November - December 2006 News
| |
Nov - Dec 2006 News |
 |
|
|
Starting up in Mozambique
>> Posted: December 20, 2006
VetAid took the lead in organising a first workshop on "supporting local innovation" in Mozambique, 4-6 December 2006, in Chokwe, Gaza Province. Twenty-six participants from different stakeholder groups attended the meeting. Organizations shared their experiences and challenges. At the end of the meeting, participants decided to form a network to support and learn from each other, influence policy and mainstream a more participatory agriculture research for development. A core team made up of VetAid and ADCR was nominated and took upon itself the responsibility of taking the process further: keeping contact with partners, monitoring progress in activity implementation, contacting new partners, formally contacting governmental agencies, fund raising and organising a follow-up workshop in 2007.
For a short summary of the workshop proceedings in English, click here (Word document; size : 112 KB). A full report of the workshop is available here (Word document; size : 323 KB) - in Portuguese.
For more information, please contact Jacob Wanyama (wanyama@vetaid.net), Henrique Chissano (adcr.xaixai@teledata.co.mz) or Mariana Wongtschowski (m.wongts@etcnl.nl)
Back to top ....
Prolinnova at the 2006 GFAR Programme Committee Meeting
>> Posted: December 8, 2006
Laurens van Veldhuizen of the Prolinnova International Support Team attended the second meeting of the GFAR Programme Committee in Washington, 30 November and 1st December 2006. This committee is expected to look into all GFAR programmes and activities, give overall guidance and prepare recommendations for final endorsement by the GFAR Steering Committee. The first day of the meeting had reports on the various regional fora. The Prolinnova input focused on the possibilities to include a farmer innovation perspective in many activities and on best ways to involve Civil Society and Farmer Organisations in governance at various levels. Generally the regional fora seem to be changing slowly from being research networks into multi-stakeholder platforms.
The second day had presentations of all existing and new Global Partnership programmes, including Prolinnova. Following suggestions from last year's PC meeting and from the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG), the Prolinnova presentation (MS Powerpoint PPT file; size : 2 MB) focused on reporting achievements and outputs. Responses from the floor to this were quite positive. Concrete suggestions were made for further strengthening collaboration of Prolinnova with the regional fora such as:
- All regional fora to be on the regular mailing list of Prolinnova publications and reports such as the partnership booklet and the PID/Local innovation booklet (secretariat);
- Continued support from Prolinnova NGOs to NGO consortia in SSA and Asia (all);
- Collaboration with FARA on study of successful local innovation in new ADB-funded DONARTA programme. FARA secretariat to invite Prolinnova to the planning workshop early next year.
Back to top ....
Innovation Africa Symposium in Uganda highlights local innovation
>> Posted: November 30, 2006
The Innovation Africa Symposium, held 20–23 November 2006 in Kampala, Uganda, brought together about 140 people who are engaged in enhancing agricultural innovation processes. Prolinnova joined forces with three international agricultural research centres (CIAT, ILRI and IFPRI) and IIRR–Africa in a team that organised and partly sponsored the Symposium. The main sponsor was Rockefeller Foundation, while further support came from the World Bank and Ford Foundation. Most of the participants were from institutions of agricultural research, extension and education in Africa and some African NGOs, but a few participants from Asia and Latin America brought in some interesting experiences of relevance to Africa.
The symposium started in the reality of the villages, giving participants an opportunity to communicate with local people. Prolinnova–Uganda (Ronald Lutalo) and IIRR–Africa (Letitia Lungu) arranged parallel one-day field trips to visit farmer associations and innovators in horticultural, cropping and livestock systems.
On the second day, a keynote paper by Niels Röling from the Netherlands gave an enlightening overview of conceptual and methodological developments in innovation systems and charged up energies and thinking that maintained momentum through the entire three days of presentations and discussions. Perspectives on innovation from the health and educational sectors were brought in by Joanna Chataway from the Open University in the UK and by Norman Clark from the African Centre for Technology Studies in Kenya. A second keynote paper by Anil Gupta on the following day made participants aware of the Honeybee activities to recognise, document, enhance and protect grassroots innovations in India.
