Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair: After Action review #sfrome

by Willem Bettink

Weeks after the closing of the Sharefair a large group of organizers, facilitators, volunteers, and presenters came together to do an After Action review(AAR). The AAR is a excellent knowledge sharing method to assess how things went: an event , a mission or a meeting. It allows you to benefit from the collective perspectives , experiences and learning of organizing and participating in a particular event .

The AAR for the Global Share fair was centred around a number  of questions to collect people’s feedback. For example we asked:  “What worked  well and why?”; “What could have been done differently or better?”; “What surprised you ?”; and finally “What  advice do you have for future share fair organizers”.

All expressed with enthusiasm that the Share fair was  a great event given  its spread, depth and diversity offered in the 9  themes resulting in more than 130 sessions. As one participant said: “The buzz in and around the IFAD building was very inspiring –I wish it could be like this always !!”

There was some very exciting and interesting stuff presented ranging from the numerous training sessions on knowledge methods, to more substantive topics such as “ how to  extract fertilizer from marble dust”, how to improve  working of a Community of Practice to  three very inspiring and out of the box key note  addresses  by Etienne Wenger, Rob Burnett and Mark Davies

People liked the market fair lay out with the tent and the bigger and smaller meeting rooms –best if they were emptied of meeting tables. The graphics and communication gave a very colourful and exciting ‘feel ‘ and transformed the IFAD building into a big open and creative and stimulating place.

Alas only 4 daily issues were possible of the Daily Corriere- after which it had to close ….. and the Chief Editor is looking for a new challenge…  

The social media coverage of the Global Share fair was very good: from the thousands of tweets to introducing the live twitter wall , live webcasting of key note addresses and thematic sessions, over 50 blogs of sessions and multiple video interviews and tons of pictures. All of this social reporting material helped and added value to the event for those who could not attend it in person and enabled writing of parts this publication.

In short it seems that the Second Global Agriknowledge Share fair was a big success. But was there anything that did not go well or could have been done differently or better? Yes  …there  was  quite a lot that AAR participants came up with as could have been better or could be improved:

• The format and lay out of call for proposal, to be filled out and submitted by those who wished to present /share their story, was not done very well. It obliged the organizers to send out a second form to obtain a better focus by asking participants what would be the three take away messages ; and how they wished to organize their  session and if they had any special requirements. In all this need to be changed for a future global share fair.

• The registration process resulted in more than 700 participants over the 4 days. Doing the registration felt like a steep learning curve- from no previous experience, finding and losing our ways through the hundreds of emails, to becoming registration experts by the end of the fair. A lot to be improved here – from earlier responses needed to whom requested financing, to the visa registration process. A software application may help in making it less burdensome on the eyes and sleep of the human actor….

• While people enjoyed the luxury choice from 130 sessions, it was felt there were far too many  parallel sessions- consider quality versus quantity. Often one could not attend 1st choice due to the parallel nature. As one consequence several sessions  had very few participants due to competing sessions. In future organizers should aim at a reduced number of sessions, thus allowing participants to go to more session and their preferred choices. Second one could try to  join into one session similar topics e.g.  a chat show as was done with social media , private sector and agricultural research.

• The  social reporting team should have been led by dedicated person(s) and set –up earlier e.g.  a month before the event in conjunction with draft programme. This would enable better planning of full coverage of session, seeking out needed skills in the social reporting team and build-up momentum and sharing of ideas amongst the team members. Do not ask facilitators to be at the same time social reporters-it proofed to be hard to focus on facilitation and collecting information for a blog afterwards- quality of one or both may suffer!

• Quality of content, presentation and chosen interaction during of sessions could be improved. First of all the facilitators of each session were identified and informed far too late, not allowing them enough time to interact and prepare with session presenters. Lack of clarity on  knowledge sharing methods by presenters hampered inter-active nature of  sessions. Finally consider better approach to determine the quality and richness of content at an early stage of submission for programme.

• The training day was hugely successful and did not build further through the program. Next time have training opportunities woven across the four days.

• An experiment tested at the KM4Dev face-to face meeting is that during the last day of a future Share fair, you ask people to spend 15 minutes to write a commitment to action. These commitment are then shared at the marketplace of commitments , so that people may find out what they can do together, harvest commitment to actions , and follow up 3-6 months to asseds what happened.

The above reflections, feedback and suggestions are just a selection of the wealth of insights harvested during the AAR sessions. We are going to solicit feedback from all 700 participants through a short electronic survey in early 2012. The aim is to assess what has been the impact of the Global Share fair on people’s  behaviour, old and new work practices, and  personal and professional networks.  And in looking ahead we will ask you for new  ideas, suggestions, or wishes you may have for any future share fair.

Let’s keep the Share Fair - #sfrome - spirit alive

Last night I had dinner with the organizers of the Global Youth Innovation Network and while eating, I could see their minds racing like an F1 car, thinking of all the things that needed to do, all those details that they needed to take care of. It reminded me of our state of mind two weeks ago as we were finalizing the preparations of the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair.

