Fish and Aquaculture for improved Food Security and Livelihoods

Post by Liya Dejene (IRLI)

Many fishing communities live in the world’s poorest countries; they are often marginalized and landless. As fishing is often the livelihood of last resort and fish often the only source of animal protein for the poor, the state of the world’s fisheries can be critical in the fight against poverty in many parts the developing world including Sahel and East African countries.

AgriKnowledge ShareFair in Addis Ababa convened a panel session to discuss the roles of fisheries and aquaculture in food security and nutrition.

Facilitated by Eshete Dejan and Ana Menezes, participants discussed three cases: Uganda – Mukene fishery development and human consumption for farmer field approach; Ethiopia – GIS based suitability ponds for Tilapia production; and Kenya – Strengthening Fish Production through Adoption of Improved Aquaculture Technology in Western Kenya.


In Uganda, fish are among the most significant natural endowments of Uganda, not only because of their magnitude and diversity, but also because they represent a major source of protein in the diet of most Ugandans. They also provide employment and income. The project sought to demonstrate increases in fishery productivity, value addition and market access. Key success factors in this good practice were: focus group training ensured participation and interest; changes (variety) in product development stimulated marketing; training trainers at fisheries training centre pointed to sustainability; training boat builders within fishing communities reduced the costs to fishers who want to buy into new technologies. Also important were the presence of institutions to train others, the existence of internal market for new products and the adoption of the new techniques.

In Ethiopia, Nile tilapia contributed more than 60% of the annual total fish landing and it is the most preferred fish species. Currently, investors and government institutions want to identify potential aquaculture zones. Responding to this, a GIS analysis was made to identify suitable areas for the production of Nile Tilapia in earth ponds. Two scenarios were considered. The first scenario was the production of the species at small scale/household level; the second scenario incorporated some economic factors for commercialization purposes.

Four major common factors were considered to assess suitability: the availability of water throughout the production period, the water temperature regime, engineering suitability for pond construction and the type of land cover in the area. Based on these criteria, GIS site analysis showed that the production of Nile Tilapia in earth ponds for small scale/family sectors ranks from highly suitable, moderately suitable with some additional inputs, marginally suitable, and unsuitable. Most parts of Western and Northwest Ethiopia were determined to be highly suitable and moderately suitable for both scenatrios. Most of Northern, Eastern, Northeastern, Southern and Southeastern parts of Ethiopia were found to be marginally suitable.

In Kenya, the FAO project on “Strengthening Fish Production through Adoption of Improved Aquaculture Technology” aims to increase aquaculture production in Kenya, thereby contributing to poverty reduction and food security. It seeks to improve the value and efficiency of aquaculture production through the implementation of macro [national] level strategic guidelines to develop a more cohesive and synergistic national program. It also works at the micro [farm] level, piloting new market-driven business approaches from the strategic guidelines.

Outputs include: 1) the National Aquaculture Strategy; 2) three functioning clusters operating in a sustainable and profitable way and demonstrating the technical underpinnings of the strategy with at least 100 participating farmers and other stakeholders (e.g., extensionists) and an average yield per site of 2,000 kg/ha/year or more; 3) at least 100 operators familiar with good business practices to evaluate investments and manage farms; 4) input supply and market channels (at least three) developed and operational for pilot sites; and 5) the sub-sector having improved and strengthened coordination with technical and organizational capacity of stakeholder groups, including government support services.

Overall, there was general agreement that the sub-sector should evolve into one with a business orientation but there seems to be some inertia when it comes to “getting down to business”.

A place for the SUN? Scaling Up Nutrition in the Horn of Africa

Post by Liya Dejene (ILRI)

During Day 2 of the AgriKnowledge ShareFair in Addis Ababa, Bibi Giyose (Senior Food Security and Nutrition Advisor at the Africa Union) facilitated a panel session on the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement.



SUN is a country-led movement that brings organizations together across sectors to support national plans to scale up nutrition by helping to ensure that financial and technical resources are accessible, coordinated, predictable and ready to go to scale. The SUN movement promotes the implementation of evidenced-based nutrition interventions, as well as integration of nutrition goals into sectors including health, social protection, development and agriculture.

At the center of the movement is national level leadership that coordinates both national and international efforts, with the SUN movement aligning financial and technical support with country plans. Leadership at the national level ensures that priorities and programs are designed and implemented to meet the needs of regions and populations within the country and to enable the scale up of sustainable efforts.

The ‘Thousand Days’ partnership supports the SUN movement by focusing attention on the 1,000 day window of opportunity for impact: Engaging government, civil society, and the private sector in efforts to improve early nutrition; and promoting partnerships across these sectors to achieve a scale change in improving early nutrition.

Juliawati Untoro (UNICEF), Martin Ahimbisibwe (WFP) and Juliette Aphane (FAO) explored ways to integrate nutrition in related sectors, using indicators of under-nutrition as one of the key measures of overall progress.

In her summary, Bibi highlighted 4 main points:

First, the session focused on how to actively promote and scale up nutrition in different countries. In East Africa there are six countries that are committed to scaling up nutrition; they include Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Second, the group looked at how to best improve a multi-sectoral approach for better nutrition and better food security.

Second, looking at how best nutrition can be managed within countries, nutrition coordination has to be at the highest level, nutrition has to be coordinated from ministries, or the offices of the prime minister, or the office of the president because only they have the authority, the mandate and the clout to hold all the other sectors accountable.