The papers, posters and discussions focused around five main themes:
- Concepts and methods in agricultural innovation systems (AIS)
- Partnerships and other forms of social capital in AIS
- Institutional, policy and knowledge-sharing mechanisms to support AIS
- Enhancing local innovation processes
- Market-led innovation in agriculture
- Building innovation capacity
At the "Innovation Marketplace", three participants from the workshop on Farmer-Led Documentation (FLD) – which PELUM–Uganda, Prolinnova and Novib had hosted on 6–10 November 2006 in Kampala – managed to mount quickly a display of photos, video film and written materials from the FLD workshop.
Sixteen Prolinnova partners took part in the symposium, presenting both papers and posters focused on identifying and recognising local innovations and building partnerships for Participatory Innovation Development (PID). The poster by Tesfahun Fenta from PROFIEET (Prolinnova–Ethiopia) on farmer innovation in drip irrigation won second prize. Ronald Lutalo of Environmental Alert, the coordinator of Prolinnova–Uganda, made the opening speech on behalf of NGOs, while Laurent Kaburire of PELUM–Tanzania, the coordinator of Prolinnova–Tanzania, made the closing speech for NGOs.
The concepts of innovation among the Symposium participants were fairly diverse, with obvious differences between those who regarded innovation as adoption of technologies introduced from Research (induced innovation) and those who regarded it as the outcome of social learning by many different actors. However, by the end of the Symposium, there was shared recognition of the need to create space and incentives for promoting collaboration between farmers, research and extension services and the private sector (input and output markets) to develop improved technologies and institutional arrangements that can alleviate poverty. It was noted that very few people from the private sector and smallholder farmer organisations took part in the Symposium, and that these key actors need to be included in activities concerned with agricultural innovation systems.
In his closing words (Word document; size : 25 KB), Peter Matlon from the Rockefeller Foundation drew attention to the need for: 1) further evolution in institutional structures and mindsets, 2) closer interaction with the private sector, 3) reflection on factors that constrain the sustainability and scalability of innovation system approaches, and 4) strategic non-confrontational communication to change policy. He warned against institutionalising innovation system approaches in a way that builds too much structure and bureaucracy, as this could stifle creativity, opportunism and serendipity. He stressed the need to create an enabling environment for bottom-up innovation to happen.
The Symposium ended with a high level of enthusiasm among the participants to implement what they had learned, to share this learning with colleagues in their own and other institutions, and to continue collaboration and networking. There was general agreement that a follow-up conference should be held in another part of Africa (preferably West Africa) in 2–3 years’ time to share experiences in multi-stakeholder partnerships to enhance agricultural innovation systems.
The papers and posters will be posted on the Innovation Africa website with a link from the Prolinnova website. The lead paper by the Prolinnova International Support Team on "Enhancing Local Innovation Processes" (Word document; size : 98 KB) and the PowerPoint presentation (MS Powerpoint PPT file; size : 418 KB) can already be downloaded here. Papers from the Symposium will be selected for publication in a book and hopefully also in a special issue of an international journal. Highlights will appear in the online newsletter New Agriculturalist. The organisers also plan to bring out a shorter booklet on Innovation Africa to be disseminated as part of a communication strategy to raise awareness and to change minds and policies.
Ann Waters-Bayer, Prolinnova International Support Team, and
Amanuel Assefa, AgriService Ethiopia (Prolinnova-Ethiopia)
View related article (May 2006) or visit the Innovation Africa website
Back to top ....