Organizing the Share Fair was a nine-month affair and our friend and UNDP colleague, Johannes Schunter, in his blogpost “What does it take to make the Share Fair happen? Don’t ask ‘what’, ask ‘who’! ", eloquently summarized the essence of what and who it takes to organize a share fair.

I can tell you that this nine-month affair meant many long days, many working weekends, many vacation days dedicated to organizing the share fair, many new bonds and friendships, many moments of joy, happiness and laughter and infinite satisfaction.

From the outset we committed to make the Share Fair an “out-of-the-box”, memorable and outward looking event. From the feedback we’ve received and are receiving, it looks like we managed to fulfill this commitment.

So who is this royal WE? The WE are the 690 participants, the 160 presenters, the army of social reporters, the many facilitators, the “share fair angels” - the volunteers, all those who worked behind the scenes and the Share Fair steering committee.

WE should go proud of orchestrating such a memorable event. And for our IFAD colleagues, as someone said, this was IFAD at is best. We should all go proud of this achievement - indeed a feather in IFAD’s hat.

I would add that this was knowledge sharing and breaking silos at its best as the share fair gave everyone an opportunity to learn from the knowledge and innovations of colleagues from the private sector, public sector agencies, NGOs, academics, think tanks, bilateral, multilateral and UN agencies.

For four days, the participants and the presenters created a special buzz and energy. For four days we saw lots of happy and smiling people. For four days we saw many people connecting, sharing and learning. For four days we saw IFAD meeting rooms packed with people.

For four days we saw people conducting meetings in alternative, creative and innovative ways. For four days we explored new ways of documenting and recording meetings - be it through graphic recording, via Twitter, blogs, videos, Facebook and pictures.

For four days we experienced first hand the power and potential of social media. For four days the Twitter wall took centre stage and kept everyone in the building abreast of what was going on in the numerous parallel session. For four days we did not see many suits and ties. For four days we benefitted from the wisdom and insights of four avant-garde thought leaders. In essence for four days we witnessed a unique metamorphosis. And WE LOVED it.

Thanks to the Share Fair’s remarkable social media presence the event went beyond the walls of IFAD and reached approximately 2.4 million people. 4500 people watched the various webcast and participated in the conversation and debate through social media channels. And we got the best questions came via Twitter and Facebook.

As one of the quotes on the Share Fair panels said: “Knowledge is like a garden; if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.” The challenge now is to implement the many stimulating ideas we picked during the Share Fair and keep the spirit and vibrant buzz of the Share Fair alive. Recently I came across a quote from B. Fuller which really resonated with the Share Fair spirit and it goes: "You can't change anything by fighting or resisting it. You change something by making it obsolete through superior methods".

I hope WE can commit to put to practice the Share Fair “superior methods”.

Let’s commit to conduct our meetings differently, let’s commit to take advantage of the power and potential of social media.

Dare I say, let’s commit to take meeting minutes via Twitter and Storify them. Dare I say let’s commit to invite alternative keynote speakers such as Rob Burnet, Mark Davies, Etienne Wenger, Michele Payn-Knoper to IFAD-sponsored events. Dare I say let’s commit to change behaviours.

Let’s keep the Share Fair flame alive. Let's dare to do things differently!  Here comes the Share Fair revolution..... Let's overthrow status quo!!!

#sfrome: Afghanistan's poor farmers struggle to access markets (188)

By P. J. Bury

Gulla Jan Ahmadzai introduced us to the at time tough conditions for small Afghan farmers to increase their living standards through increased productivity, diversity and access to markets. Road conditions; a lack of consolidation of farmers associations (cooperatives, associations and federation); insufficient adequate product storage to influence and respond to market demands; and a lack of collaboration with intermediary traders and exporters do not favor the realization of their aspirations. Even IFAD itself, supporting them, has difficulties in identifying local context adjusted mechanisms to assist them in their endeavour.
Gulla presents and a lively exchange of experiences and suggestions ensues with among others colleagues working in similar environments like Kosovo.

Gulla will remain in touch with the 8 participants, send them the presentation and exchanged contact details.

