On 12–15 May, the annual International Partners Workshop (IPW) was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This celebrated the 10th anniversary of Prolinnova as a global partnership. Even though some last-minute travel problems prevented participation of people from two of the Country Platforms, the workshop recovered from this disappointment and developed into one of the more intensive and productive IPWs in the past decade.
After an inspiring opening by the Director of Agricultural Extension of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, the workshop participants spent almost two full days reviewing recent experiences of current projects. First, they zoomed in on how the Prolinnova approach contributes to strengthening community resilience to change. Then, reflection on achievements and impacts of Prolinnova at country and international level over the past decade fed into forward-looking sessions identifying priorities for the network for the next 5–10 years. The interaction with farmers, farmer innovators and their groups during the one-day field study was another highlight of the workshop. The final day focused mainly on network internal matters, including the strengthening of links with educational institutes, simplifying and operationalising the M&E mechanisms in the network, preparing for the International Farmer Innovation Day in 2014 and beyond, and discussing new proposals for action research.
Immediately before the IPW, on 10–11 May, partners in the LINEX–CCA (Local Innovation and Experimentation for Climate-Change Adaptation) and CLIC–SR (Combining Local Innovative Capacity with Scientific Research) projects held their annual review meetings, and the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG), the network governance body, deliberated on various issues within the network, particularly about future directions.
The hospitality of Prolinnova–Cambodia and the very efficient organisational support by team at CEDAC, the organisation facilitating the Prolinnova network in that country, contributed very much to the success of all these activities. The full workshop report is available here.