Third, we need to build capacity so the various sectors are able to deliver according to their mandates, from the highest levels all the way down to where the action is.

Fourth, it is clear that there need to be sustainability mechanisms built into these programs. Through the SUN movement, the emphasis is on a country-led and country-owned approach. “This means that resources have to be mobilized from within the government so that programs can be started and programs can be sustained, while at the same time agreeing that it is important to work across sectors, to work with the development partners to deliver on the best food and nutrition security.”

Digital pen: a hot tool to identify, track and respond to emergencies

Post by Tsehay Gashaw (FAOSFE)

 
Mobile technology plays an important role helping people make decisions, policy makers assess options, researchers collect data more effectively.

Digital pens were a topic of keen attention in this week’s plenary discussions on mobile devices. Joseph Matere from FAO Kenya explained that the digital pen is a rapid way to collect, collate and share information and data. He explained how it is being used as part of animal disease surveillance systems to identify and track disease outbreaks in Kenya.

Previously,  it took four to six weeks for a disease to be identified and mitigation measures provided. Often, animals had died and the disease was spread to a very large area. The digital pen helps us deliver rapid identification and diagnoses of diseases – and rapid responses!

The digital pen is a ‘simple’ pen with a built in camera and processor that works with special ‘dot matrix’ paper.
 

Approaches which “Save and Grow” in the Horn of Africa

Many if not all countries of the Horn of Africa region have expressed an interest in the sustainable increase in productivity of crop production in their countries. Here, the challenge is to produce more in ways which do not compromise the future. Yields can be boosted in the short term, but practices may lead to land degradation, contamination of water resources, future pest or disease outbreaks, loss of biodiversity.

Sustainable Intensification is one of the key topics covered at the AgriKnowledge ShareFair on October 24th. 

FAO promotes practices for intensifying crop production which are not only environmentally sustainable – increasing production while conserving vital “ecosystem services” , and mitigating climate change - but which are also socially and economically sustainable. 

What does this mean, to be “socially” sustainable? A practice (such as reduced tillage) may be better for the environment, but it may also increase the amount of labour required, for instance to manage weeds. In traditional societies, land preparation may be regarded as “men’s work”, while increasing the effort for weeding may place a disproportionate and unsustainable burden on women. Similarly, for practices which are good for the environment to be adopted at scale they must also deliver economic benefits in the short term. Trade offs work both ways . Greater inefficiencies could be gained by concentrating on a small number of crops but smallholders with limited access to land have evolved highly diverse patterns of cultivation.
How to address these complex challenges to the adoption of improved practices in crop production is among the topics covered in the FAO publication Save and Grow a policy makers guide to the intensification of smallholder crop production available at: http://www.fao.org/ag/save-and-grow/.

Technological Innovation: a New Path to Empower Farmers

The landscape for information communications and technology is shifting progressively within the African continent. Currently, half of the continent's population of over 1 billion, owns a mobile phone; making the continent the fastest-growing mobile market globally. This development has been driven significantly by the private sector, focusing on urban areas. Increasing access to ICT in rural areas can bridge the information gap connecting rural populations, particularly farmers, to critical information to improve skills and knowledge enhancing individual livelihoods.

In the Horn of Africa, interactive sessions using broadcast and mobile technology have been developed to create innovative platforms for rural farmers to gain relevant and timely information on market prices, expected seasonal patterns, and agriculture and environmental practices. Developing mobile technologies to monitor food security and prepare for shocks to food security is another dynamic area being developed within the region. However, actors have been faced with challenges in developing suitable mobile technologies for data collection and widening access of these technologies to the poorest of the poor.

Within the AgriKnowledge ShareFair, a forum will be created to discuss experiences of using mobile technology for Natural disaster early warning systems and monitoring and developing cash voucher systems. Opening the floor to presenters including ACTED, Oxfam and CALAP, discussions could result in new solutions to overcome the burden, challenges and to sustainably scale-up the use of mobile technologies in the region.

Do you think technology and innovation can make a difference in food and nutrition in the horn of Africa?

Sharing Agricultural Practices to Enhance Food and Nutrition Security in the Horn of Africa

All roads lead to Ethiopia, as Eastern Africa converges at the International Livestock Research Centre (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa from 23-25 October to share knowledge, practices, technology and innovations that have consistently shown results superior to those achieved through other means, in enhancing food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa.

This will be done through an AgriKnowledge ShareFair organized by FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Eastern African Grain Council (EAGC) are also collaborating in this forum that brings the multiple expertise and networks of international organizations from the region namely: Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. Senior officials from Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contra la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CiLIS) and the affected countries in the Sahel will also be participating at the fair.

Dr. Castro Camarada, FAO Coordinator for Eastern Africa explains why sharing information on good agricultural practices is vital to enhancing food and nutrition security in the region.

Approaches for strengthening stakeholders abilities (23)

Post by Andrea Rudiger (FAO) and Chiara Ferri (FAO)
Photos by Michela Baratelli (FAO) and Chiarra Ferri (FAO)

The FAO Research and Extension Branch has jointly presented three of its initiatives at the third day of the Global Share Fair under the title “Approaches for strengthening stakeholders’ abilities to generate, adapt and share experiences”.

1. Food Security through Commercialization of Agriculture (FSCA/PISA)

“What I hear, I forget. What I see I remember. What I do, I know.”