Some notes on the discussion

• Similar issues in Bosnia
• Advise services to farmers are private in Afghanistan
• Dairy projects, goats, poultry, training are donations
• Trained para-vet at district level, 10 para-vet in each district, trained
• Integrated dairy scheme
• Micro finance: small donations
• Loans provided by IFAD, people not keen in getting loan against interest
• Conditions for the sharia loan: sharia production. Loan is given, pay back a % on benefits made. If no benefit is made, only the loan itself is to reimbursed
• IFAD works with 4 implementing partners 
• Project area about 500.000 ha.
• No processing included, no storage facility, off-season problems
• Example mellon to Pakistan exported in season and comes back more expensive to Afghanistan from Pakistan in off-season
• Sugar cane is not processed, exported and Afghanistan imports sugar
• Much is still in piloting stage, no loans provided up to know 

Challenges
Storage for off-season responding to demand

• No off-storage does not allow meeting demand constantly, dispersed production doesn’t provide scale to invest in storage 
• Bosnia exchanges experiences on storage, gradually improving through much external support (including fresh fish and berries, starting with milk production in UHT)
• Traditional storage experiences IFAD works in 7 provinces, does not involve importers / exporters in project design (as IFAD does in Jemen and Jordan) 
• Cooling facilities for milk products are not big enough to cater for other products 
• Cooperative movements could address dispersed production and addressing dealing with private sector (Participant shares experience in Latin America) : farmer organizations are interested in investing this. 
• Consolidation of cooperative movement seems hampered by levels of education? 
• Ethiopia example of unions and federation of cooperatives, who then get access to bank loans 
• No processing facilities to add value 
• ICT can be used to increase market information: by voice or SMS 

Suggestion to increase information on markets, demand, fluctuation of prices

• Look into traditional information channels 
• Grapes a promising product, dry with solar 
• Government strategy is weak because of political history 
• Only policy existing is for grain, still in draft 
• ILEIA suggestion: work more on cooperatives 
• ICT , paper by Jensen on fishermen in Kerala using cellphone, initially the richer people. Benefits are higher to them than the cost of the cellphone and its use. (paper can be made available, see list of participants). 
• In higher density areas people can benefit from only a few phones If they are organized they can influence the market prices.

#sfrome: Innovative partnerships and multistakeholder approaches promoted in the RAS context (229)

by Nara Weigel

The 'river of life' drawing above was completed by the green cards in the course of the session and served as a storyline for the thematic input by Marylaure Crettaz (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) and Nara Weigel (HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation). The story started in the mountains with a personal reflection of Marylaure and continued with a brief introduction of SDC's interest in Rural Advisory Services (RAS) most recently expressed through providing support to the GFRAS (Global Forum on Rural Advisory Services). SDC's reorganisation including the creation of thematic networks - one of them being the Agriculture + Rural development network open to SDC staff and its partners - was illustrated as a bend in the river! The network has been capitalizing RAS experiences. This led to the presentation of two initiatives one at project level in Bangladesh and the other at a global level - where public private partnerships were at the core. See below for an illustration of the key actors involved.

The presentation served as a basis to subsequent discussions in a world cafe format on (1) the added value of public private partnerships - at project and global levels for the farmers and (2) whether private sector involvement at both levels leads to more sustainability. Participants agreed that the success of public private partnerships depends very much on the context....Nevertheless, most participants feel that private sector involvement can lead to new market opportunities for farmers as well as more efficient and relevant services, e.g. through facilitating a better flow of information. Under certain conditions (i.e. social inclusion) this can lead to improved livelihood opportunities. It was also highlighted that the role of the public sector remains crucial regarding quality control and setting enabling environments and policies. Finally, participants pointed out that civil society is an important actor, e.g. farmers as drivers of change and NGOs as facilitators. Nothing new under the sun of Rome ;-)

#sfrome: Collective marketing: an empowerment tool for tribal communities in rural Odisha – Odisha Tribal Empowerment and Livelihoods Programme (OTELP)

By Mattia Prayer Galetti

Tumudibandha is a tribal dominated block (revenue administered demarcation) in the district of Kandhamal in Odisha. The villages in this block are remote and scattered with malnutrition, starvation deaths, distress migration, high mortality and nutrition related health hazards dominating the situation. The villages where OTELP was working had taken up an integrated approach to managing their natural resources with much effectiveness that lead them to having two to three crops a year with the introduction of tuber crops, banana and pulses to supplement their diets and income. The promotion of Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) and its value addition was an important intervention for these forest dwellers.

However with the intervention of the project, the remote and scattered primitive tribal group (PTGs) communities found that they had NTFP surplus but no market support to provide them with viable solutions which increased the interference of the middle men. With lack of knowledge of weighing systems and external markets due to their remoteness, the communities were forced to sell their produce to the middle men at throw away rates. One of the first things the project did was to install a weighing machine in each of the micro watershed, an area that covers about 4 small villages, and taught the people how to use it. The project then took the expertise of a resource organisation called MART who specialises in rural marketing solutions, to develop the concept of a collective market for these remote tribal communities. On a priority basis, the communities were sensitised on the advantages of collectivisation of products and its impact on marketing. There were a number of interface meetings held with the traders and the communities. The community people were taken on several exposure visits to the markets to understand quality aspects of products, grading of traders, fixing of prices etc. The inter faces helped the community to understand the demands of the traders in terms of quality and quantity while the traders shared insights on how the community can increase the prices on their produce through little value additions. Once, being totally convinced, the community decided to go into collective marketing and it was the women Self Help Groups (SHGs) who took a lead role in collectivisation of the produce and for the management of the sales. Several Marketing Cadres were identified among the youth in the village who supported the community with market information and to help them get better deals.

