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EIARD-FSTP: Good practices for integration of Agricultural Research for Development into the wider development agenda – workshops for decision makers

Context and objectives

During 2011, ICRA coordinated a project commisioned by the European Initiative for Agricultural Research for Development (EIARD). This project aimed to promote the integration of ARD with innovation in smallholder agriculture and small-scale agribusiness, and the development of policies and institutional arrangements that support this integration.

Under the umbrella of EIARD-FSTP (the EC's Food Security Thematic Programme), a series of workshops were organised in three sub-regions (Latin America, Africa and Asia) to identify good practices for integration of ARD into the wider development agenda and to promote interactive learning. The workshops involved policy makers of agricultural and development-related major rural stakeholders.

ICRA prepared, implemented and took care of the follow-up on three workshops for decision makers in Africa, Asia and Latin America, to increase support to ARD at national and regional policy-making levels, by working together with a well-targeted group of high-level decision makers. Each workshop involved high-level decision makers from 4 to 5 different countries; each country was represented by 3 to 5 participants.

To identify successful cases of ARD promotion and integration, and to exemplify policy and policy advocacy strategies that nurture effective ARD, ICRA built on its extensive alumni network in these continents.

The project included a long preparation and learning process leading up to the workshops themselves. The objective was to identify sub-regional partners for whom the workshops could bring added value to an on-going ARD process. Contracts were signed with three organisations currently involved in ARD processes that could be used as a basis for reflection:

• CATIE in Latin America, which is implementing the Mesoamerican agro-environmental program (MAP). CATIE was interested in improving visibility of its activities for high level decision makers, and showcasing its Farmer Field School approach as a means of technology generation and dissemination.
• CORAF-WECARD in Francophone West Africa, which is coordinating the FARA DONATA project in the sub-region. For CORAF the workshop was an opportunity to strengthen interaction between Benin, Mali and Burkina teams involved in the DONATA Project and to address scaling-up and scaling-out issues.
• CACAARI in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which is developing a regional strategy to enhance the integration of ARD with agricultural innovation, in line with the GCARD Road Map. Jointly with GFAR and ICRA, and with further inputs from FAO, CACAARI organised a “brainstorming meeting” to discuss this strategy. ICRA’s advice, a field visit to a good example of integration of ARD with innovation in Uzbekistan and discussions of four other examples (posters) raised the participating decision makers’ awareness of policy and institutional changes that the regional strategy needs to promote to enable this integration.

Selected case studies (and field visits) were:

• Latin America: Environmentally friendly technologies in vegetable cropping developed and disseminated through Farmer Field Schools in the Honduras-Guatemala-El Salvador border area (under the 3-nation “Trifinio” Plan)
• Francophone West Africa: Innovation platforms put in place along the maize value chain in Sissili Province, Burkina Faso
• State-orchestrated collaboration and technology development in the poultry sector in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, involving large-scale farms in joint venture with a German agro-multinational, smallholder communities, research, education, banks, and government agencies.

Much time was invested in the “preparation phase” to fit the workshops into existing ARD processes, which proved essential in getting active involvement of policy makers, researchers, and training institutions at local, national and sub-regional levels.

Achievements

• Sharing of experience between participants of different institutions and different countries
• Improved awareness (of policy makers, actors, researchers...) on what ARD is about, why ARD is useful and even necessary to enhance research impact
• Identification of good practices and enabling conditions for ARD, among which strengthening capacities of actors, inclusion of ARD in academic curricula, linking research to value chain development and integrated natural resources management
• Development of road maps including, among other things, communication and lobbying actions.

The results of the workshops in the three sub-regions differed according to the context and actual awareness of ARD. Download the workshop reports in the right hand column.

Follow-up