Participants from seven Western African countries, in which Food Security through Commercialization of Agriculture (FSCA/PISA) Projects are being implemented, met in Dakar in 2010. In a workshop participants learned ten new communication tools, such as SWOT analysis, open space, mind mapping, chat show and mapping of communication flows. They used them actively for knowledge exchange and learning from local solutions to challenges common to all FSCA/PISA initiatives. Even though the participants did not all share a common language, the interpretation as well as focussing on visual methods was very helpful in establishing exchange that continues beyond the workshop.

2. Applied Technologies and Practices for Small Agricultural Producers (TECA)

 

Using the example of a sweet potato disease outbreak in Eastern Uganda, the aims and functions FAO’s online platform for applied technologies and practices (TECA) were illustrated. Partners of TECA such as NARO (National Agricultural Research Organisation in Uganda), the International Potato Center (CIP) and DIFID have shared sweet potato technologies on TECAs online knowledge base. The manager of a local NGO, who has direct contact with local farmers, used TECA’s Exchange Group to alert other stakeholders to the problem and was put in touch with a CIP researcher. TECA enabled this NGO to respond more effectively to the problem on the ground.

3. Rural and Agricultural Development and Communication Network in Egypt (RADCON)

 

RADCON addresses the communication gap between research centres, extension services, the ministry of agriculture, the private sector and above all small farming communities with a special focus on women and youth. The network facilitates the sharing of knowledge among all stakeholders. At the core of the network are the RADCON centres, to which individual farmers can go to ask specific questions concerning their farming practices. These centres are linked to five so called expert systems (on rice, tomatoes, wheat, grapes and beans), to which village facilitators send the inquiries and receive feedback from specialists. Similar projects are being implemented for example in Bhutan, Uganda and Armenia as part of the Virtual Extension and Research Communication Network (VERCON).

All of these initiatives face challenges, which were discussed in some detail in the session.

To make these communication tools and systems work, building capacities for technology and empowering local actors is often necessary. In some cases this means to train basic computer skills (as in the case of VERCON Bhutan). In other cases a face-to-face interaction of an online community might be necessary, thus realising the human component of technology adoption.

Another challenge is to build sustainable solutions, which will endure when the external resources are no longer available. All three initiatives require commitment of human and financial resources by the partners, particularly governments. In the case of TECA the team at FAO can support partners (like research institutes or development agencies) by providing the software for a decentralised platform, but they will have to commit resources to its adaptation to their needs and its maintenance.

Build competitive business relationships between smallholder supplier groups and agribusinesses (7)

Post by Siobhan Kelly (FAO) and Denise Senmartin
Photos by Denise Senmartin.

The World Cafe session shared experiences from three cases pilot tested under FAO’s business model approach. Discussions at the coffee tables focussed on challenges that each of the pilot cases have been confronted with during implementation and as a result some strategic activities and ideas have been proposed that can be adopted during the last months of the projects. Some ideas proposed have been:

 

THE CASE OF RICE IN MALI

Should FAO encourage the Federation to get a new loan to be able to increase volume?

• An upcoming feasibility study needs to focus on understanding if significant improvement in quality can make the business model profitable.

THE CASE OF CASSAVA IN ZAMBIA
To promote and strengthen the competitiveness of the industrial sector, should FAO and other projects work with commercial farmers in order to satisfy the procurement needs of the industrial buyers?

• Engagement with commercial farmers should be accompanied by strengthen of district farmer associations in agribusiness skills and contract management to ensure equitable bargaining power.

THE CASE OF PISTACHIO IN IRAN
How can trust and collaboration be stimulated within a supply chain to improve overall competitiveness and introduce win-win solutions for all chain players?

• Sharing technology and know-how which stimulates linkages vertically and horizontally in the chain.
• Implementing rigorous quality control to improve buyers trust in the chain.

 

 

The World Café methodology allowed for a dynamic exchange for every participant to express their ideas. The word from some of the them?

“I enjoyed the approach of the World Café. Working for a NGO, I am interested in learning and capturing FAO´s experience as they can reach the policy levels. There is still work to do and the discussion, for example in the Cassava project, can help.” And then, at the stairs “It was my first session like this, I´m an intern at IFAD, so had not much ideas to provide yet but learnt a lot!”

Thanks for the meaningful, inspiring and energetic conversations, even though we forgot the candy!

Mobile agri-business in Congo (133) - matchmaking challenges and promises

On Tuesday 27 September, Narcisse Mbunzama Lokwa
exposed his mobile agro-business enterprise. Mobile phones – and particularly short messenging services (SMS) - offer opportunities for farmers to develop their capacities, share information about their products and connect with markets in real time. This helps them increase their knowledge about the possibilities to sell their products, increase their productivity and their revenues. The overall objective is to develop food security and better health of the poor in rural Congo and other areas.

The 8 participants to the session questioned the business model of Narcisse, who pays for the service (the connecting service is free except for farmers that wish to sell their products in that way), the connectivity of farmers (who do have access to mobile phones in the areas where Narcisse is working) and the potential to scale it up to other, perhaps more deprived, areas (which seems to be a challenge at this stage). One of the participants suggested introducing positive competition among farmers by increasing the transparency of their offers, to stimulate better productivity and a more effective matchmaking.


The session was short but showed there is potential to expand this kind of mechanisms and to connect with similar initiatives in the region (Congo-Brazza, Cameroon etc.).

