Starting with background information, the report presents a summary of the plenary presentations of the workshop, which includes a brief on the post-conflict and protracted crisis environment in the 15 participating countries (Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda, Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan). Some countries like Afghanistan qualified all in one as conflict, post-conflict and protracted crisis country.

The DURAS Project, which ran from 2004 to 2008, established a truly pioneering means of integrating innovation from science with that from communities themselves. At the heart of DURAS has been its innovative competitive grants system. Following an original selection and evaluation process that placed a premium on multi-stakeholder partnerships, 12 projects were funded in Africa and Asia over a period of three years, each involving an array of disciplines and partners.

These proceedings relate to a regional workshop which was held in Muscat, Oman, in January 2008.

The extensive case study on ‘Improving Public Agricultural Extension Services in Bangladesh Using the M4P Approach’ illustrates Katalyst project’s experience in terms of designing interventions in the Local Government Services (LGS) sector, from testing them in small scale towards scaling-up and the accompanying challenges. The case study shows how innovative public-private partnerships create a vast impact on the lives of poor farmers in Bangladesh.

Land and property rights, migration, and citizenship are complex issues that cut across all social, economic, and political spheres of West Africa. This paper provides an overarching scoping of the most pressing contemporary issues related to land, migration, and citizenship, including how they intersect in various contexts and locations in West Africa. The way issues are analytically framed captures structural challenges and sets them against the regional and global meta-trends of which policy makers and practitioners should be aware for conflict-sensitive planning.

The gender capacity assessment in Ethiopia, which took place in December 2016, analysed the current gender capacities against desired future gender capacities of the African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) partners. It measured six core gender capacities at organizational and at individual (staff) levels of all six engaged national and regional research institutes. These capacities are assessed in relation to the environmental (contextual) level; the institutional and policy environment that enables or disables the other capacities.

The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world. This project analyzed the current gender capacities against desired future gender capacities of the Livestock and Fish partners and subsequently designed tailor-made capacity development interventions. 

From October 2006 through September 2008, Winrock International and partners International Development Enterprises and the Institute for Governance and Development implemented the Conflict Reconciliation and Reduction in Nepal (CRRN) program. The program aimed to reduce conflict in Nepal by improving governance and generating equitable economic opportunities.

For smallholder agriculture to prosper and transform itself, access to rural services is essential. Rural services that enable smallholders to overcome constraints to increase their productivity, manage their farms as a sustainable business, link to inputs and outputs markets and act collectively to improve their livelihoods are a first line of action to reduce rural poverty. Undoubtedly, improving rural services has long been on the development agenda.

This brief summarises the results and recommendations of a scoping study that examined the current levels of professionalism in the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) regional networks. The aim was to provide evidence that would guide the future activities and tools offered by GFRAS as well as to promote inter-regional learning and information exchange.