euforic blog

AgriKnowledge Share Fair 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:50:00 +0000

The second AgriKnowledge Share Fair is about to kick off next week, hosted by IFAD in Rome (from 26 to 29 September).

It's going to be packed: "this four-day event will provide a forum to learn and share knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues".

Having participated in two previous Share Fairs, in Rome in 2009 and Addis Ababa last year, I know this is going to be a very exciting gathering, with 160 presenters from across the planet, discussing their experiences and innovative ways to share knowledge in the agricultural and rural development sector - see the final agenda here.

We'll be in Rome for the whole week and we have a very exciting agenda ahead. More importantly, we look forward to meeting old and new friends.

To start with, on Day 0, Monday 26 September, we'll be facilitating several modules on knowledge sharing tools and methods:

Collaborative writing (1100-12:30, room B400)
Microblogging (14:00-1530, room C400)
Video production, storing and sharing (14:00-1530, room C200)
Open space (16:00-1730, room C500)
Dgroups (14:00 to 15:30, room B500)

From Tuesday to Thursday, we will provide support and facilitation to the following sessions:

On 27 September, Dgroups annual members meeting (14:00 room B100);
On 28 September, Sensemaking: The cognitive map of farms - Experiences of sharing agricultural knowledge in Southern Africa (171) (11:00, room C400);
On 29 Septembers, Helping farmers identify fake or genuine agro-inputs using SMS (138) (14:00 room C300)

We'll be also collaborating with the #sfrome social reporting team. We will focus on sourcing and aggregating the content that is produced during the event, so we can deliver it to users into a consolidated information product. Here's the link to the aggregated Share Fair newsfeed and email alerts. You can also take a look at the Netvibes dashboard we've been playing with: it still needs some work but we think it can be useful to keep track of the different "#sfrome" conversations in one single window - feedback and comments are most welcomed!

Finally, the week climaxes - for us at least - with the KM4DEV members meeting!

Follow the event remotely, comment on media and share your reactions with us.

Share Fair news and updates

Cotton Dialogues 2011 - The face-to-face meeting of the Global Organic Cotton Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:06:00 +0000

After having supported the 2009 World Congress on Organic Cotton, we've recently collaborated with Helvetas for social reporting the Cotton Dialogues 2011, held in the context of the 2011 Sustainable Textiles Conference in Barcelona.

The meeting served as an opportunity for the Global Organic Cotton Platform to meet face-to-face and help improve the future sustainability of organic cotton production and trade through dynamic discussion. Three 'roundtable discussions' took place during the day, addressing the key topics: shaping the future of non-GM seed supply; Developing guidelines for responsible business practice and trade; Supporting sustainable growth.

Each session, featuring world experts from a diverse background and different sectors, saw a rich dialogue and constructive ideas to move from discussion to action.

We supported the event through blipping most of the event speakers and facilitators. After each session we shot short, unscripted video interviews capturing first hand ideas and comments from participants. We edited the clips on the spot and shared them with the broader audience on Blip TV and through Twitter. Ultimately the final product is also shared online with the organic cotton community members by archiving it in the platform library.

The following content is available:

Building a social media strategy one block at a time

noreply@blogger.com (Vanessa) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:37:00 +0000

A twitter block here and a yammer block there... Photo: flicks-of-micks/flickr

Coming up with a social media strategy for your work can be scary. "Where do I start, and what tools do I use?" are two good questions to start with. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and set up a Facebook page and twitter account, and quickly get lost in the details of retweets, "likes", and followers. But what about the big picture? Is this helping you reach your goals? And how do you convince your boss that managing social media is time well spent?

After last year's experience, I facilitated again for Euforic Services the second edition of the UNITAR Innovative Collaboration for Development course. Quite a number of participants in the course had gone down a familiar path, experimenting here and there with social media but asking themselves how it all fits together and how to really achieve their goals. Most of them entered the course with specific objectives in mind: promote their charity's work and raise awareness; get a geographically-dispersed team to work together better; build a network for individuals with similar interests and concerns. They were eager to get the answers so that they could get on with their work.

The ICfD course is simply structured: expose participants to an array of social tools for different contexts; learn about the ups and downs of using these tools, and issues around privacy, intellectual property, and incentives; and then challenge them to build a social media strategy that helps them achieve the goals they've identified.