The idea of collectivisation has spread to the neighbouring villages which are not under the operational area of the project thus causing a major shift in the traditional life of the vulnerable communities across the block. Distress migration has stalled in these villages under OTELP and school retention has improved. What is even more important and empowering is the ability of these tribal communities to negotiate with the traders and outsiders for their community development. Now the community say that after a decade of hopelessness, they have a sense of security. There is no longer a need to worry about the next meal.

'Neglected no more: traditional crops for sustainable livelihoods'

Thousands of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) of crops offer tremendous opportunities for food and nutritional security and have the potential to improve rural people’s livelihoods. When we refer to NUS, we are often told that if these species are underutilized, there must be a reason why. And indeed there is. The trouble is that the reasons are often not good ones: they are often based on misconceptions; production or marketing bottlenecks that can sometimes be easily surmounted; lack of information on the cultural, nutritional and environmental properties of these species etc.

This event was organized by 4 organizations, namely Bioversity International, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO), Oxfam Italia and the IFAD. We chose the TED talk format, with Stefano Padulosi from Bioversity International telling us stories from rural communities from all over the world to understand the importance of NUS. The main protagonist was a cake, made out of quinoa (an Andean grain) and sold in La Paz’s version of “Starbucks” – a place called Alexander Coffee. This very special cake is the result of a 10 year project funded by IFAD that involved hundreds of people from poor communities across Bolivia. Being able to enjoy this cake in Alexander Coffee means that we have been successful in conserving NUS and making them competitive on the market and attractive to all those who go to there.

Quinoa has been cultivated for centuries in the Andean region. It is very nutritious as an important source of protein and iron. the Incas considered it a sacred crop, and the emperor would traditionally sow the first seeds of the season using implements made of gold. But now it has become a NUS and is considered 'poor people's food'.

A fundamental problem with quinoa is that its preparation is painful. Quinoa seeds are coated with a layer of saponine, a bitter and toxic alkaloid. To get rid of this layer, women first toasted the seeds on a metal tray over a fire. Then the hot seeds are tipped into a stone basin and the women tread them with their bare feet, causing blisters and chronic lower back pain. Moreover, this process can take 6 hours to process 12 kg of quinoa. The project provided the target group with a machine to remove the saponine and what previously took hours now was done in just 7 minutes.

NUS are often also important as medicinal and aromatic plants – for example wild fennel. In the Errachidea province in Morocco, the value of this herb is currently neglected and consequently its exploitation is underutilized. New generations are slowly forgetting the knowledge and traditional use of these plants. However, these plants can be an important income opportunity for poor rural communities. In the case of wild fennel, its cultivation (instead of colleting it directly as spontaneous plant) in one year may improve the average household income by 75%. Thanks to a project by Oxfam Italy, 33 families in the villages of Sidi Boukil and Gourama are now learning how to promote these herbs in the markets thus improving their livelihoods.

Creating an enabling policy environment – both at national and international level – is necessary to deploy the economic potential of NUS for the poor. Thus, the role of the FAO International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is pivotal for supporting NUS, in terms of more sustainable conservation and a wider use of agrobiodiversity. Several Grants have been awarded by the Treaty to organizations around the world, via its Benefit Sharing Fund. This is a great contribution towards the creation of a more secure food basket for the world. In sum, NUS have a great potential: they can increase incomes, enhance nutrition and preserve the culinary and cultural traditions of indigenous communities. Moreover, these crops are often better adapted to grow in marginal areas, with little need for irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers. In many instances these species are the only crops that can cope with harsh environments unfit for other crops. And they can also play an important role in boosting responsible and sustainable tourism.

LEARNING ROUTE ON GENDER AND MICROFINANCE- Uganda

Solidarity and Trust: Key elements for improve rural livelihhod


by Maria Fernanda Arraes

For the last 9 days we have travelled to different regions of Uganda, looking for new ideas and successful experiences in rural microfinance services and products that pay attention to gender differences. Now we have arrived in Iganda district in the Nile valley.

Our last field visit to this adventure journey had the objective to learn fromthe "Kugumikiraza" and "Together we stand" groups, who are using he Village Savings and Loans method to improve their liveliood. The group welcomed us with song, theater and a poem that explained in detail their experiences, starting with the visit of the first technical staff that arrived to sensitize them about this idea.

When someone coming from Kampala told the community for the first time to "put their money together in a box", the first impression of the community was of course to suspect their savings would be stolen...today they laugh when they remember this time.

Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) is a good practice that focuses on very poor people and supports them to manage their household cash flow. Based in a communiy, VSLA can be complemened with other services from microfinance institutions, which normally focus on provinding credit for clients who already have a business activity.

