Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair: After Action review #sfrome

Post by Willem Bettink (IFAD)
 

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.

Food for cities: Power and potential of virtual communities (28)

Post and videos by Julien Custot (FAO)

The FAO Food for the Cities multi-disciplinary initiative has organized a community theatre play for sharing with the public some issues related to “Food, Agriculture and Cities”.

This initiative is an internal inter-disciplinary and inter-departmental group. In the recent years, it has developed a global network of actors, from different levels of action and involvement, including local authorities, producers, researchers, etc. The food-for-cities global network is based on a DGroups list with 900+ members from all over the world (Email: food-for-cities@dgroups.org / http://dgroups.org/fao/food-for-cities). Information on publications, studies, researches, events, meetings, or related and relevant discussions are shared and proposed by members. No moderation is in place to enhance ownership and trust of the members.

The Second AgriKnowledge Share Fair was an occasion to make the public be aware of the topic by organizing a community theatre.

Starting from a Consumer’s point of view, the Share Fair participants have been involved in a transaction, complaining on rising food prices and the need for fresh food. The attention went then to the Market seller/street vendor’s point of view, explaining the reasons of this increase. It raises the question of transportation of fresh and perishable vegetables with issues on hygiene and sanitation as well as handling and storage.



A food middleman (Transportation sector) has entered in the scene reporting the rural-urban linkages on the basis of a city-centred food system. He complains on the lack of good infrastructures, the middlemen role and the heavy corruption from producers to market.



The Producers’ voice was also reported on inputs costs increases and access to land issues. It stressed the fact that small producers have no land or that access to land is difficult and costly. Besides, access to inputs (such as seeds and fertilizers) is always more difficult. He calls for establishing an association of producers to interact with local authorities.



All these actors were then reporting to their Mayor on all these problems, while he was discussing with a Nutritionist on food and nutrition security issues in their city, saying that fat people are indeed malnourished people, just as thin ones. She argued that if hunger does not seem to be a problem anymore, still good nutrition is far from being attained since it deals with diet, hygiene, care, health etc. Improper nutrition has a very high cost on the society (both in terms of health care treatment as in terms of diminished human potential).

In the meantime a Supermarket manager was argueing that the private sector could handle the food and nutrition security problems as supermarkets ensure a stable food availability and cheap food, relying as needed on international trade. Besides, as economic development means less time at disposal of women, supermarkets answer to new challenges of city life style, with changing consumption patterns and habits. He was trying to convince the Mayor to support his business due to cheap prices of food items.


The mayor stressed the fact that he needs a comprehensive approach to the food systems with the participation of all stakeholders. He will consider food in the municipal agenda and set up a multi-stakeholders platforms including consumers, probably a local food council.


Our food systems needs to be carefully planned recognizing the important role of each actor, enhancing multi-stakeholders platforms and assemblies! Join the food-for-cities network (email: food-for-cities@dgroups.org / http://dgroups.org/fao/food-for-cities) to know more, participate and contribute!

The EndingHunger movement (29)

Post by Annika Vaughan (FAO) 

The creative director, Scott Grove, of an award winning public outreach campaign shared his experience in successfully fostering creativity in a multicultural team. Explaining how the project developed from a petition drive to launching a global web portal, Scott talked about the challenges of pushing the boundaries of a conservative knowledge-based organization.

 

In spite of the obstacles, EndingHunger has managed to send out clear and energetic messages and attract a following that continues to grow. What are the keys to its success? About team management, Scott said, "Don't micromanage the team!" "Don't plan everything but leave room for spontaneous developments!" and "Give freedom to the team and let them come up with creative ideas”. On creating a powerful cause-related campaign, Scott stressed the importance of “Keeping the message simple,” and “Establish and stick with a strong visual identity”.

 

Experiences and lessons learned of rural transformation: Why institutions matter (39)

Post by Andrea Rudiger (FAO) 

In this session a group of four panellists presented and discussed examples from India, Ethiopia, Niger and East Africa for successfully building rural institutions, facilitated by IFADs Tom Anyonge.

Truly fascinating was the example from India presented by Judith (FAO). Women self-help groups or saving associations have working for almost 30 years in the Indian state Maharashtra. During the past five to eight years these groups started associating into federations. Two to three hundred women form community managed resource centres. The issues addressed by these groups go far beyond the traditional themes of a savings association. Women started proactively taking on social issues, such as domestic violence. They bring in banks for more project funding or experts, like livestock specialists when needed. Judith also openly shared what she sees as the three major challenges of these relatively new institutions: politicization, “overempowerment” and corruption.

A reoccurring theme across all contributions was the sustainability of rural institutions. Panellists identified links as key to sustainability. This means linking new institutions (1) to existing traditional organisations as well as (2) to higher levels of government. In most of the examples presented new institutions were created by external actors. For such structures to endure there must not only be support from local community, i.e. the demand or the need for new institution must be widely recognized. For such an institution to work there must be ownership by the local community. For external actors this means their role cannot merely be to put structures into place, but to build strategically the capacity of the members to own the institutions and to plan for sustainability. However, the building of new institutions often goes hand in hand with attitude change.

Especially when working in rural communities, we have to be a little more generous in giving time to identify and respond to the need for change. It was encouraging to hear how much awareness there is for the role of effective institutions in collective action, resource management, improved marketing of agricultural products, access to financial resources or more generally, in building better rural livelihoods. The grand words and the abstract concepts, which we often use when talking about social institutions make me aware how intangible institutions are and how difficult it is and will be to assess their effectiveness and sustainability.

