Both women and indigenous peoples face key barriers that limit their capacity to access and benefit from development projects. In a country like Peru where women and indigenous peoples represent a large share of the rural poor, integrating proactive measures into project design is crucial to reach these populations. The Peru Agricultural Research and Extension Program (INCAGRO) gave great emphasis to designing financing instruments that will give equitable opportunities to indigenous peoples and women's organizations.
Botswana has been one of the worlds fastest growing economies over the past 50 years, allowing the country to move from being among the poorest to upper middle income status - this has had the effect of pulling the majority of the population out of poverty. While Botswana is rightly praised for its management of resource wealth, it is apparent that the high levels of investment by government (in health, education, and infrastructure) are not delivering quality outcomes, making it increasingly difficult to meet the objectives of growth, diversification, and poverty elimination.
This project was undertaken to examine the suitability of 8 keys crops in Bhutan under current conditions and future climate scenarios (RCP 8.5) up to 2050. This was a collaborative initiative between MoAF, CIAT and UNEP, funded through the Asia-Pacific Climate Technology Network and Finance Center (AP-CTNFC). The project had two principal objectives: Objective 1: Build capacities of key technical staff to produce suitability maps for a wider range of crops under different emission scenarios.
The livelihoods of mountain farmers are often constrained by poor access to markets and limited entrepreneurial skills for adding value to produce. Research and development organizations have now recognized that improving market access and enhancing the ability of resource-poor mountain farmers to diversify their links with markets are among the most pressing challenges in mountain agriculture.
There have been repeated calls for a ‘new professionalism’ for carrying out agricultural research for development since the 1990s. At the centre of these calls is a recognition that for agricultural research to support the capacities required to face global patterns of change and their implications on rural livelihoods, requires a more systemic, learning focused and reflexive practice that bridges epistemologies and methodologies.
Farming systems in Vietnam are undergoing rapid change, including increased levels of commercialisation and market integration, adoption of (or desire for) labour efficient technologies, and migration of youth in response to non-farm work opportunities. These processes are not only shaping rural landscapes and communities, but challenging traditional gender roles.
The Raya valley in Tigray, where Alamata Woreda is located, has suitable climate and rich water resources, among others, to grow various tropical fruits. Development of fruits only started a few years ago (1996) with the Raya Valley Development Project and the OoARD (Office of Agriculture and Rural Development), mostly focusing on papaya. A participatory rural appraisal (PRA) study conducted by the Woreda stakeholders identified tropical fruits as a potential marketable commodity in 2005.
Bure district has a diverse ago-ecology, different soil types, a relatively long rainy season and a number of rivers and streams for irrigation. Therefore, it has suitable tract of land to grow temperate, subtropical and tropical fruit crops. In 2007, fruits were identified as a potential marketable commodity by the stakeholders participating in the IPMS project. They diagnosed that farmers had limited orchard management knowledge and skill and were growing locally available less productive and low quality fruit varieties.
The study was commissioned by the Advisory Service on Agricultural Research for Development of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and was carried out in cooperation with GIZ Western Kenya and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture in Nairobi. Overall objective of the study was to design a strategy and make recommendations for locally adapted climate smart agriculture (CSA) tailored to smallholder needs in Western Kenya. This included the production of practical policy and technical guidance material.
The first part of the working document on the global strategy brings together the ideas of some 40 experts involved in gender and participatory research who took part in the workshop ‘Repositioning Participatory Research and Gender Analysis in Times of Change’ in Cali, Colombia (June 16–18, 2010).The workshop participants firmly believe that gender responsive participatory research (GRPR) offers some of the most powerful and useful approaches for achieving sustainable development, including alleviating poverty, improving well being, achieving sustainable levels of natural resource use, and