Promoting Inclusive Pluralistic Service Systems: What are the priorities for action?

A growing variety of public and private rural advisory services are available today, leading to increasingly “pluralistic service systems” (PSS), in which advisory services are provided by different actors and funded from different sources. However, these PSS and the way they operate are still poorly understood. In particular, how PSS can effectively respond to demands of heterogeneous farmers in contexts where small-scale agriculture increasingly needs to exploit value addition and adapt to market requirements. In this context, FAO organized a Side Event on Promoting Inclusive Pluralistic Service Systems during the 7th GFRAS Annual Meeting “The Role of Rural Advisory Services for Inclusive Agripreneurship”. The Side Event aimed to explore current thinking on PSS and facilitate a debate around the main themes of inclusiveness, coordination, accountability and scaling up pluralistic rural advisory services. This is a synthesis of discussions and outcome that was submitted to the GFRAS Steering Committee on 7 October 2016.