In line with the Watershed Guidelines of 2008 - released by the Government of India - the Indian Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, in partnership with the German International Cooperation (GIZ), has implemented a project called ‘Strengthening Capacity Building for Decentralized Watershed Management’. The objective of the project was to improve the capacities and networking of central and state organizations to implement large public investment for decentralized watershed management programs. The project was piloted and implemented in Rajasthan, Karnataka and Uttarakhand.

Forest genetic resources (FGR) are the heritable materials maintained within and among tree and other woody plant species that are of actual or potential economic, environmental, scientific or societal value. They are crucial to the adaptation and protection of our ecosystems, landscapes and production systems, yet are subject to increasing pressures and unsustainable use.

This paper has been presented at the Fifth International Seminar on Dynamics of Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems: Socio-Institutional, Economic and Technical Context, Kathmandu, Nepal, 25-26 March 2010, organized by Farmer Managed Irrigation System Trust. International Water Management Institute, the then International Irrigation Management Institute (IWMI) began its activities in Nepal since 1986 with a Memorandum of Understanding with His Majesty's Government of Nepal, now the Government of Nepal.

This article reviews the approaches proposed by SCARDA to address capacity strengthening for research management, how implementation took place and the lessons learned from the implementation activities. It begins with an overview of the intended project outputs and approach to capacity strengthening, followed by the implementation processes as undertaken in each sub-regional organisation and finishes with the lessons learned.

This paper looks at two aspects of institutional development in a university setting. It looks at how the design of South – North collaboration may have a bearing on the type of partnership that evolves. And it addresses the issue of how institutional commitment influences the depth and intensity of change processes.

Over the past decades public investment in major, medium and minor irrigation systems has not yielded the expected results. The solution to the growing water crisis lies in the institutional reform of existing social systems so as to manage the demand for water. In recent times, there has been an emphasis on capacity-building of farmer organizations (FO) in irrigation projects. This study focuses on investigating the institutional capacities of FOs in irrigation systems in the Anuradhapura and Kurunegala districts.

This paper examines the design and implementation of a package of capacity strengthening interventions undertaken between March 2007 and March 2011, which aimed to enhance the performance of the national agricultural research system (NARS) in Lesotho. It also identifies some initial outcomes from these interventions and makes recommendations to sustain the process of organisational and institutional change and build on the results that have been achieved.

The poor performance of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is known to be largely due to the lack of effective and client- responsive agricultural research and development that could generate appropriate technologies and innovations to stimulate the agricultural development process. As a contribution to address this challenge, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), developed a project for Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA).

The 2012 RUFORUM Biennial Conference is the third in the series. The main objective of the Biennial conferences is to provide a platform for agricultural research for development stakeholders in Africa and beyond to actively exchange findings and experiences, while at the same time learning lessons towards improving performance of the agricultural sector and ultimately people’s livelihoods. The biennial conference is RUFORUM’s most comprehensive meeting for the diversity of stakeholders in agriculture.