Improving rural innovation processes in Latin America

Context

From 1997-2001, ICRA collaborated with the regional Production Systems Methodology Network (RIMISP), the Postgraduate College (CP) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food in Mexico to implement the “Leaders in Rural Development Programme”. Under this programme, 99 rural development professionals from Mexico and other countries in Latin America benefited from the integrated 22-week diploma-level courses offered at the Postgraduate College in Puebla, Mexico. Additional courses were also offered at state level in Mexico as well as in Venezuela.

Building on the institutional contacts established during the above Programme, the Venezuelan National Institute for Agricultural Research (INIA), has continued to collaborate with the Postgraduate College in Mexico, the Agricultural Research Institute "Jorge Dimitrov", the National Institute for Agricultural Sciences (INCA), and the universities of Granma and Pinar del Río in Cuba, and the Autonomous National University in Nicaragua (UNAN), to strengthen regional capacity for rural innovation processes ("Procesos de Innovación Rural", or PIR).

Objectives

This joint initiative intends to address and improve the quality of collective learning and cooperation between rural people, development institutions and other relevant actors as a means to improve rural people’s capabilities for innovation, access to markets, income generation, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. The initiative aims to do so by strengthening collective learning and transformative capacities of institutions and rural communities in the partner countries to address complex problems related to the generation of rural innovation for rural sustainable development.
The more specific objectives of the partnership are:

• To facilitate the empowerment of rural people in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela by their effective participation in decisions about the development and execution of existing innovation projects, and the generation, development and execution of new innovation community projects.
• To facilitate improvement of research and education organizations in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela by facilitating collective learning about building up democratic interactions and behaviour with rural people to address complex rural sustainable development challenges
• To facilitate the improvement of capacities of new professionals in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to interact and work with rural people by introducing learning programmes about processes of rural innovation in the curricula of education organisations
• To facilitate the formulation of concept papers and national projects to further internal actions to support, strengthen, and further develop PIR

Achievements to date

• A Regional Team of PIR Facilitators from centres that can support capacity strengthening activities in their own and surrounding countries has been formed. The team has been strengthened by the participation of 10 professionals (5 from Cuba, 4 from Mexico and 1 from Venezuela) in the tailor-made ICRA Anglophone Programme in the Netherlands during 2006 and 2007.

  Resulting from this, a diploma in PIR was initiated in 2006 at the Jorge Dimitrov Institute, and since early 2007 a Masters degree programme at the University of Granma has included PIR as the basis for one of its 3 integrated diploma courses.

• The ICRA Regional Coordinator, with support of members of the Regional Team, implemented a series of workshops in Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico and Venezuela that have raised awareness of the potential benefits to be gained from stronger collaboration in rural innovation. These workshops resulted in the formation of broader teams of decision makers and facilitators in these four countries and in the formulation of national proposals (in Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela) to promote interactive learning in rural innovation. National proposals related to PIR that have already attracted international donor support, include:
  • the "Local Agricultural Innovation Project", coordinated by INCA and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and
  • A Local Development Proposal of the Universidad de Granma and Instituto Jorge Dimitrov. This proposal is funded for one year by Norwegian People's Aid (Norway) to be developed into a full project.
• The Venezuelan government has initiated a project on "Strategies for Introducing Sustainable Rural Development Principles in INIA" to mainstream PIR in agricultural research in the country. FUNDACITE and INIA, assisted by ICRA, established a Forum on ARD, on rural innovation processes in Latin America to share experiences in this field.
• In 2009, consolidation of ARD/PIR orientation got a big push forward in Cuba with the incorporation of new partners such as GUCID (Gestión Universitaria del Conocimiento y la Innovación para el Desarrollo, a transversal programme under the Ministry of Education). This opens possibilities for ICRA to be fully operational and integrated at national level through the new Municipal University Centres, under the umbrella of GUCID. ICRA contributed to organising several GUCID systematisation workshops.
• In April 2009, a Latin America sub-regional workshop was organized in Havana, Cuba, on sharing experiences on Capacity Strengthening for ARD, a preparatory workshop for the new ICRA programme for ARD Facilitators (Design & Management of ARD Learning). Cuban, Mexican and Venezuelan professionals associated to ILAPIR participated.
• Several organisation and people involved in PIR work in Latin America joined hands in ILAPIR (Iniciativa Latino Americana de Procesos de Innovación Rural) and are in the process of giving it a legal framework in order to facilitate interaction and attracting funds.
  Two members of the ILAPIR team participated in the Design & Management of ARD Learning programme in Wageningen, September 2009.
• In Venezuela in 2009, a workshop was organised on strengthening PIR capacities at INIA-Anzoátegui and FUNDACITE-Lara hosted a sub-regional PIR forum to share PIR learning and experiences among actors from Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela, and a PIR workshop for senior managers from Cuba and Venezuela
• In Mexico a series of four conferences on sharing PIR experiences in Latin America was organised at the Colegio de Postgraduados in Pueblo, in Tlaxala and in Veracruz, and at the University of Chapingo. A PIR workshop to create awareness among partners of the Colegio de Postgraduaos in Puebla also materialized. The Colegio prepared a proposal to start a programme for strengthening PIR capacities in its new linkage programme at national level.
• Several other Latin American countries (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador) manifested their interest in PIR.

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