Growing local farmers: De-rooting poverty (194)

The Topic: An agricultural enterprise uses some of its excess capacity to provide support to smallholders in Ethiopia  
The Owner: Amare Abebaw Woreta (Frag Agro Industry)  
The facilitator/blogger: Riff Fullan (HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation)

The session: Amare told the story of how he - after graduating from school - established a small agricultural enterprise which became profitable after some time. But Amare noticed that the vast majority of farmers in the Amhara region where he was located were not improving their lives, they were only just getting by. They only had around 1/2 hectare of land per family and mostly relied on rain-fed agriculture. Amare's company decided to invite farmers to see what the company was doing and - for those who were interested - take up interest-free loans (based on a group of farmers, so the group would collectively have responsibility for repayment) to buy inputs and take up some of the company's practice of focusing on more profitable crops. The company also helped 'graduates' of its demonstration activities to form cooperatives and worked to ensure the coops had access to market information and could take advantage of the best prices. Half of the target group were female-headed households, half male-headed.

Following Amare's story, we decided to have a short Q&A followed by a loosely structured peer assist. The idea was to have a conversation triggered initially by immediate questions and observations from participants in the group, then to move on to a couple of key questions from Amare's side for which he was seeking input.

What did participants have to say? One of the first questions was why Amare did not charge interest on the loans. How could it be sustainable? Amare responded that it was a trust issue: farmers were used to seeing microfinance institutions providing loans - often at high interest rates - that also required collateral (e.g. a goat, a cow), which represented a huge risk for the farmers. Amare wanted to invite interested farmers to take part in the innovative behaviour based on their experiences of seeing how things were done on the company farm, and without having the risk overhead.

Still, there was a feeling that the company could charge a small amount of interest in order to support the continuing program of farmer training, especially after its initial success with several groups of farmers over several years (totalling around 70 farmers so far). What else? Maybe forming a marketing company that could help farmers and coops link up more effectively to markets. Other ideas around sustainability included:

• the notion that support for the whole value chain needed to be considered (finance, marketing, information, logistics, etc), and that part of the sustainability equation was capacity building of these new coops (where most members might be illiterate and/or have little education or experience along the value chain);
• another is that farmers needed to have a sense of ownership for such coops to thrive. In this context, the voluntary and low-risk nature of the venture really helps;
• a third is the possibility to mobilize educated youth who could help with some aspects of running/organising activities and thereby generate a bit of income for themselves while filling some of the skills gaps the farmers have;
• in terms of changing production processes, the idea was raised that processing of agricultural outputs (e.g. mangoes into mango juice) and selling a higher value-added product could help on the sustainability front.

The final two threads that were briefly covered in our group peer assist/conversation, included the potential for additional activities to be boosted, given that the normal agricultural season runs from roughly April-Oct, so there is usually some time when farmers are not so busy, especially if they depend on the rains. Second was the whole challenge of climate change......most farmers have heard little or nothing about it, and anyway look at the vagaries of the weather as God's will rather than being tied to climate change. How can dialogues be undertaken that respect different world views yet still promote active adaptation? One idea was raised that had been mentioned in another sharefair session, the 'theatre of the oppressed' a methodology made famous by Brazilian Augusto Boal in the 60s and influenced by the 'pedagogy of the oppressed' methodology of his countryman, the educator Paulo Freire.

In a nutshell, both approaches work to engage community members in describing/perceiving and transforming the contexts in which they live. They aspire to a high level of ownership and definition of the problematique and approaches to overcoming key challenges by those whose lives are most directly affected. This could be a way for the farmers in this Ethiopian case to incorporate climate change issues and solutions into their own worldviews and ways of living.

All-in-all, a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation. I know Amare will go home with lots of ideas to try out!

Highlights from Marc Davies' keynote on 'Demystifying Private-Public Partnerships'

A well told story: Effective communication for development

A inspiring talk opened the first day of the Share Fair unfolding in Rome from today to Thursday 29 September. Rob Burnet leads Well Told Story, a multi-award-winning Kenyan communications company which pulls together comic books, syndicated FM radio, SMS, social media, web, video animation, strategy and science to help change the way people live, think, act and govern in East Africa.

In his talk, he shared with the audience his experiences and focussed specifically on how to make agriculture more attractive to young people in Africa. In this interview, he summaries the main points of his key note address.

According to Rob, when you want to reach young people with ideas about agriculture, it is about taking the research that we know it works and getting it into the life of people that need to benefit from it.

Secondly, it has to be about 'pull', and it can't be about 'push': "it is about packaging ideas that the youth will take and run away with" says Rob.

Moreover, according to Rob it we fell short of making good research outputs and ideas accessible form the ones that have to benefit from them, "we might as well go home".

In this sense, Rob concludes with a provocative statement as he encourages the CGIAR to spend 30% its budget on research communication, making sure that the research outputs produced during the past 10 years reach the people they are intended to benefit. "We do this, and we really can change the world."

Share Fair Day 0 - A conversation with Etienne Wenger

There couldn't have been a more inspiring keynote speech to open the Day 0 of the Share Fair here in Rome today. Etienne Wenger, a globally recognized thought leader in the field of social learning theory, communities of practice and their application to organizations, deliver a keynote address on “Communities of practice and strategic capabilities”. In fact, Etienne's talk was not just the usual key note address: after providing food for thought on communities of practices, he involved participants in lively fish bowl conversation.

After the session, we had the chance to talk with Etienne and to capture the essence of his talk in the short interview below.

