Building farmers´ capacities for networking (part I): strengthening rural groups in Colombia through network

This paper (Part I) present a case study of work conducted by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to adapt network mapping techniques to a rural and developing country context. It reports on work in Colombia to develop a prototype network diagnosis tool for use by service providers who work to strengthen small rural groups. It is complemented by a further paper in this issue by Louise Clark (Part II) which presents work to develop a network diagnosis tool for stakeholders involved in agricultural supply chains in Bolivia. The prototype methods used in both Parts I and II are based on social network analysis (SNA) methodology. Both describe the step-by-step development of the method, what worked well, the capacity building required and what requires further consideration and research. The papers conclude with a final section to identify lessons learnt from both cases and make recommendations for future research.