Strengthening the capacity of multi-stakeholder partnerships in ARD

22 October 2018. Nairobi, Kenya. Launch of PAEPARD THEMATIC BRIEFS.

The 16th Management Team Meeting (MTM) is the last meeting of the PAEPARD project. It is organized back-to-back to the 6th African Higher Education Week organized by RUFORUM from 22nd to 26th October 2018.

Yemi Akinbamijo (FARA) and
Tim Chancellor (AGRINATURA)

It brought alongside all implementing partners with the overall objective of assessing the level of implementation of the 2018 work plan and the institutionalization of PAEPARD tools and instruments (ULP and communication tools).

At this occasion several PAEPARD THEMATIC BRIEFS were launched.

Newly released THEMATIC BRIEFS

BRIEF 1 - ARD Partnerships - An introduction
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 5 pages
PAEPARD experience has shown that funding for balanced and multi-stakeholder ARD partnerships, where farmer organizations or the private sector have a significant and even determining voice in setting the research agenda, is not yet easy to obtain. Complex and elaborate research funding mechanisms tend to focus on more straightforward conventional research, with information and technology as shorter-term outputs, rather than on longer-term outcomes in farmer livelihoods and commercial value chains.

BRIEF 2 - Systems thinking and ARD partnerships
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 7 pages- looks at the broader systemic (or systems) thinking needed for addressing complex, multi-faceted issues. Tools consisting of diagrams and matrices that can be used to explore systems thinking are introduced.

BRIEF 3 - Adaptive leadership in ARD
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 5 pages
- looks at how different types of leadership can promote and guide collaboration between stakeholders and project partners with different backgrounds, interests, knowledge, culture, and operating procedures.

BRIEF 4 - Managing power differences in ARD partnerships
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 5 pages
- considers how the inevitable power issues between different actors and stakeholders with different resources and interests, can be made more explicit and managedin ARD partnerships.

BRIEF 5 - Gender and youth inclusion in ARD processes
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 7 pages
- focuses on frameworks and tools which can be used to ensure that these groups are included in the definition of research needs and ARD processes, and hence for them to 0benefit from the resulting changes in practice.

BRIEF 6 - Reflection and learning in ARD 
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 5 pages
- explores how to improve the continual joint learning required by ARD partners, based on iterative cycles of planning, action and reflection on the experience gained through collaboration.

BRIEF 7 - Knowledge co-creation and management in ARD
Authors: Richard Hawkins, Julia Ekong and Mundie Salm, 5 pages
Knowledge co-creation and management in ARD - looks at the processes which are needed to convert the information gained through research projects into knowledge which leads to action, and eventually embedded in the processes, products and culture of organizations.

BRIEF 8 - Scaling of ARD processes: forthcoming

- considers the
principles and strategies that allow ARD processes and the learning
gained through these processes to be used more widely.

Related:

• Briefings agricultural innovation platforms. ILRI. 2014. 
• https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/34166

Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. These ‘practice briefs’ are intended to help guide agricultural research practitioners who seek to support and implement innovation platforms. A contribution to the CGIAR Humidtropics research program, the development of the briefs was led by the International Livestock Research Institute; they draw on experiences of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, several CGIAR centres and partner organizations.