   

According to Etienne, communities of practices are a vehicle to develop strategic capabilities within an organisation. He also underlines how the discourse around knowledge sharing and CoPs needs to change somehow: too often we focus only on the operational level of knowledge sharing, as opposed to a more strategic conversation about the domains where an organisation needs to excel, and the creation of spaces where staff can engage and develop those capabilities.

What is cooking for the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair #sfrome: 26-29 September 2011 at #IFAD HQ

When I interviewed Willem Bettink - one of the co-organizers of the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair just before he left for his well deserved summer holidays, I could not imagine that we would all have an intense working holiday.

As it turns out, those of us on the road and those in the office, have been glued to our computers, Blackberries and emails. And we've done so with gusto and pleasure!

So, you are wondering what the share fair steering committee is up to? Well, apart from being glued to our electronic devices, the organizing committee composed of colleagues from Bioversity, CGIAR, CTA, FAO, IFAD,and WFP, is finalizing the share fair programme which promises to be an exciting four day event, taking place from 26-29 September 2011 at IFAD headquarters.


We love suspense, so you need to wait a bit more to get the full-fledged programme, but in the meantime just to whet your appetite here are some of the highlights of this unique event:

• a number of prominent personalities will share their inspiring experiences and insights


• colleagues from all over the world in over 150 sessions, will share their knowledge and wisdom on a variety of rural development and agriculture related topics such as: food security, climate change, environmental friendly innovations, emerging trends in use of ICTs, new technologies and innovative agricultural and farming practices, market access, water, livestock, knowledge sharing, networks and communities of practice


• participants can benefit from numerous training sessions on knowledge sharing methods, social media tools, emerging trends and lessons learnt


• stunning art for AIDS exhibit


• lots and lots of social reporting - you will see knowledge sharing methods and social media tools put to practice.... We WALK the TALK!!

We'll be webcasting the plenary sessions and a team of social reporters will bring you live this four day event. We'll be using a number of social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and more. Make sure you follow #sfrome.

And we hope to see you all in Rome. If you do not want to miss this event, please make sure you register. For now goodbye and good night. A presto as they say in Italian!

Publicación “Feria del Conocimiento América Latina y el Caribe: Casos destacados en agricultura, desarrollo y seguridad alimentaria”

Ya está en línea nuestra publicación en la que, a través de casos concretos relacionados con la agricultura, el desarrollo y la seguridad alimentaria, se muestra cómo los procesos asociados con el conocimiento involucran, de manera complementaria, factores tecnológicos y técnicos con factores humanos.

Descargue:

• La publicación completa (11 MB!)
• La carátula
  
• El contenido (con enlaces a todos los capítulos)
• Acerca de la feria (por Simone Staiger-Rivas)
• La introducción (por Camilo Villa)

La obra presenta ocho estudios de caso que fueron presentados durante la Feria del Conocimiento América Latina y Caribe llevada a cabo entre el 25 y el 27 de mayo de 2010. En dicha feria se reunieron experiencias relacionadas con el desarrollo rural, principalmente agropecuario, y pueden ser consideradas como una muestra de lo que viene ocurriendo en gestión de conocimiento en América Latina.

La sede del evento fue el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) en Cali, Colombia. La Feria fue organizada por el Programa de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (ICT-KM) del Grupo Consultivo para la Investigación Agrícola Internacional (CGIAR), la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), el Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) y la Comunidad de Gestión de Conocimiento para el Desarrollo (KM4Dev). Alrededor de 200 profesionales de más de 70 organizaciones y 18 países participaron para socializar experiencias relacionadas con gestión de conocimiento en la agricultura, el desarrollo y la seguridad alimentaria. Los objetivos principales de la feria eran demostrar cómo la participación activa y estratégica del conocimiento mejora la eficacia, la eficiencia y el impacto de nuestro trabajo; igualmente se trataba de dar una oportunidad a los participantes de experimentar con herramientas y metodologías para la participación del conocimiento y de compartir y aprender buenas prácticas.

Del conjunto de casos presentados, seleccionamos ocho que abarcan en buena medida los temas abordados durante el evento. Las personas responsables de presentar dichas experiencias en la feria fueron invitadas a participar en esta publicación.

Cinco de los casos ilustran experiencias de carácter puramente regional:

1. Condesan – Foros electrónicos del Consorcio para el Desarrollo Sostenible de la Eco-región Andina: 17 años de aprendizaje entre gente y herramientas (por Musuq Briceño y Alejandra Visscher)
2. Prodarnet – La red virtual para la promoción de la agroindustria rural en América Latina (por Hernando Riveros y Marvin Blanco)
   
3. Preval – La evaluación por imágenes: Una propuesta de comunicación para el aprendizaje social (por Emma Rotondo)
   
4. INIA – Investigación Participativa como proceso de Gestión del Conocimiento (por María Marta Albicette)
   
5. CIAT – Gestores de Innovación en Agroindustria Rural: El conocimiento del mercado como brújula para la innovación (por Érika Eliana Mosquera y Jhon Jairo Hurtado)

Los otros tres aportan una interesante perspectiva global:

1. CIARD – Del dicho al hecho: Información sobre investigación agrícola disponible al público, accesible en su totalidad y que se puede aplicar (por Nadia Manning-Thomas y Enrica Porcari)
2. Vercon – Compartir conocimientos entre los sistemas de investigación y de extensión agrícola (por Sophie Treinen)
3. SGRP – Motivando a los científicos a compartir sus conocimientos en el Proyecto Global de Bienes Públicos (GPG2) (por Maria Alejandra Jorge)

Los autores de la publicación concluyen planteando la necesidad de que compartir el conocimiento sirva explícitamente para fomentar el aprendizaje entre actores. “Hoy, el conocimiento se ha convertido en un eje clave en muchas políticas de desarrollo y esto ha ido acompañado de un valioso esfuerzo en el frente informático y de las TIC en general. Sin embargo, el aprendizaje y la ingeniería social que le acompañan deberían pasar a ser el motor principal para promover el conocimiento y la innovación y no lo contrario, que es lo que hoy sucede”.