After a number of meetings and trainings, the communities form their own associations. In general these groups invovle 15-30 persons, men and women, chosen by themselves. They define their objectives, adhere to standard VSLA rules, elect their officials and design their saving system. Members put their money into a fund from which they can borrow after three cycles and pay back with 10% interest, so that the fund can grow. The regular savings contributions to the group are deposite for a whole cycle and then distribted partially or totally for the individual members, who will use these saving for their own needs. Most of the groups can function independently without support from the technical staff after 12 months.

Poor women have to create their own economic activities; they need to save money to feed their families; plan for social evens such weddings, pay schools fees and uniforms; health services, etc. It was a good lesson to see how the community changes and how well they have understood the importance of saving money.

The VSLA give them the possibility to socialize an meet regularly, to be trained, to benefit from the solidarity of the community, save mone and invest. Now they appreciate the savings, even more than the loans. In both groups that we visited in Iganga we observed that the women improved their livelihood through asset accumulation, better nutrition and improved health after having participated in this initiative.

These cases showed us that beyond economic empowerment, women also go through a process of social empowerment. They became more confident, motivated and engage. As one women said: "before joining VSLA, I would not be able to stand up in front of you and reply to your questions". The relationship with their husband changed and women started to participate and become involved in decisions at the family an community level.

The communities groups still have challenges: it is time now to think how to improve their products and how to access new markets. More than the opportunity to develop income activites, this experience represents an important cultural change, different family relationship and community dynamics.

After these moving visits, we returned back to Kampala to discuss all these cases and think how we can adapt and apply the lessons in our activities related to microfinance and rural development in our countries....See you in the next post, when i will share with you some of the lessons learned and innovative ideas !!

Learning Route on Gender and Microfinance-Uganda

Learning for empowerment !!!! by Maria Fernanda Arraes

Our third stop was in Kyarumba, Kasese District on the foothills of Ruwenzori to visit the Bukonzo Joint Cooperative Microfinance Ltd. This was an excellent case to learn about their good practices, mainly in skills development for microfinance services. We were able to see new approaches in microfinance gender sensitive services and adaptions of the products to the communities’ reality. It was clear that women have fewer resources for accessing financial products and this has always constrained them from building assets and satisfying their financial needs. There is need to tailor the products and services to meet their needs.

Bukonzo Joint Cooperative has offered products to its members that range from savings, loans and investment building on the savings made which act as collateral. The loans offered are for buying coffee cherries during coffee season, payment of children’s schoolfees and buying scholastic materials, money for small businesses and investment in these other economic activitis.

To understand the products and services as well as delivery methodology used by Bukonzo Joint Cooperative and the changes at the communiy and household livelihoods, we spend one full day with them... We were overwhelmed by the warm welcome the community gave us: traditional, joyful music performed by the friendly, ever smiling women was just the beginning. This was followed by a wonderful taste of their very own organically grown coffee.

The introduction was great, we were invited to pick a friend (one visitor, one host) in order to break the language barriers, the host taught us how to use symbols to introduce themselves. The day’s agenda in symbols was all planned by them and presented based on a picture drawn in detail with a lot of curious symbols.

Based on their experience, they told us about their main issues and their main activities, in the community, group and individual levels. They expressed the role of men and women in the economic activities, the income and outcome of these activities and many other details about their situation. They shared their vision and all the steps that they planned to achieve these ideas, all expressed through colorful and structured pictures!

This way, we could know about some women individual lifestories, and also their visions and dreams: plans of building a house, the reduction of family violence, or the opportunity for their children to receive education. We saw that they had clear ideas how to achieve these goals and the necessary steps to do it, like diversifying their economic activities, accessing new markets and becoming part of the decisions in their cooperative and in the community.

Given the high illiteracy rate among the community members, the Bokonzo Cooperative could help them to really improve their skills using the pictorial methodology. The trainers told us that the most of the trainings have focused on having women issues at the forefront, however the realization of the training focus on women is counterproductive as the men became hostile. So, they recommend that all trainings should incorporate issues of both sexes and involve all family.

The women’s abilities to express their stories and visions about life through pictures has been built up with the extension staff for 12 months. Improving the method while practicing, the Cooperative seeks to educate its members in the importance of individual and business savings. Finally, they could achieve many of these objectives through an empowerment process based on a learning process, a lot of effort, work and agriculture and small business loans to members offered by their cooperative.

Generally the women are the biggest target of microfinance institutions because the lack to financial services and because they are consider more responsible and better financial managers. This experience shows us that the microfinance products can be more adapted to the rural communities needs, gender sensitive and based in families and rural communities’ dynamics, involving men and women and given then opportunities to understand the role of each. It can permit changes in the social inequities.

If you want to know more about these issues, please joint us in this journey... we´re going to our next stop in Iganga to learn from the Farmers Association and their experience with the Village Savings Loans.

