Various partner organisations in the Prolinnova–Kenya network have identified and profiled 37 innovations by small-scale Kenyan farmers - women, men and groups – to improve the food and nutrition security of their families and communities. The 48-page well-illustrated Catalogue of Local Innovations was compiled by Makonge Righa and Vincent Mariadho of World Neighbors Kenya, the host organisation of the Country Platform. The innovations were identified in the years 2016–2019 in Kisumu and Makueni Counties within the framework of the Proli-FaNS (Promoting local innovation in Food and Nutrition Security) project funded by Misereor/Catholic Central Agency for Development Aid.

The local NGOs that are facilitating Prolinnova–Ghana’s work with farmers at the two action-learning sites in Bongo and Yendi held farmer innovation fairs at each site. Local media reported on the event organised by the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocesan Development Organization (NABOCADO) in Bongo in two articles: “Innovation fair held for farmers in Bongo district” in Citi Newsroom (3 May 2019) and “Bongo-Soe farmers boost food security” in Ghanaian Times (4 May 2019). These activities form part of the Proli-FaNS (Promoting local innovation in Food and Nutrition Security) project funded by the German Government through Misereor/KZE (Catholic Central Agency for Development Aid).

The Farmer-led Research Network (FaReNe) project is a joint project of Prolinnova partners in Burkina Faso and Mali with financial support from the McKnight Foundation and technical support from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), host of the Prolinnova international secretariat. It looks at how best to organise and use farmer-led innovation approaches, such as Participatory Innovation Development (PID), Local Innovation Support Facility/Fund (LISF) and farmer networking, and how these can contribute to agro-ecological intensification. Approaching the end of the current funding cycle, key members of the partner organisations from the two countries – NGO staff, researchers and farmer organisation representatives – met for a writeshop to document their three years of experiences, share and analyse these together, and work towards well-written papers.

The Association of Church-based Development Projects (ACDEP), the Ghanaian NGO that is coordinating the implementation of the project “Promoting local innovation for Food and Nutrition Security” (Proli-FaNS), is seeking the services of a consultant to conduct an end-of-project evaluation. The terms of reference, deadline and procedure for submission of expression of interest are indicated here.

The expression of interest should be submitted to the Project Coordinator, Mr Joseph Nchor at nchor@acdep.org or nchor@yahoo.com by 17.00 GMT on Friday, 18 January 2019.

As part of the process of regionalisation of the Prolinnova network, subregional taskforces have been created in Eastern & Southern Africa (ESA) and in West & Central Africa (WCA). These taskforces recently agreed on who will coordinate the interaction within each taskforce and with the respective subregional coordinator, Amanuel Assefa and Georges Djohy, in order to agree on subregional and regional strategies and activities in Africa and to help set up subregional “oversight groups” that will eventually replace the taskforces. These are thus interim governance bodies of the network in Africa. Brigid Letty from the Institute of Natural Resources (INR) in South Africa has been elected as the chair of the ESA taskforce, while Do Christophe Ouattara from World Neighbors in Burkina Faso will chair the WCA taskforce.