Participants in African Regional Workshop of Prolinnova partners, Nairobi, May 2018 (Photo: Loren Cardeli)

As part of the regionalisation of Prolinnova outlined in the network’s 2016–20 strategy, the focus in 2018 is on strengthening the subregional and regional networks. On 22–23 May 2018, the five African Country Platforms (CPs) that are involved in the Proli-FaNS (Promoting local innovation in Food and Nutrition Security) project held their annual sharing-and-learning meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The programme for these two days was organised by Joe Nchor, Proli-FaNS coordinator based at ACDEP in northern Ghana.

In February 2018, the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) welcomed Prolinnova–Peru as a Country Platform (CP) within the international community of practice.

Prolinnova activities began in Peru already in 2005, when the regional network Prolinnova–Andes (composed of partners in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador) was created to promote local innovation processes and to learn from each other about farmer-led participatory innovation development (PID). Since then, some activities at regional and national level activities were carried out, including two regional workshops in 2005 and 2008 and an International Seminar on Participatory Methodological Processes in Peru in 2008. The activities in Peru were coordinated by the RAAA (Red de Acción en Agricultura Alternativa / Network for Action in Alternative Agriculture) based in Lima.

As part of the regionalisation of Prolinnova outlined in the network’s 2016–20 strategy, the focus in 2018 is on strengthening the subregional and regional networks. On 22–23 May 2018, the five Country Platforms (CPs) involved in the Proli-FaNS project will hold their annual sharing-and-learning meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The programme for these two days is being drawn up by Joe Nchor, Proli-FaNS coordinator based at ACDEP in northern Ghana. A third day (24 May) will be devoted to sharing about experiences with regionalisation of the network and planning how to work toward a Prolinnova–Africa network. The programme for this day is being drawn up by the two subregional coordinators: Amanuel Assefa for Eastern & Southern Africa and Georges Djohy for West & Central Africa. 

All Prolinnova CPs in Africa will be invited to Nairobi. They will need to generate own funding for travel, lodging and food. In some cases, CPs in countries neighbouring Kenya may be able to arrange less costly modes of travel to be able to take part in the African Regional Meeting.

In 2017, the Farmer-Led Innovators Association of Kenya (FALIA) worked together with the Prolinnova partner organisation A Growing Culture (AGC) to document farmer innovations in Kisumu in Western Kenya. FALIA and AGC identified 20 promising innovations addressing a range of issues from biodiversity preservation and economic empowerment to gender equality and improved food security. Their joint activity sought to:

•  Identify and document useful innovations to be included in the Library for Food Sovereignty (LFS)
• Amplify and spread innovations through a participatory farmer-led innovation documentation framework
• Recognise farmers for their achievements and identify opportunities for scaling out and building on local innovations.

 A description of the outcomes of the documentation can be found on the AGC website: www.agrowingculture.org/project/farmer-led-innovation-documentation-kenya/