in the international network.

At the very time that the POG was deliberating on its inclusion, Prolinnova Mozambique without external funding was holding a coordination meeting of VETAID, ADCR and other partners in the country, to discuss activities implemented in 2007 and to plan further activities in 2008. These will be presented in a new page for Prolinnova Mozambique , which will soon be opened up on this website.

Sixth POG meeting in Brighton
Posted: January 11, 2008

Because so many people from the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) were invited to the Farmer First Revisited workshop in Brighton, the POG took the opportunity to hold a meeting of these people immediately before the workshop, on 11 December 2007. Enough members were present to be able to form a quorum. The highlight of the meeting was the decision by the POG to accept a new Country Programme (CP): Prolinnova Mozambique (see related news..), based on a proposal submitted by a multi-stakeholder platform coordinated by the NGO VETAID. In addition, the POG refined the criteria and procedure for including new CPs in the Prolinnova community of practice; reviewed the CP and international support activities including multi-country initiatives such as FAIR (piloting of Local Innovation Support Funds) and curriculum development; explored the current and potential relationship between Prolinnova and farmer organisations at national and international level, e.g. Via Campesina and IFAD (International Federation of Agricultural Producers), for which Betty Del Rosario is the Asian coordinator; and commented on the draft guidelines for quality assurance in international publications from Prolinnova.

The POG welcomed Monica Kapiriri from Uganda as new POG member, who starts her term in January 2008. Monica s first POG meeting will be in early April 2008, together with the next International Partners Meeting, which will also provide an opportunity for other Prolinnova partners to meet her. The POG now consists of Scott Killough and Betty Del Rosario as co-chairs, Oliver Oliveros as third external member, Elizabeth Vargas from Latin America, Moni Ung from Asia, Bassoum Souleymane from francophone Africa, Monica Kapiriri from anglophone Africa, and Will Critchley from the International Support Team.

Relevance of Prolinnova for Asia-Pacific presented at APAARI consultation
Posted: January 7, 2008

Upon invitation of the Executive Secretary of APAARI (Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions), Pratap Shrestha, Country Coordinator of Prolinnova-Nepal, represented the international Prolinnova programme in an Expert Consultation to Review Progress of Agricultural Research Networks and Consortia in Asia-Pacific, held on 8-10 October 2007 at the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) in Hyderabad, India. The consultation was organised by APAARI in collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The purpose was to review the progress of various regional research networks and consortia that work in partnership with APAARI or independently, and to devise a strategy for future collaboration involving various stakeholders in order to meet the emerging research needs identified by APAARI members. Pratap is the Executive Director of LI-BIRD (Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development), the NGO that facilitates the Prolinnova-Nepal programme. He made a presentation on the Prolinnova Global Partnership Programme under the GFAR (Global Forum on Agricultural Research) and its relevance for the Asia-Pacific region.

APAARI-Prolinnova presentation October '07 (PDF file; size : 135 KB)

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