Learning Route on Gender and Microfinance, Uganda

Unexpected Safari along the Route by Maria Fernanda Arraes

Mbarara District. Here we come ! After traveling southwestern direction for three hours from the capital city of Kampala, we arrived in the second stop.

The objective of our visit here is to understand the operations of the NGO Uganda Women's Effort to Support Orphans (UWESO) and its offshoot into the Success Microfinance Services (SMS) Ltd in financial services.

This case brought out a lot of questions and deeper group discussions, for examplem can an NGO providing social services based in charity at the same time operate a microfinance instituition that is more focused on economic development ? Are these services complementary or contradictory ?

The participants learned that the process to separate social and business case involves a lot of technical, institutional and financial challenges ! We realize, for example, the importance to clarify for all target groups the new institutional arrengements, to separate the management and actions of these two areas and to invest in the technical capacities of team.

The learning process from this experience was composed by different activites. We started with the institutional presentation from SMS. This was followed by the field visit in the Bushenyi rural community where we saw the SMS branch office and met their women's client group.

After the welcome speeches from the local and regional authorities, we listened to stories from the women's leaders, clients of SMS through solidarity group loan.

We also did a good discussion in smaller groups to understand in detail how the access to loans changed their life. They shared with us that this gave them an opportuniry to start or improve an economic activity and meet their household expenses.

The women group prepared a sumptuous lunch time for the participants and this was really appreciated because the rich and tasty local food. In addition to the food, they also danced and acted a play for us indicationg the benefits of microfinance. We also have the opportunity to visit their business. For example, Madam Margaret is a successful businesswoman who, with a loan, built a business premise which serves as her house, shop, another thres rooms that she rents to business neighbors and ten rooms that she rents out.

In the end of the afternoon, in order to recognize the warm reception they accorded us the Procasur team gave them certificates of recognition to each women group and to SMS for their knowledge service.

When we were on the road to our next destination of Kasese town we tought that all emotions of the day had finished but surprise, surprise: We found ourselves in a free safari as we crossed the Elisabeth II National Park and the Equator imaginary line ! This experience gave us the opportunity to see bush backsm gazelles and one of the big five: the elephants.

Our learning route is certainly a different training experience !!!

See you soon, when I come back to tell you more about our next surprises in the Ruwnzori mountain region...

Humans beings prefer messy coherence, says Dave Snowden. Make sure you watch Dave's lecture at IFAD

On 28 February we had the honour, privilege and pleasure of having Dave Snowden with us. Dave was in town for a Rugby match, and we decided to try our luck and ask him to visit us and give a talk on Linear versus complexity: A new thinking paradigm for the development world and his Cynefin framework.

When Dave accepted to our invitation, I thought to my self, Oh My God, we'll have Dave Snowden, a leading knowledge management figure coming to IFAD.

In the development world, we do not get that often someone who embodies exceptional intellectual ability, creativity and originality. In other words, we do not have geniuses visiting us that often!

Dave managed to keep the audience in a complete state of awe for more than an hour and twenty minutes. I must admit I had never seen my colleagues so focused and listening so attentively to a talk.  Every single sentence Dave uttered was packed with at least five profound, new and revolutionary concepts. There was no way one could jot down all the concepts and internalize them before Dave moved on to his next sentence.

Dave inspired, challenged and left us speechless. At the end of his lecture, for the rest of the day and even today are heads are still spinning. Colleagues are replaying the lecture and taking their time to internalize Dave's new thinking paradigm.



Many of you in the virtual world followed us via webcast. For those who missed this unique event, Dave was kind enough to agree that we could post the recording. Make sure you watch it so that you can live our same experience.

I am also including some of the tweets from the superb IFAD social reporting team and other equally reat social reporters both in and outside the room! And make sure you check out Luca Servo's blogpost: The Cynefin framework.

Tweets from Dave Snowden lecutre at IFAD on linear versus complexity: a new thinking paradigm for the development world

View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Dear Dave, once again, thank you for making our Monday morning such a unique and rewarding experience. We look forward to welcoming you very soon in Rome and at IFAD!



Here is a random selection of Dave's soundbites

We manage the evolutionary potential of the present 

People will share knowledge if they see you need it. Nobody will codify knowledge in advance of that need 

Communities of practice lost their relevance 5 years ago!

I use Twitter more than Google these days. Human language gives content and context that a search engine cannot match

Failures imprint more than successes

Tacit knowledge is not always enough to make the right decisions

Taxonomy is like taxidermy

Photo gallery

Should IFAD become a learning organization?

Should IFAD become a learning organization? Are we effectively sharing the learning emerging from our activities across regions, internally and externally? These are some of the questions that Cristina Sparacino - IFAD's Oprah Winfrey - will be posing to IFAD colleagues.

Today, at IFAD we are hosting a mini knowledge share fair to share the highlights of IFAD-funded projects and programme (better known as IFAD project portfolio) and discuss the challenges and opportunities for 2011 portfolio.

