In 2016, ILEIA conducted a workshop in Amman, Jordan, with the support of the European Union, Oxfam and IUCN-ROWA. This article describes some of the lessons from the workshop, where all participants, ranging from project staff to herders and Bedouins, engaged in a documentation and systematisation process and produced an article that will soon be … Read more

Recent decades have seen an increasing recognition of the role that education plays in rural development. Some rural communities now have new buildings, new curricula, and new educational options, such as Farmer Field Schools. Yet, in many countries, the education system still falls short of what is needed, especially in terms of agriculture and meeting … Read more

Norman Uphoff, Professor Emeritus of Government and International Agriculture at Cornell University, served as director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development (CIIFAD) from 1990 to 2005. During this time he became acquainted with the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Madagascar, and realised that “something unusual was going on” as farmers … Read more

Chris Reij – Working as a sustainable land management specialist at the Centre for International Cooperation of the Free University in Amsterdam, and as a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, in Washington, Chris Reij is the facilitator of “African Re-greening Initiatives”. This is a platform that supports farmers in the process of adapting … Read more

In April 2010, IFAD and FAO launched a joint programme to provide people working on poverty reduction projects, with the skills and tools required to gather and share knowledge gleaned from their projects. Different workshops in knowledge sharing techniques, writing effectively for different audiences, and systematisation were held in 2011. The last meeting was a … Read more

Over the past year ILEIA has contributed to the knowledge management activities of IFAD’s East and Southern Africa Division by facilitating a documentation process in Uganda. This involved representatives of four different projects, all of them interested in drawing out specific lessons from their work. In the words of Carole Idriss-Kanago, the Associate Country Programme … Read more

If there is one thing that the world food crisis has shown us it is that heavily relying on global food markets can be dangerous – especially for the urban areas and where households rely on imported food. This is a strong argument in favour of strengthening local and regional food systems. These are characterised … Read more

Mr Saruni Duya’s eight-acre farm, near the village of Nguruman, in southern Kenya, produces mangos, bananas, cucumbers, and also many different “Asian vegetables”, most of which are meant for the market.’ He farms the same land that his father farmed for many years, and his grandfather before him, but the few innovations which Mr Duya … Read more

Jose Antonio Osaba – The World Rural Forum wants the United Nations to declare an International Year of Family Farming. In an interview with Farming Matters, José Antonio Osaba explains why. “Family farming can be a very significant instrument to overcome hunger and poverty.” Osaba and his team have set themselves a huge task, but … Read more