As in any diverse group, there was a range of experiences, and some people may have felt they were going back in time when asked to learn about "what is a blog" and "how does a social networking site work" -- but this was all part of the course's methodical approach. As facilitator, I did my best to guide the discussion to the 'next level' when I noticed that the more advanced participants were staying silent. That's one of the great features of this course - it lets you get as much out of it as you put into it. Some participants asked fantastic questions like "how can multiple collaborators contribute to a youtube channel" (hint: use dropbox) and "how to get everyone on their team on board with the strategy" (hint: focus on leadership buy-in, and make sure that tools are selected based on needs, and don't be too ambitious at first).

Participants were especially interested in the way the course introduces tools according to a context. For example, rather than starting from the tools themselves ("here's how to use twitter") the course starts with "what tool is best for capturing onfield updates?". As eager as you may be to get on with using tools, thinking about context first will save you time and headaches. (By the way the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit also offers a context-based approach - check it out!).

What emerged at the end of the nine weeks was a collection of very solid social media strategies, put together by participants who were eager to learn, ready to experiment, and thinking about the big picture. I'm looking forward to seeing these plans take life!

The next UNITAR ICfD Course runs from 25 July to 23 Sept 2011. CTA will grant a limited number of scholarships, covering the full course fee, exclusively to candidates from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The application form and procedures are available on the UNITAR website. Registration closes 11 July, so don't miss out!

Social media masterclass @EADI

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:35:00 +0000

On May 12 and 13, 2011, Euforic Services facilitated a social media masterclass organised by EADI in Bonn. This workshop built on previous introductory and basic web2.0 trainings we had co-organized with EADI in 2008 and 2009, as well as on the one day advanced session with the NEDS network in Switzerland in 2010.

The session was designed to be participatory, more of a peer exchange than a formal training. We knew that participants had a lot of experience already in social media, with most of them having using it for several years in their daily lives and work. We wanted to tap into their experiences and make sure they had space to share knowledge amongst themselves as well as hear our ideas.

A pre-workshop survey helped us to assess participants’ level of knowledge and understand more of their expectations. Once we met face to face, we started off with a new (to us) icebreaker, adopting from Beth Kanter the ‘twitter on paper’ exercise.

The main focus of the first day was on what it means to be online today, what has changed in the past two years in terms of the social media toolkit and approaches to using the tools. We brought in examples of how other organisations are leveraging social media to strengthen their online presence, showing which channels they use to communicate and converse online. In particular, we looked at how to set up your social media management centre. We use the term to describe a simple but effective listening dashboard which can be used to tap into conversations on the social web; to select, share and archive relevant content; and to aggregate, curate and republish to reach and engage with your different audiences.

On the second day, we started with a discussion on tools and approaches to measuring online activity, on your website as well as on other social media channels you might use. Among others, we discussed the concept of Crowdmarketeers that our former colleague Chris Addison (now at IFPRI) had presented just one week before during the KM Impact Challenge unConference.

Last but not least, a discussion on social media strategy and policy gave participants all the elements to define their own social media projects. Participants then split into 3 groups and worked on a fictional scenario. Their task was to define a social media strategy to support a specific business process. A plenary discussion of the working groups closed the workshop.

The format, design and content of the workshop worked well. Participants were actively engaged throughout the two days and they all felt they had either learned something new or seen different aspects of using social media that they were not aware of or hadn't paid enough attention to. They all went home with clear, actionable ideas and it will interesting to keep track of how these develop, and what useful lessons can be shared back again with the rest of the group.

From our side, the feedback received was very valuable and we’ll use it in the design of future sessions.

Social reporting at the KM Impact Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:22:00 +0000

The KM Impact Challenge is a collaborative learning process that has brought together practitioners to describe and share their experiences in assessing their knowledge and learning initiatives. Over 70 practitioners from different fields of expertise attended the unConference that took place in Washington, DC, on May 5 and 6, 2011, to discuss these experiences and debate tools and approaches to measure the impact of KM activities.

Euforic Services worked with GDNet to provide coordination and support for the social reporting during the face-to-face event.

We started with a core team of 3 to 4 social reporters, but soon after the event started, many more joined in the effort by sharing their impressions, particularly via Twitter, and contributing to the digital footprint of the event #tag #kmimpact.

During the two days, we recorded some 30 video interviews with speakers and participants, capturing their stories, impressions and what they had been learning at the event. We also posted several updates on the KMIC blog, featuring some of the stories emerging from the different sessions and embedding videos and presentations shared. Lastly, we produced a daily summary of the highlights from the unConference, aggregating and curating the best of the social content produced by us and others around the event and publishing it online.