What triggered this event was the realization that we are producing quite a number of "knowledge products". However, these products are of different quality, some are adding value to the overall development discourse, while others may be lagging a bit behind. We also know that these outputs are not always widely shared to trigger learning and generate knowledge.

If we want to expand our horizons and learn from others, we need to look beyond our own horizons and learn about what is happening in the bigger world.

Now, "the bigger world" is relative, it can be the entire development world, or the colleague sitting in the next office. What we're noticing is that we do not necessarily know what everyone is working on and what challenges colleagues are facing. So what is happening is that there are times that we end up reinventing the wheel. When we face a challenge, our prime preoccupation is to overcome it and just get on with it. This is perhaps our Achilles Heal because we do not take the necessary time to ask around and find out if others were confronted with a similar challenge and how did they go overcoming it.

Experience shows us that when we organize learning and sharing events we get an overwhelming response. This means that while we are all keen to learn and share, we do not seem to make it quite a "way of life". Our role as KM/KS facilitators is to create that enabling environment and encourage colleagues to come out of their offices and share their gems and nuggets.

The mini knowledge share fair aims to do exactly that, and do it in a fun way. We'll kick off with an overview of the 2010 portfolio, highlighting the lessons and what we need to do more of and better in 2011. We'll then have a chat show discussing "should IFAD become a learning organization". And then we'll open the market place.

At the market place we have a chill-out corner, where Thomas Rath and Roberto Haudry will share the back-story of why their projects received highest possible rating and will answer to your questions.

Colleagues will alternate at the speaker's corner discussing issues such as Will climate change kill the fisheries and aquaculture sector? and what are the gender dimensions of value chain?

In the Show and tell corner, participants will be able navigate the Globalremittance gateway and track who sends money where, navigate land rights on the web, learn more about innovative approaches to documenting gender in Latin America and the Caribbean, find out how IFAD has built the capacity of pro-poor institutions and learn about Rural Finance Learning Centre. In this corner, colleagues can familiarize themselves with the operations application alphabet soup: PPMS, RIMS, PLF, PSR. Learn about the treasures stored in these applications and learn about the system that keeps track of money and helps them have less headaches, reduces the number of emails and phone calls.

Participants while touring the market place can stop to watch a selection of IFAD-produced videos featuring the people we work for and with or go on a virtual tour and visit where IFAD works by experiencing the power and potential of Geographic Information System and Google Maps. They can also go behind what meets the eye and see how national and international media cover rural development, agriculture, food security, gender-related issues.

In the knowledge sharing corner, participants have an opportunity to learn about ‘capitalization’ or knowledge capturing methodology and see how ‘capitalization’ is put into practice, learn how to conduct an open space or a peer assist.

We dedicated a corner to talk about the value and potential of social media, where colleagues can experience first-hand how social media channels are used as knowledge sharing tool.

How IFAD is using social media

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural

Development.

In the process corner, will be discussing where does the knowledge emanating from our global and regional grants end up? Who is using this knowledge? And how does this knowledge inform new global and regional grants? And last but not least, in the publications corner we have on display all the publications produced in 2010.

As one of the organizers, I am looking forward to have a fun day. We'll be tweeting - so follow #sharefair - and will also be blogging. So tune back in.

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IFAD's Cartagena workshop on rural youth entrepreneurship ends with guidelines for policy development

The 1st Meeting on Youth Entrepreneurship and Rural Micro-enterprising ended with a series of recommendations that will help the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and its partners, develop and implement policies that can create more favourable conditions for the growth of young people’s micro enterprises. The five-day knowledge sharing and policy dialogue event was organized by IFAD, the Oportunidades Rurales programme of the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and the Regional Program to Support Rural Afro-Latino Populations (ACUA). Along with more than 20 senior staff and project staff members of the three development partners, over thirty young entrepreneurs coming from Argentina, Bosnia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, Nicaragua, Madagascar, Peru, Senegal and Syria participated in the workshop, which was opened by Mohamed Beavogui, Director of IFAD’s West and Central Africa Division. During the deliberations of the workshop the young entrepreneurs were divided in four working group of discussion dedicated to four thematic areas, including:

· The issue of non-inclusion of the projects of young rural people in the development plans and strategies of governments
· The lack of or limited space for participation in exchanges between adults and young people to transmit knowledge
· Restrictions on young people’s access to credit and rural financial services
· Excessive limitations facing on young people’s access to market and value chain opportunities.

In a message to the workshop, HE Juan Camilo Restrepo Salazar, Minister of Agriculture of Colombia, welcomed the participants to his country, expressing “Greetings with enthusiasm to all participants coming from various parts of the world, for choosing to hold their workshop in Colombia.” He said: “On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government of Colombia, we wish you the best of success in your deliberations and in achieving concrete results, with the hope that the enthusiasm which brought these young people here will be further reinforced.”