Knowledge management planning

Post by Edgar Tan 

Knowledge management projects typically require significant awareness raising, education and change management efforts to get buy-in and participation from operational level managers. Such managers are often impatient with theoretical KM frameworks and concepts or high level strategies, and they can easily dismiss KM as too fuzzy and impractical to be useful. Knowledge managers frequently find themselves preoccupied with fighting defensive actions around understanding and buy-in, instead of directly planning, orchestrating and executing knowledge management strategies and programmes.

In the KM Planning workshop Edgar Tan and Kim Martins took the participants through a facilitated and staged participatory planning process using a set of performance support tools to:

• diagnose specific pain points in the operations that can be supported through KM 
• identify cultural factors that support or inhibit more effective knowledge sharing and use 
• focus managers on the areas they believe are of highest priority to them
• help managers identify appropriate KM approaches, methods and tools to support their priority areas 

The value of a participatory planning approach is that operational managers are themselves working with the KM team to identify the main components of a KM intervention, rather than having a KM team impose a solution from outside. This removes much of the burden of getting buy-in (because prioritisation and selection of approaches are done by the managers themselves), and the awareness and education process is focused on explaining the approaches and methods that managers themselves select as possible candidates.

If you wish to see how the process works, read this blog post and watch the embedded video:http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/conducting_a_km_planning_exercise/

Climate-Smart Agriculture – Yes, we can! (21)

Post by Jeff Brez (IFAD)
Photos by Gauri Salokhe (FAO)

Yesterday we had an intense and lively discussion on “What is climate smart agriculture” using the “fish bowl” knowledge sharing method. Fish bowl means that there is a core group of speakers while the rest of the room, arranged in circles around them, listens in. The fun part is that the core group evolves as audience members join the “inner circle” one at a time, and the original speakers leave, one at a time, so that the discussion is enriched by lots of different perspectives.

 

Our core group consisted of Elwyn Granger-Jones (IFAD), Carlo Scaramella (WFP), Marja-Liisa Tapio-Biström (FAO) and Cristina Grandi (IFOAM). Our audience was not shy, and everyone had experience and specific knowledge to contribute. More than half of the 30 participants entered the “fish bowl” during the course of the session.

There was no consensus on exactly what climate smart agriculture is or should be. But – there are boundaries that seem to be forming. For example, most agreed that perhaps 80% of CSA is made up of what we already know how to do and are trying to do (sustainable agriculture approaches such as integrated pest management, organic and conservation agriculture). However, there is a tricky and evasive 20% of CSA that is new, linked to emerging challenges that climate change brings about, and riddled with uncertainty.

 

There was also consensus that the concept is strongly influencing the planning and thinking of the ARD development community, and that it presents an opportunity to catalyze the move towards an integrated, cross-sectoral approach to agriculture and food security linking it with other challenges to sustainable development and poverty reduction. Yes, mindsets are being changed already, but what is missing is a global vision for agriculture, including the role of smallholders, that climate smart practices would fit into. We need this!

Speakers also agreed that in order to make the transition to climate-smart agriculture happen, more needs to be done: to better assess the vulnerability of farmers, including smallholder farmers; to create policy environments that incentivize and reward climate smart practices; to connect smallholder farmers to seasonal climate predictions and trends through sms and other ICT solutions for short and long term planning; to support education and extensions services; to facilitate access to new technologies like drought resistant seeds; and, to mainstream CSA into agricultural and rural development policies, because in spite of new climate funds, that is where the bulk of the money will remain.

 

Perhaps the strongest point of consensus was that farmers are natural adapters. Climate change is happening too fast and creating too much unpredictability for them, though. So there is no time to waste in helping the poorest to adapt. In addition – let’s not forget that the majority of the best examples of adaptive systems are traditional practices that have been with us for centuries. Case in point is the oases of the Maghreb. In these systems, water is used efficiently and livestock needs are integrated into cropping systems, for example. Let’s not waste time or money to reinvent the wheel.

The Community Listeners’ Clubs in Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo (16)

Post by Christiane Monsieur (FAO) 
Photos by Maartje Houbrechts (FAO)

Sorry for that: you missed a very interesting talk show this morning!

The chat show or talk show methodology was really appropriate for providing the audience with different angles on the issue that was being discussed and for sharing information and experiences in a non-conventional but attractive way. I must admit that we had great speakers today and this surely contributed to the success of the presentation: Eliane Najros, Coordinator of the FAO-Dimitra Project and Projet Manager in the Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division (FAO); Ali Abdoulaye, Dimitra’s partner in the Sahel and Coordinator of the ONG-VIE Kande Nibayra and Yannick De Mol from the Dimitra Project in Dakar, Senegal.

 

Then, it does not happen every day to be able to share ideas with people who strongly believe in what they do and who understands the importance of using real-life examples to illustrate the results and impact of development activities. No theory here, only practice. In such a way, the participants in the session had the opportunity to learn about how the Community Listeners’ Clubs work in two African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some 8500 people (50% of women) in South-Kivu and Katanga have become members of these clubs and in Niger where there are currently over 8000 members (75% are women).

The clubs are true citizens’ groups (of men, of women or mixed) whose members share their concerns and needs and who discuss these within their own club and with other clubs, get access to information and, more importantly, take constructive action together. In this process, community radio is used as an information medium and a communication relay that facilitates setting up flows of information and communication. To listen to the radio programmes and to their own and others’ interventions, the clubs use solar-powered and wind-up radio sets, sometimes together with the solar mobile phones. Ali Abdoulaye showed the participants one of these incredible radio sets. Blue, resistant, sixty turns of the handle and you have one hour of radio listening!

 

The speakers explained how the Community Listeners’ Clubs have proved to be an effective way for isolated rural communities, women in particular, to become involved in their own development, gain self-confidence, change their pratices. In this empowering process of social mobisation, food security is one of the main objectives.

 

To learn more about the Listeners’ Clubs: http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am604e/am604e.pdf (in English) and http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am604f/am604f00.htm (in French)