You can see more about the event on the KM Impact Challenge blog and read this post from Sophie Alvarez from CIAT where she reflects on the event and share her main takeaways.

You can stay connected with the KM Impact Challenge by joining the online community, conversing on Twitter (#KMImpact) and Facebook, and subscribing to the RSS Feed and email alert.

Social reporting at the Global Development Network conference

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 12:05:00 +0000

We have been working with CommsConsult to support GDNet at their 12th Annual Conference in Bogota. Together we provided training for GDNet Awards and Medals Finalists in presentation skills and the use of social media before the event so they were among the contributors to the conference reporting blog.

This followed our collaboration at the AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair in October 2010. We are plan to use that experience to review approaches to evaluating the impact of social reporting at events as well as their longer term impact in supporting communication programmes such as R4D, on which we also collaborate.

Evaluation of AfricaAdapt

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:47:00 +0000

"AfricaAdapt is an independent bilingual network (French/English) focused exclusively on Africa. The Network’s aim is to facilitate the flow of climate change adapt
ation knowledge for sustainable livelihoods between researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations and communities who are vulnerable to climate variability and change across the continent." (Source: AfricaAdapt website)

Projects like AfricaAdapt are a crucial means of sharing knowledge and building capacity across complex networks of researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations and communities through an interconnected approach to knowledge sharing.

CommsConsult Ltd and Euforic Services, together with John Rowley, are carrying out an evaluation of AfricaAdapt. The aim of the evaluation is to:

Improve understanding about how knowledge sharing leads to change in the context of climate change adaptation, and identify what the network has contributed to influencing change among boundary partners and beyond;
Evaluate the extent to which the network has achieved its objectives and any reasons why objectives have not been met.
Evaluate the extent to which the AfricaAdapt Network is ‘fit for purpose’ and identify recommendations for improvement going forward.

Amongst the different tools and methodologies chosen to conduct the evaluation, we have launched an online survey that will help us profiling current and potential users of AfricaAdapt, trends in the usage of the AfricaAdapt website, and AfricaAdapt's role in supporting networking and knowledge sharing on climate change adaptation.

If you are familiar with AfricaAdapt, please take a few minutes of your time to fill in this online survey (see also French version here).

Social media masteclass @ NEDS

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:28:00 +0000

On 29 November, 2010, we facilitated a one-day masterclass on social media for the NEDS network. The session was organised with our colleagues at EADI and was hosted by the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

The Network of Swiss Development Documentation Centres (NEDS) comprises the 20 most important Swiss development cooperation libraries and documentation centres. It's an informal network. Its members meet twice a year to exchange professional and technical information and look for ways to improve development cooperation documentation. They also organise group trainings and awareness sessions on issues realated to information, knowledge sharing and communication.

All the participants already had a basic knowledge of social media and collaborative tools: what they felt they were missing was a wider perspective and knowledge of what others are doing. They wanted to compare notes and get some guidance in thinking about social media from a more strategic perspective.

A pre-workshop survey helped us in profiling the group, so we could tailor the session as well as try to match objectives and expectations in the limited time available.

In terms of session design, we divided the time available in 2 parts:

The morning session provided users with background information on what social media means for an organisation, explored how you define a social media strategy and shared examples of success stories and case-studies. We then moved onto the tools, and had a conversation about how different tools have been introduced and are used in different organizational contexts, including small non profit organisations, research institutes, academia and international organisations. While we were providing examples of different business process and activities where social media can add value, participants presented their cases and experiences. Together we started surfacing challenges and opportunities that social media brings, in different organisational contexts.

For the second part of the session, we identified different cases, or 'organisational problem examples': participants formed groups around the issue most relevant to them and together defined a social media strategy to tackle these issue. Taking this further, they looked at how to work with social media to reach a specific, defined outcome. The result of the 'think-labs' was then shared back in plenary, for a final round of feedback and discussion.

Even if the time available was limited for such an exercise, having different tables working on pre-defined, fictional but yet realistic scenarios, proved to be very engaging for participants. For us, the design and facilitation of the session was very different from workshops that we have been running for several years as introduction to web2.0 and social media. We'll probably be expanding the programme and developing two day master-classes, to be held in 2011.

The teacher gets schooled in social media for development

noreply@blogger.com (Vanessa) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:46:00 +0000

Social media for whom? photo by meaduva

One of the best things about being in a training or facilitation role is the learning experience. In addition to learning new things about the subject at hand, I always learn unexpected things, for example about how people interact with technology.