At closure of the workshop, Roberto Haudry, IFAD’s Country Programme Manager for Colombia, outlined the key outcomes of the workshop. He said the conclusions that managers and Project staff members of IFAD, Oportunideds Rurales and ACUA have reached following their intensive interactions with the participating young entrepreneurs, would be distilled into two main products, consisting of immediate general recommendations and a policy framework that would require a longer time for development. Haudry said “The proposals made by the young entrepreneurs during the event, including policy hints, activities and tools, will be reproduced exactly as they were expressed.” He added that the three partners will try to incorporate these proposals into their current operations and future interventions. He summarized the general recommendations as follow:

· IFAD and its projects lack, and should acquire the capacity to hear the young people, learn more from them and trust them much more. IFAD and its partners commit themselves to multiplying their exchanges with rural young people, and facilitating exchanges between themselves, in order to learn more about each other’s successful business models, difficulties, solutions and innovations.
· Promoting inter-generational dialogue is very important and requires greater attention. Each generation of young, adults and elders have their own special characteristics, extending from new technology assimilation, through productivity and assets accumulation, to knowledge and wisdom. Understanding the complimentary potential of the three elements and acting upon such understanding needs to be improved.
· The need to design financial instruments and vehicles that permit the inclusion of many millions of young people in the citizenship of access to financial services, markets and information is more pressing now than ever before.
· Recognition of the ICT talents of young people needs to be made by the creation of “knowledge markets” through which they can transmit information, know-how and innovations to each other.
· Recognition of the need to invest in culture is crucial to make good agriculture, particularly in the case of young people.
· Acknowledgement of the global dimension of young people’s space is only logical as they constantly move between rural, urban and global terrains and cyberspaces. Therefore, learning skills such as English, for example, has been identified as a basic necessary tool for young people. · The need to invest in non-formal education, including cultural and physical creativity, would help motivate young people for greater productivity.
· The need to provide the young people with direct access to various resources and assets, including financial services and markets, is crucial and requires greater investments.

The closing session ended with an announced that a special event similar to the Cartagena Youth workshop will be held in Africa in 2011, as part of a global consultation process with rural young people.
The last two days of the workshop were dedicated to field visits in the context of a “Learning Route” programme to the sites of IFAD supported interventions in the Departmental District of La Gallera, which is located in the ZENÚ indigenous reservation and in to the Verdara La Aren of Sincelejo. The participants also visited the sites of rural development interventions in the municipalities of Sincé and Corozal in the Department of Sucre. This had followed other field visits to the sites and activities of micro-enterprises of poor rural people, particularly women, supported by Oprtunidades Rurales in the island of Baru and the San Basilio de Paneque. The huge variety of artisan workshops developed by the young entrepreneurs, for example in Baru, which range from bakeries, to shoemakers to artificial jewellery making workshops, was impressive.

Organized in collaboration with the Association of Women and Young Afro Colombian (AFROCARIBE), the Costa ASOPIELES Marroquineros Association and the Association of the Social Agro-industrial Development Savannah (ASODESEA), the Learning Route provided ample opportunities to learn and share knowledge. This includes the concrete outcomes of Colombia’s experience in rural small business development and its approach to the involvement of young people. The Rural Micro Enterprise (MER) in Colombia has helped nearly 500 thousand families develop secure and sustainable sources of income through engagement in a variety of micro-enterprises and other income-generating activities. Between 2004 and 2009 about 25,000 families received tools, resources and training enabling them to move out of absolute poverty from this investment programme developed by IFAD and the Colombian Government. The innovative Learning Route imitative developed with the technical cooperation of PROCASUR, has become a model in “knowledge travelling” that aims at improving the capacities of farmers associations and organizations of entrepreneurs in identifying, evaluating and learning (for replication and up-scaling) from initiatives of micro enterprises in other regions.

A number of the participating young entrepreneurs have also set up vender tables in Cartagena’s old city centre, where the general public could admire and purchase their products. This “Fair” of products of young micro-entrepreneurs from various parts of has attracted a large number of visitors curious to know more about the Youth initiatives. A good example of these innovations was the development by a group of young rural Colombians of the “marimba” musical instrument, or what they call the “forest piano” that is fast spreading in the countryside bringing happiness to many rural communities after hard work days in the fields. The young entrepreneurs who benefited from micro finance services supported by IFAD and its partners have made a highly visible success in their new industry not only in Colombia. The group affirmed that they are expanding the market outreach of their “marimba” to neighbouring countries too. Naturally, the workshop could not have a better closure that that of the sounds and rhythms of the marimba played by its creators. Naturally IFAD’s staff too, like the director Beavovui, also had a go and tried the fantastic sounds of the instrument. As a final act, Betty Sterling of LAC, took advantage of the youngster’s enthusiasm to hand over the participation diplomas to the young leaders of tomorrow, who seemingly enjoyed the event as much as they have effectively contributed to its outcomes.