• Descargue la conlusión (por Sebastião Ferreira, Simone Staiger y Camilo Villa)

Agradecemos la colaboración del IICA en el diseño y la diagramación de la publicación.

Ver más información en el blog de la feria

Drops of conversation verging onto deltas of cooperation?

As I started writing this post, the AgKnowledge ShareFair was about to close and (two or three) hundreds of participants were about to bring back the incredible energy created in those three Fair days back to their work environment. There was an incredible interaction and buzz at the various sessions organised for the Fair and outside – and the question remains: what was more worthwhile: the official programme or the unofficial – social – programme?

At any rate it is a good moment to look back at the end of the pathways, including the water pathway. There as in other pathways, the key question was whether the weaving of conversations started in the share fair would lead to concrete cooperation. In the lingo developed over the last few days in this smaller water channel, the question was thus whether drops of conversation would verge onto deltas of cooperation...

The challenge with water is that it is divided into distinct sub-sectors, and our group of participants represented that diversity: water & sanitation, water for agriculture or water (simply). To join it all up, the red thread – uh, stream – here was to focus on innovation and cooperation/coordination within and among water sectors. And the global pool bar (world café) discussion particularly stressed: lack of incentives, institutional and personal egoism, poor learning and documentation culture, blatant lack of coordination and harmonisation, disconnect between the various actors.

In the second session, the stream talents (1) presented their work and discussed it with other water heads at the Share Fair. Again some interesting issues came out and particularly the Challenge programme for water and food had a useful take about strategies to engage multiple stakeholders (and what’s in it for them?), sustainability issues and an exit strategy. But the micro tube drip irrigation system also triggered a lot of interest

The last session of this stream, finally, was all about cooperation among participants. First off, we scanned potential cooperation among participants? Then we looked at the water towers (information repositories / one-stop shops and other water portals), rivers (discussion groups about water), water carts (newsletters and other special project initiatives) and fountains (water events coming up next). At that stage, the water heads formed a meagre meander and the gravity-led system to raise the water was not strong enough to deliver good water in sufficient quantity and quality.

The final part of this water stream was reflective and showed that focusing on the big picture was not a bad idea. It emphasised the need for the water sectors to form one strong delta. In spite of forming a small stream, water made its way through the Share Fair and is promising to grow stronger. The collection of sonar signals from the water club indicates that there is definitely willingness to tear down the water walls and connect the water towers.

What next? We can’t really tell at this stage but we have a rendez-vous at the end of this year to see how contacts have been followed up. Oh, and though this is a grapevine signal, I heard some people say that AgKnowledge should be followed by another similar event, perhaps more focused on water... WatKnowledge are you talking about? Let’s hope we find out before water’s under the bridge...

The results of discussions and of the session are available on: http://agknowledgeafrica.wikispaces.com/LP-water#res

(1) These talents featured: a) the resource centre network (in Ghana) to organise WASH sector information management and national knowledge sharing across a variety of actors; b) RiPPLE the action-research programme on planning and financing water that leads also to productive activities using the learning and practice alliance (a multi-stakeholder process with platforms at district, regional and national level); c) the Nile Basin Water and Food Challenge Programme (multidisciplinary research framework for the design of transboundary solutions to the Nile Basin’s many challenges) and finally d) the dissemination of the micro-tube drip irrigation developed by the University of Arba Minch.

AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair: Les jeux sont faits!

Original posted on the ICT-KM blog

As the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair concluded at the end of Day Three on the campus of the International livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I wondered what it was that people would remember the most about this event: what would the over 300 participants take home with them?

“All good things come to an end,” so says Roxanna Samii (International Fund for Agricultural Development – IFAD) in her heartfelt blog post about her last day at the Fair. “The purpose of this Share Fair was to share and learn and I believe that we’ve achieved this goal. I hope that the Fair has left a footprint in the hearts, minds and souls of the participants.”

Roxanna also talks about the radio and telecentre focus groups she attended during the last day. “The radio session was a great example of the impact of the Share Fair,” she says. “The room was packed with participants who before the Share Fair did not know anything about podcasting, podcasting/audio software and hardware. Three days later, here they were showing us the audio files they have created, sharing tips on how to conduct an effective interview and discussing challenges of interviewing with the help of an interpreter and avoiding being lost in translation.

“We closed the radio session with one of the participants saying: ‘YES WE CAN. I now know HOW TO.’ That was such a wonderful way of finishing the session and showed the footprint of the share fair. Often we are asked ‘what has been the impact of events such as share fair?’ The impact of these events is transformative. They change the way people work. They open your mind and remove the cobwebs in your mind, and as a result you inevitably change behaviour, which is transformative.”
Read more about Roxanna’s parting thoughts here.

Making Knowledge Travel
Day Three also saw the ICT-KM Program’s Nadia Manning-Thomas facilitating a “sold-out” session on how to make knowledge travel. She talked about the difficulties associated with getting the right information to the right people at the right time, and the role we can all play in making knowledge travel. She also discussed two initiatives involving the ICT-KM Program that facilitate knowledge sharing: the Triple A Framework, which looks at the availability, accessibility and applicability of research outputs, and the CIARD initiative, which aims to make research results more accessible and usable by stakeholders.