For the last four weeks I've been facilitating for Euforic Services the UNITAR/FAO Innovative Collaboration for Development course, an online training programme which introduces social media concepts and tools to development professionals. The course is very hands-on, and challenges participants to use tools in a way that's appropriate to their context. I find that selecting the right tool for any context to be the trickiest part of using social media, and can really make or break a communications strategy. Many organisations are responding to this with resources to help guide people through the minefield of tools and approaches; one example is the very helpful Knowledge Sharing Toolkit (a wiki produced by various agricultural and development agencies such as the CGIAR and FAO).

The challenge of helping people choose the right tool is compounded by the fact that participants come from a range of contexts and backgrounds. Most of the participants in my section come from Africa: from Jos, Nigeria and Maseru, Lesotho to El Fasher, Sudan and Creve Cœur, Mauritius (just for example). Cultural differences have not posed a challenge, but rather been the source of interesting insights. The main barrier to overcome in our group's context is the availability of high speed internet varies, and access to a computers with a reliable connection.

...read the full story on Vanessa Meadu's blog

Listening to the Roots - Focus group on indigenous knowledge #SFAddis

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:28:00 +0000

What are the areas of integration of indigenous knowledge in different African contexts? How can indigenous knowledge be active content in future farmer's mind and actions? What can we do to conserve indigenous knowledge for its fair, ethical and active use by all? Indigenous knowledge work is scattered and project based: How can we bring it together and permanent?

These were the leading questions that informed the focus group session on indigenous knowledge at the Agknowledge Africa Share Fair.

Convened by Anke Weisheit (Mbarara University, Uganda) and facilitated by Pete Cranston, the session followed the world cafe methodology, with five speakers offering food for thought with short 5 minutes presentations. The majority of the time available was left for participants to discuss around tables and address the leading questions.

Sylvia Nyana from Penn State University presented on the role of libraries as centers for the dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge. In her view, African libraries should be reinvented from the current Western model to better serve the needs of the communities they want to support.

A different experience was shared by Luke Olang from the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) in Kenya. In the initiative he presented, he explained how they are trying to compare traditional ways of 'rain making' or rain forecasting with modern science information, and harmonize the two for climate forecast adaptation at the user level.

Anke Weisheit addressed the issue of institutionalizing indigenous knowledge. The model she presented aims contributing to a better awareness and valuation of Indigenous Knowledge Systems with the aim to harness the potential of Indigenous Knowledge for socio-economic and political transformation.

Three other presenters shared their experience on:

Traditional ways and processes that knowledge is created and shared in Africa;
The Mwana Alirenji multimedia community project;
Indigenous knowledge in utilization of local trees shrubs for Sustainable Livestock Production in Central Tanzania.

You can read more about these experiences on the Agknowledge Africa Share Fair wiki.

The discussion from the session will continue online, using a wiki to write a book to be published in open access.

Slow Knowledge and McK snacks at AgKnowledge Africa

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Although a lot of our work in Euforic Services is to do with the use of new media and ICT tools we also get involved in Knowledge Sharing activities, including of course IKMemergent. At the AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair we joined a group of vintage and 'novello' KM4Dev members to organise the face to face Knowledge Sharing stream on the initial training day. As I describe in this post on the IKMemergent Giraffe blog, it was a great opportunity to reflect on how new media tools need to be integrated with more traditional knowledge sharing and communication tools.

Interview with Owen Barder at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:11:00 +0000

After his inspiring talk during the opening session at the AgKnowledge Shair Fair, Owen Barder took few minutes to sit with us for a 'coffee-blip' - a short video interview over a "bunna", the Ehiopian traditional coffee.

In the interview, Barder he defines development as an "evolutionary process", where we have to "try, fail and learn", a process that begins with variation and then selection."

In this process, we need to have a diversity of ideas and therefore we need to have access to open, free information and knowledge on which we can form our ideas and discuss around issues.

AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair: Training on video sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:15:00 +0000

It has been a busy day today at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair taking place in sunny Addis Ababa. The event will officially open only tomorrow, but today already more than 180 participants gathered at the ILRI campus to attend the training and learning day 0, or as it has also been dubbed, the "Day Oh, now I now how... !"