PROLINNOVA Nepal Programme's PID Training, 5-9 November, 2006
>> Posted: November 23, 2006
PROLINNOVA Nepal Programme organized a five-day residential training on Participatory Innovation Development (PID) from 5th to 9th November, 2006 at Narayangarh, Chitwan. Altogether, 25 field staffs (6 female and 19 male) participated representing various government and non government stakeholders including community members. All the participants were selected by respective partner organisations - CARE Nepal, Ecological Service Centre, Institute of Agriculture & Animal Science, LI-BIRD and Practical Action Nepal of PROLINNOVA Nepal Programme. Suman S. Manandhar from PROLINNOVA Nepal Programme, Sharad Rai from Practical Action Nepal and Basanta Ranabhat from Ecoscentre were the resource persons who facilitated the training programme. Sharad dealt with the basic concepts of PID starting with its evolution and the process of assessing needs of the community and participatory action research. Suman focused on the elements of PID and the steps involved in the PID implementation cycle while Basanta emphasized on the role of stakeholders and the documentation process. It is worth to note here that Sharad and Suman had participated in the PID facilitators’ training in Uganda during June-July 2006, while Basanta had also participated in similar training held at Philippines in the year 2004. The training programme was conducted in a participatory way, which also included a field visit to project locations. The training programme was co-ordinated by Suman Manandhar with logistics support provided by Sujata Manandhar.
During the training, participants acquired knowledge on local innovations and its development processes. The whole training content provided an environment for participants to learn and share about the significance of both Participatory Technology Development (PTD) and Participatory Innovation Development (PID), evolution of PID in the agricultural extension context, basic definitions of innovations and its type, and steps involved in PID, innovation documentation and validation of innovations. Open-floor discussion was encouraged during the training programme to develop common understanding on PID among all participants. From the participants' feedback, it has been found that the training programme was very useful and informative for the participants. Twenty-five local participants have been developed as PID resource persons in the country and they will be the helping hands in development & promotion of PID in Nepal.
A formal closing programme was arranged by inviting relevant representatives from government offices and NGOs from the district including the media. Local innovators were also invited and introduced to the guests and participants.
Back to top ....
Conference Endogenous Development and Bio-Cultural Diversity
The interplay of worldviews, globalisation and locality
3, 4 and 5 October 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
>> Posted: November 23, 2006
Brigid Letty, Programme Coordinator for Prolinnova South Africa, attended the Endogenous Development Conference organised by COMPAS (Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development), a multi-country programme facilitated by ETC Foundation. It took place in Geneva, Switzerland from 3 to 5 October 2006 and was attended by approximately 110 delegates from around the world.
Brigid presented a paper entitled "Synergies between Endogenous Development and Participatory Innovation Development as methodologies for understanding and improving rural livelihoods." (Word document; size : 75 KB). This paper, prepared by Brigid Letty and Laurens van Veldhuizen, identified synergies between the development approaches promoted by COMPAS (Endogenous Development) and Prolinnova (Participatory Innovation Development, PID).
Both Endogenous Development and PID appreciate that local knowledge systems are better adapted to addressing the constraints faced by rural communities than externally derived technologies and that development processes should be farmer-driven. Both approaches acknowledge interplay between social, cultural and environmental factors. ED, however, puts more emphasis on the spiritual component of the environment within which development is occurring and also sees outsiders playing mainly a facilitation role. PID, on the other hand, puts more emphasis on the role that local innovation and informal experimentation can play in allowing communities to adapt to new challenges and also acknowledges the benefits that joint experimentation can offer through the introduction of external ideas to complement local innovation.
The identification of synergies between the two initiatives is of particular importance since, under the new arrangement for funding coming from the Netherlands Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIS) through ETC Foundation, Prolinnova and COMPAS will both now receive funding through the same programme. It is thus important that the two networks find opportunities for collaboration / alignment. As the Prolinnova representative at the conference, Brigid had opportunities for discussion with COMPAS participants from both the Netherlands office as well as from the South African programme.
More details about the conference can be found on the following website: www.bioculturaldiversity.net/conference.htm
|
