The mid-year progress report of the Promoting local innovation for Food and Nutrition Security” (Proli-FaNS) project up to July 2017 gives an overview of activities accomplished by the five Country Platforms involved – in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya. These include preparations for farmer-led research, advocacy and documentation activities, and the work of the two new subregional coordinators in Western & Central Africa and in Eastern & Southern Africa to strengthen South–South learning and collaboration.

Proli-FaNS is funded by Misereor/Katholische Zentralstelle e.V. (Catholic Central Agency for Development Aid – KZE, Germany) through a grant from the “One World No Hunger” (SEWOH) initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Pratap Shrestha of USC Canada has replaced Ann Waters-Bayer as co-chair of the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG). He is a founder member of Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD), a Nepal-based NGO that initially hosted Prolinnova–Nepal, and was Executive Director of LI-BIRD in 2003–09. He was instrumental in setting up Prolinnova–Nepal and was its coordinator for five years. In 2010, he joined USC Canada Asia as Regional Representative and is now their Program Specialist on Seed Systems and Plant Genetic Resources. He is based in Pokhara, Nepal.

In the POG, Pratap shares responsibilities with Chris Macoloo, who has already been serving as co-chair for the last two years and has agreed to serve for an additional year. Chris is the Regional Associate Vice President for Africa at World Neighbors, and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. 

For more information about the POG (including biosketches of all POG members), see www.prolinnova.net/content/prolinnova-oversight-group

The Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocesan Development Office (NABOCADO), in collaboration with the Association of Church-based Development projects (ACDEP), has launched a three-year project in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region to promote local innovation for food and nutrition security (Proli-FaNS) under the umbrella of the international Prolinnova network.

The project will focus on developing the effective and innovative capacities of smallholder farmers in rural communities to improve food security and nutrition, as well as nutritional diversity.

Speaking at the project launch in Bongo-Soe, NABOCADO Human Development Coordinator, Joseph Ayembilla, explained that the project is aimed at strengthening the innovation capacity of farmers in rural communities, particularly women, to sustain their farm and livestock productivity and to increase local resilience to climate change.

Prolinnova–Uganda gives an update on its work in completing the CLIC–SR work in 2016, including two examples of farmer-led joint experimentation that were documented as case studies. Also a booklet and a policy brief were published on innovations for climate change adaptation in Uganda.

Numerous dialogues with policy- and decision-makers in research, academia, government and farmer organisations about local innovation and farmer-led research and development included a national workshop in July 2016. In November, a partner organisation in the Country Platform (CP) – Kikandwa Environmental Association (KEA) – co-organised with AGC (A Growing Culture) a gathering in Kikandwa to plan the setting up of a farmers’ library for food sovereignty. This was attended by several other Prolinnova–Uganda partner organisations. The full report can be found here.