The day has been divided in 2 blocks of 8 parallel training session, each focussing on different tools and methods to share information and knowledge, collaborate and co-create content. These sessions covered topics such as working with audio and radio, making the best out of the media, face to face methods for knowledge sharing, working with Mendeley, using Google Geo products and Google Apps, blogging and collaborative writing. The day was then wrapped up by our social media 'elder' Peter Casier who brought all these different tools - and more - together to provide participant with the broad perspective on social media and how they can be applied to support, enable and make our daily work more effective, as individuals or teams - video recordings will follow.

In the context of this training day, I facilitated 2 sessions on video sharing. Both sessions where really well attended: in fact, with around 25 people in each group, at first I wondered how I could manage such numbers, given the fact that I planned for a very hands on training. Eventually, besides some technical problems with participants not having the possibility to install editing software on their machines, it all worked out for the best.

I kept the introduction part at the minimum, just some 20 minutes to provide participants with a quick intro to video sharing, or 'blipping' as we like to call it. We are not professional filmmakers, but we think there's a great value in recoding short video interviews (on 'blips', indeed) during face to face events, to record a meaningful comment, a provocative thought, or an interesting experience. After the intro, participants divided into small groups and went around the campus, interviewing each others. When back in the room, we went through the editing process together, and then each group tried out editing their videos by themselves, adding subtitles, transition effects and music with Movie Maker. Finally, they uploaded thier content on the Share Fair training account in Blip tv. Check out some of their products, and see how far some of them when in just a couple of hours training.

At the end of the session, I did some blipping myself with 3 of the participants, to capture what they have learned, and get some first impression about how they think they could use video sharing in their work.

Event tought quite intense, the training and the all learning day was agreat success. Now waiting for the official opening of AgKnowlege Africa Share Fair tomorrow morning and the rest of the programme of what promises to be a be a great event.

Social Reporting at IAALD Congress 2010

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Euforic has been closely associated with IAALD for over ten years, and their blog is a great example of how small, voluntary organisations can use web 2.0 tools to create a professional and dynamic online space.

The 2010 IAALD congress was held in Montpelier and we were there to support and facilitate the event with social reporting. We also participated and covered with blogs and blips some specific sessions

The InfoAccess marketplace, with interviews by Stephen Rudgard of FAO on CIARD, Jan Reichelt on the innovative Mendely and Nikos Palavitsinis on the EU funded Organic Edunet
The CGIAR ICT-KM demos on web2.0 and social media for research uptake
The open space on Social Media for Information Specialists
The final session, including an interview with Jean-François Giovannetti, chairman of the Programme Committee for the 2010 IAALD Congress, highlighting the main points that he saw emerging from the event.

m-agriculture & CTA

We also supported the m-agriculture workshop organised by CTA, as a follow up to the Observatory held earlier in the year. A report from the Knowledge Cafe at IAALD was published on the ICT/KM blog and there are three posts on the IAALD blog featuring a range of ICT4D specialists reflecting on the impact and role of mobile devices:

Vercon, from FAO;
Comments on mobile devices, telecenters and Policy regulation
Anriette Esterhysen, of APC, and Michael Riggs of FAO gave interestingly nuanced comments on the role of mobiles in the context of ICT4D developments

Michael Riggs on Mobile Devices in ICT4D from CTA on Vimeo.

Interviewed at the IAALD Congress 2010, Michael Riggs of FAO gives some background to the work of FAO, CTA, IICD and others in developing a new conceptual framework for ICT4D. He also gives a measured view of what he sees as the role and importance of mobile devices.

Anriette Esterhuysen on Mobiles Devices in ICT4D from CTA on Vimeo.

Interviewed at the IAALD Congress 2010, Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of APC (Association of Progressive Communications) reflects on the characteristics of mobile devices, their impact and the need to maintain a balanced view of their potential.

For both the CTA events we helped in the planning, facilitation, social and final reporting. CTA is organising a second m-agriculture observatory later this year, probably in Southern Africa.

Euforic - a service continues

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Like most organisations, Euforic went through a series of transformations in its 15 years. In its final phase it earned a reputation as one of the pioneers in the use of Web 2.0 tools to support Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) in development organisations. Many, many European organisations that now use these tools actively started their journeys in training programmes run out of the Euforic offices in Maastricht. At the same time the Euforic team and associates became involved in a wide range of practical Communication and IKM projects within development organisations.

The organisation called Euforic cooperative closed at the end of 2009. We have formed Euforic Services Ltd to continue the training and support functions. We are delighted to have the full support of the Board for our plans to continue and extend Euforic's work.

