Earlier this month, the Rockefeller Foundation (one of Prolinnova’s core donors) confirmed its interest in supporting a second phase of Piloting Local Innovation Support Funds (LISF) by Prolinnova.
These pilots aim at finding best ways to make resources available directly to farmers to experiment and innovate, where needed jointly with support agencies and researchers. Initial pilots in five countries (Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and South Africa) have given indications of the potential of the LISF approach but many issues need to be addressed and studied to ensure that LISFs become sustainable over longer periods of time. The new phase will have three main components: the actual pilots including major attention to M&E of their functioning and impact, capacity building at farmer and staff level and dissemination of findings and policy dialogue to ensure longer term local support. The Rockefeller Foundation will contribute USD $1,330,000 of the total budget for this phase of just below USD $2,000,000. The Prolinnova DGIS-supported country and international budgets, together with country specific donors, will provide co-funding. The funding allows three new countries (Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania) to join the Piloting LISFs sub-programme of Prolinnova.
