This Module is the first in a series of four that address capacity development competencies in FAO. It is intended to provide FAO staff and consultants with a basic understanding and knowledge of Capacity Development (CD), reflecting the international debate as well as FAO’s perspective on CD. It also provides some key concepts for adopting changes in responsibilities, behaviours and attitudes that are consistent with FAO’s new role in CD.
En esta publicación se presenta una visión general de las oportunidades y las dificultades actuales de las iniciativas encaminadas a aumentar los efectos de la extensión agraria y rural. El punto de partida para este análisis reside en el reconocimiento de que se ha superado la visión de la extensión agraria como sinónimo de la labor de los organismos del sector público.
The contributions and dynamic interaction of thousands of stakeholders from all sectors have created the GCARD (Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development) Roadmap, providing a clear path forward for all involved. The Roadmap highlights the urgent changes required in Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) systems globally, to address worldwide goals of reducing hunger and poverty, creating opportunity for income growth while ensuring environmental sustainability and particularly meeting the needs of resource-poor farmers and consumer.
This paper presents an overview of current opportunities and challenges facing efforts to increase the impact of rural and agricultural extension. The starting point for this analysis is in recognition that the days when agricultural extension was synonymous with the work of public sector agencies are over.
The study report is based on case studies from Bangladesh (Sulaiman, 2010), Bolivia (Pafumi and Ulloa, 2010), DR Congo (Mbaye, 2010) and Ghana (Adjei-Nsiah and Dormon, 2010) which were carried out with the purpose of assessing needs and gaps with regard to the provision of innovation support services for climate change adaptation. It took the form of desk-studies complemented with key informant interviews.
Sustainable Public Food Procurement (PFP) represents a key game changer for food systems transformation. It can influence both food consumption and food production patterns. It can deliver multiple social, economic and environmental benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets.
This publication aims to contribute to the improved understanding, dissemination and use of PFP as a development tool in particular in the case of school meals programmes.
Agrifood value chains of small and medium-sized producers in the Near East and North Africa region have the potential to generate more value through improved access to high-value markets. Limited logistics capacity in the region, coupled with lack of access to continuous cold chain, has resulted in weak supply chain management, high level of food loss, lack of compliance with food quality and safety standards; information asymmetries; and unfair value distribution, affecting income and livelihood of small and medium-sized producers.
This paper argues that Dutch-funded capacity development projects in developing countries for tertiary agricultural education organisations as they are currently carried out are not able to successfully achieve the sustained changes required. That is, changes in how an organisation functions, its cultural norms and rules, and also in how it interacts within wider networks. Rather, long-term institutional change is needed.
This book contains a collection of papers that discuss the experience of an Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) capacity building program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The program was the AusAID-funded Agricultural Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF), which ran for fi ve years from 2007 to 2012, and which sought to improve the delivery of services by agricultural research organisations to smallholder farmers.
This Guide is prepared based on the concepts, principles and practices of the innovation systems, with particular reference to integrated agricultural research for development (IAR4D) which uses innovation platforms (IPs) in agriculture value chains and food systems. The contents of this Guide have been informed by the experiences and lessons learned from the IPs in agriculture value chains and food systems of CORAF/WECARD, National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) and FARA projects, as well as the CTA’s training.