Coming soon: look out for Nadia’s post on this session!

The law of two feet
In his blog post on open space, Andrew Clappison (CommConsult) talks about applying the open space approach to meetings and workshops. One of the main advantages of this face-to-face methodology is that participants can take responsibility for a meeting’s agenda by deciding the topics they want to discuss. However, if an open space sessions goes in a direction that is not to your liking, you are free to apply “The law of two feet” and move onto another session. Of course, if you invoke this law in a meeting that follows a more traditional agenda approach, there might be consequences. Read Andrew’s full post here.

Knowledge Management Impact Assessment session
Day Two Update: This lively session gave knowledge management (KM) practitioners an opportunity to share their experiences and discuss the challenges associated with measuring/assessing the impact of KM initiatives. Open space techniques (Open Popcorn and World Cafe) were used to facilitate the sharing and exchange of experiences and knowledge. The discussion will also provide input to the Knowledge Management Impact Challenge initiative. Despite the great challenge of the KM impact question, the participants dived into lively group debates around 3 questions (accountability, learning and ownership) to think about why it is important for us to be able to explain the changes that result from KM activities, share their experiences of different tools and approaches and work together to think about what we can do better to address this issues. Read the session summary by co-facilitator Louise Clark (Impact Alliance).

During the Share Fair, blog posts, like the ones mentioned above, were generated by our social media team. This group of enthusiastic volunteers headed by Peter Casier comprised participants and facilitators alike, people who took time out of busy schedules to report on the various sessions that took place. I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped cover sessions so that others unable to attend could get some insights into how we can all work better together. And if you wonder what social media really is… you may want to read Peter’s post. I am sure you will read more about the lessons learned in organizing such a “controlled anarchy” group.
The Share Fair is now over but you can read the Social Media Team’s coverage on the Share Fair official blog as well as the individual sites of the various tools used:

• Blog: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisblog
• Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddiswiki
• Tweets: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddistweets
• Photos: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisphotos
• Videos: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisblips
• Social web: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddismention
• Share fair FM: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisfm

As to myself…. weeks and weeks of preparations and four days of intense interactions have come to an end.. a great team worked to make this possible (special mention to Peter Ballantyne and the ILRI crew who did an amazing job!) we were responsible for organizing the Day 0 (where we delivered more than 350 training ’seats’) and the social media coverage…. and yes… I look back with a great sense of pride… I will write more about that once I come down from “cloud 9″ and catch up with my emails

Reflecting on Agknowledge Africa Knowledge Share Fair #sfaddis

Originally posted on IFAD social reporting blog

I am still all jazzed up and energized by the great Addis Share Fair experience. So, what was so special about this event?

An African event for Africans
Well, for one thing, it was an African event, organized primarily by African for Africans. I do not have the list of participants handy, but I think I am correct to say that 90% of the participants came from Africa! We did a spectogram in the water pathway - where we organized ourselves between North and South pole. It was amazing to see that only 3 people were from the North and the rest came from the South!!

Fully immersed in Ethiopian culture
In true spirit of knowledge sharing, the organizers - the incredible ILRI team - did a remarkable job of weaving in local culture in almost every aspect of the Share Fair. Starting with the wonderful Bunna ladies serving us coffee, to the Ethiopian horn blower - our official time keeper - to creating an Ethiopian market place where participants spent an entire afternoon learning and sharing with each other and last but not least the exquisite Ethiopian food.

Share Fair footprint
Often as KM practitioners we are asked to show the impact of our work. The Addis Share Fair provided numerous opportunities to see the impact and footprint of our collective knowledge management and knowledge sharing efforts.

For example, no matter which session you attended, be it a pathway or a focus group, we saw quite a number of highly engaged and passionate African colleagues facilitating the different sessions using different knowledge sharing methods. We also have a relatively big and vibrant social reporting team. What was wonderful was how participants immediately embraced and put to practice what they learnt on day zero.

We started off with almost no audio coverage. Thanks to Day Zero "I know how day", we ended up having a great podcasting site on Podomatic, a flourishing video section, an equally flourishing blog, many participants contributed to the photo gallery, we had an extraordinary buzz on Twitter.

Inspiring keynote address
Unlike other events that have a rigid and stiff opening session - with lots of rhetoric and formal speeches - the opening session for Addis Share Fair ended up being pretty informal and genuine. All those who took the floor talked about how their respective organizations are engaged with and have embedded knowledge sharing in their core business.

Owen Barder - a charismatic and compelling speaker - delivered an inspiring speech on the importance of knowledge for development. Listening to him talk about importance of concentrating on making knowledge in development more evolutionary and the fact that perhaps we do not really need authoritative answers but rather diversity in answers and as he said "We need diversity, engagement and feedback process", made me realize that if had more people like Owen who can so eloquently offer different perspectives, people who think and conceptualize out of the box, people who bring something new to the table, perhaps we would make huge leaps in achieving both our development and knowledge goals.

Owen is perhaps one of the kind, but at least his refreshing and unconventional talk inspired many of us to the point that we are still talking about it and sharing the gems with colleagues. So who knows, maybe as a result of his talk, we will start a change process within our respective organizations and a year from now, we can claim that this too is a result and footprint of the Agknowledge Africa Share Fair!

