About Prolinnova / A propos de Prolinnova

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PROmoting Local INNOVAtion in ecologically oriented agriculture and NRM  

VISION:    A world where women and men farmers play decisive roles in agricultural research and development for sustainable livelihoods

Joint learning through documentation of farmer–scientist collaboration

An important role of the Prolinnova network is facilitation of joint learning through analysis and documentation of the experiences made, thereby identifying good practice but also recognising weaknesses and room for improvement.

GFAR workshop on supporting co-innovation in family farming / Atelier du GFAR sur l'appui à la co-innovation dans l'agriculture familiale

On behalf of the international Prolinnova network, Do Christophe Ouattara from World Neighbors (WN) Burkina attended a workshop in December 2019 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, organised by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation (GFAR).

This marked the start of a “Collective Action” (CA) bringing together farmer organisations and other stakeholders to develop an inclusive form of research governance that recognises family farmers and rural communities as central agents in agricultural innovation. The Ouagadougou workshop was financed by the McKnight Foundation, which also funds the Prolinnova project “Farmer-led Research Networks” (FaReNe) in Burkina Faso and Mali.

Nouveau projet sur la gestion de l'eau en agriculture familiale / New project on water management in family farming

Quelques participants à l'atelier de lancement de Proli-GEAFaSa / Some participants in the Proli-GEAFaSa inception workshop (Photo:AgriBio Services)


Nouveau projet sur la gestion de l'eau en agriculture familiale

Inception workshops for two new Prolinnova projects


Participants in the SULCI-FaNS inception workshop in Centre Mampuya, Senegal (Photo: Urban Fraefel)

Two new Prolinnova projects have been approved by the German development-support organisation Misereor / KZE (Katholische Zentralstelle e.V. / Catholic Central Agency for Development Aid) - namely, SULCI-FaNs (Scaling Up Local Capacity to Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security) in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana and Kenya; and Proli-GEAFaSa  (Promouvoir l'innovation locale dans la Gestion de l'Eau en Agriculture Familiale au Sahel / Promoting local innovation in water management in family farming in the Sahel) in Burkina Faso and Senegal.

New Prolinnova Country Platform in Zimbabwe!

In November 2019, the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) approved the application of a multistakeholder group in Zimbabwe to be recognised as a Country Platform (CP) in the Prolinnova Community of Practice.

The group includes people from the network PELUM (Participatory Ecological Land Use Management) Zimbabwe, the NGO Cluster Agriculture Development Services (CADS), the NGO The Phiri Award (named after the renowned farmer innovator in water harvesting and ecological farming, Zephaniah Phiri), the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF) and the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) at the University of Zimbabwe. The host organisation of the CP is PELUM–Zimbabwe; the coordinator is Gertrude Pswarayi-Jabson (pelumzim@gmail.com).

PID with women in Ghana to improve nutritional value of local foods

Neina Naginpoan, a female small-scale farmer in northern Ghana, did her own experimentation with a local dish “wasawasa”, traditionally made from steamed yam flour, and made it instead from maize flour and powder from the yellow pulp of the dawadawa (Parkia biglobosa) fruit. She sells the food to schoolchildren and on the local market. Neina and some neighbouring women worked together with a female nutrition expert from the University of Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale and a female expert in Women in Agricultural Development and a male extension officer from the Yendi Municipal Department of Agriculture to experiment with different variations on her innovation. They sought to overcome difficulties of scarcity of dawadawa at certain times of the year and to improve the nutritional value of the dish. This 10-page report describes the process of participatory innovation development (PID) on the local food innovation.

Prolinnova completes Yr 3 of Proli-FaNS - and starts Yr 1 of SULCI-FaNS

The "Promoting local innovation for Food and Nutrition Security" (Proli-FaNS) project has come to an end. It was funded by Misereor/KZE (Germany) for somewhat more than three years (1 August 2016 to 30 September 2019) and was implemented by Prolinnova Country Platforms (CPs) in five African countries – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya.

ANN WATERS-BAYER RECEIVES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM GERMAN COUNCIL FOR TROPICAL & SUBTROPICAL AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Award ceremony in Kassel - the man on the left, Christian Huelsebusch, made for Ann the statue of a Fulani woman with cow

Our heartiest congratulations to Ann!!

Ann Waters-Bayer, a co-founder of Prolinnova and a longstanding and indefatigable member of the International Support Team, received a lifetime achievement award from the German Council for Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Research. She received the award at a ceremony during the Tropentag 2019 held at the University of Kassel, Germany, on 18 September 2019.

Brigitte Kaufmann, Director of Research at the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL), University of Kassel, gave the laudation at the award ceremony as follows:

Structure of Prolinnova

Subregional Coordinators visualise Prolinnova CoP in Africa

The Prolinnova Subregional Coordinators in Africa - Brigid Letty for Eastern & Southern Africa and Georges Djohy for West & Central Africa - have made a diagram that shows the complexity and multiple links within the Prolinnova community of practice (CoP) in Africa, made up of the two subregional platforms and their links with Prolinnova structures in other parts of the world. The English version of the diagram can be found here and the French version can be found here. In addition, there is a much broader Prolinnova network, embracing the CoP and many more people throughout the world (over 700 addresses) in the Prolinnova Yahoogroup.

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