Learning pathways and focus groups

In retrospect, the idea of the learning pathways was quite a happenstance. In June, Peter was passing through Rome and our PROCASUR colleague Ariel also happened to be in town. In our conversations with Peter, we suggested that he meet Ariel and pick his brain... and so the idea of "learning pathways" was born from this short but intense brainstorming session.


On the last day of the fair, we heard a short summary of the learning and sharing that happened in the various learning pathways. While all the participants seemed to have enjoyed the experience and learnt from each other, perhaps we could have got more mileage from this new learning and sharing paradigm by providing a space for the pathways to intersect. For example, we could have organized a joint session between the land, water and livestock pathways. This would have allowed participants to exchange and cross fertilize ideas and would have provided the space to get to know more about each others' work, aspirations and challenges - and who knows perhaps we would have achieved different outcomes!

Another innovation in this share fair where the numerous focus groups which provided an opportunity to discuss and share experiences on a wide variety of topics - ranging from reporting on agriculture, to use of mobile telephony, the future of telecentres, process of write shops, how to make sure content travels, challenges and opportunities of working with researchers, and the hot topic of how to engage with young people and what is that we need to do to make living in rural areas enticing!

I think we should definitely replicate the focus groups at future share fairs and if we have hot topics such as youth, we should try and see how to have repeat sessions or even better, how we can have multiple sessions building on each other.

Lessons learnt
Talking of lessons learnt, at the penultimate session of the Share Fair, we finally had the pleasure of hearing the voices of farmers - the very people that we serve. The farmers were indeed the "missing link"  in the Share Fair. Perhaps the biggest lesson learnt for future share fairs is to make sure that we have adequate representation from all the people who we work with and serve - this means smallholder farmers, producers but also decision makers.

When we talk about decision makers, I do not necessarily mean exclusively policy makers - that is ministers of agriculture or finance - but also our organizational decision makers. I believe senior colleagues would have benefited from experiencing the buzz and energy of the Share Fair. They undoubtedly would have learnt from the participants and it goes without saying that they would have had a lot to offer. So perhaps for next time, collectively we should make sure that these events make it to their busy agendas and they take the time to participate in similar events.

As mentioned above, it was really great to see our African colleagues facilitating the various sessions. What we need to do now, is to make a concerted effort to train and build the skills of a new cadre of African facilitators, so that at the next share fair we see new African colleagues taking the lead in training participants and facilitating many more sessions.

Building on this extraordinary experience, we should try and organize more regional events organized by the region for the region and involve much more stakeholders both at grassroots and decision making levels.

What next?
Almost a week after the share fair, I am still living off its energy - and believe me this is really extraordinary! I think I can safely say that as a result of this event, we all managed to expand and extend our networks. We met new colleagues and for sure we'll be calling on each other as and when needed.

So when will be coming back together in another Share Fair? We're all working towards orchestrating a global knowledge share fair late 2011. In the meantime, hopefully there will be more  regional and why not more focused thematic share fairs.

Last but not least, I hope that the #sfaddis blogposts have managed to transmit the spirit of learning and sharing, openness, fun and satisfaction of building colleagues capacity to take on new roles and become agents of change.

It’s all about the people: please meet the CGIAR Ongoing Research Map focal points

This week during the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair in Addis, a quite secretive group of people was wandering around the ILRI Campus. While at the Fair everything was open to all and people could walk around and participate in learning pathways, focus groups and lively sessions, what was a small group of 10 doing locked up in the Computer Lab?

In true Share Fair spirit, we were doing just a bit more knowledge sharing, only in its software development flavour: user-centred design, a design methodology that aims to incorporate analysis of the needs, constraints and priorities of end users at different stages of the software development process (read a concise overview on Wikipedia).

The focus of our attention was the CGIAR Ongoing Research Map, now in beta and in the process of being extensively redesigned.

The CGIAR Ongoing Research Map has emerged from a prototype based on a mashup of data management technologies, then released as a Beta version last January. Since then, new requirements have been collected through direct feedback from Map users and through Evelyn Katingi, the Map coordinator at the CGIAR Collective Action to whom we owe much for the relentless efforts she spends in weaving relationships, promoting the Map, collecting feedback.

Read the full post on the ICT-KM blog

Chickens and ducks and...

Language is a barrier that can have serious implications when it comes to knowledge sharing. This is an issue that has been at the center of many discussions at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In her blog post covering the Training and Sharing Day at this event, Camille De Stoop writes about meeting her brother duck – in French. On her ShareFair name tag is a picture of a duck, and during an ice-breaking session she was instructed to find another “duck participant”, which she did: a man from Niger.

Her brother duck was having problems with the language. “Everything is in English,” he said, “the panel discussions, the presentations, and many of the publications.” Another participant from Sénégal was having similar difficulties; while a participant from Kenya pointed out that his mother tongue is Swahili.

Similar problems exit elsewhere. In his blog post “Language still key to effective knowledge sharing”, Andrew Clappison (CommsConsult) wonders what percentage of research for development issues is translated into other languages. His conclusion? Very little.

Read his post to find out what Dr Emmanuel Chabata, from the University of Zimbabwe, had to say in a video interview about his work, which seeks to build capacity in this area and help domesticate knowledge through its translation into local languages.

This is an issue that we discuss also in the third A of our our AAA framework… how applicable is your research if it cannot be read or understood?

Read the full post on the ICT-KM blog

Picture courtesy Shot from the Hip