The landscape that Euforic Services is negotiating is very different to the early days of Web 2.0. So much of what was new and experimental then has become mainstream while emergent trends, especially those related to the continued convergence of technology and applications onto mobile platforms, opens up opportunities every bit as exciting and challenging as the advent of the Read/Write web. We are especially interested in the social dimension of these developments. Communication and collaboration have always been the bedrock of effective development and the new tools have transformed how we talk to and work with our friends and partners across the globe. Our major projects ICCO ComPart and Research for Development - focus on connecting and collaborating, which is why we feature in our banner Christophe Hein from Burkina Faso and Rosamelia Andrade from the RIMISP (Chile) at a ComPart workshop.

At its core the continuation that Euforic Services represents is based on who we are and who we work with. Through our project work and research we are still travelling with most of the people who made up the core of Euforic. Connecting people was always at the heart of the cooperative's and is still at the centre of this, the latest manifestation.We'll be using this blog space to show and discuss what we are doing. Come and join us.

Organic or Green, agriculture is back on the agenda : CTA briefs on Global Food Crisis and Local Food Insecurity

noreply@blogger.com (Rosien Herweijer) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:30:00 +0000

On 9 December, in its well-known series of Brussels Briefings for policy makers, CTA organized a session on food security entitled From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders.

Including the most important stakeholders: farmers. After having listened to a number of speakers Mr. Bagna of the Platform of Producers' Organizations in Niger concluded he actually had not heard anything new: food insecurity is a serious problem, we need money, we need research and we need capacity development….. everything has been said already, .... yesterday. But where is the real commitment, asked Mr. Bagna? Maybe policy-makers are not altogether honest with themselves, he felt. Despite all the plans there is no funding, no decent financial credit systems. There is no money for capacity development of people and their organizations. And in the end, farmers do their own research, to survive they have to….. Donors and governments could solve all these problems, Mr. Bagna feels, if they really wanted to…..

The exchange at the CTA briefing was very lively. Not everything may be new but it is useful to contrast different approaches and assessments and reaffirm the need for concerted action.

Presentations and background materials on the Global Food Crisis and Local Food Insecurity compiled by CTA can be accessed at the Brussels Briefings blog, also available in French at Bruxelles Briefings

Dr. Hans Herren co-chair of IAASTD, was the keynote speaker at the 9 December briefing. He presented the key findings of "Agriculture at a Crossroads", the report series of the International Assessment of Agricultural knowledge, Science and Technology for Development. The challenges for food security are quite clear according to Herren: climate change, population- and demand growth, and finally shrinking natural resources. In the past, the green revolution has not been a solution, according to Herren, nor will in the future crop-technology development solve the problem. People have benefitted unevenly from the yield increases generated by the green revolution, and the increases have come at a serious cost in terms of degrading natural resources (soils, water). Across regions, agricultural output is now distributed more uneven than ever.

So while the green revolution is not a solution and there is no simple alternative solution. The organic revolution that Dr. Herren calls for has to deal with “the inescapable connectedness of acgriculture's different roles and function”. Agriculture is not one but two words, Herren argues, “agri” and “culture”. It is not about the production of commodities but rooted in society in culture. Consequently, not crop productivity, but farm productivity has to be the subject of research when 75% of the food is produced by family farms. In his view what is needed is another kind of research based on a participatory, systems approach, working with women, training at agricultural colleges practitioners not people that end up behind desks.

Agricultural economist Steve Wiggins (ODI) emphasized that the 2008/09 food price spike made already high levels of under-nutrition more visible. Also the spike provoked awareness of possible future shocks and the challenges on agriculture agenda.

Agriculture is changing and will have to change according to Wiggins:
- From non-renewables to renewables
- Reducing use of water
- Limiting emission of greenhouse gasses (quite a large contribution (17 – or 32% when including expansion - to 13% from transport)
- From usual to altered climates

Information technology is critical for more efficient use of resources, also pricing of scarce resources and taxing the wastefulness and GHG intensity of food are important strategies. There are win-win scenarios according to Wiggins: climate friendly agriculture = less pollution and land degradation…….

Ndiogou Fall of the Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations of West Africa explained that at micro-level, families and communities develop strategies to address food insecurity. However, so much more can be done in terms of supportive public policies and finance. Fall says support to family agriculture is a priority because they directly suffer food insecurity and there are important multiplier effects of investment in family agriculture. He would like to see that pricing policies favor family agriculture and that support includes various parts in value chain. Also het felt it is very important to support farmers organizations. Maybe not a lot of additional research is needed, said Fall, getting existing knowledge to farming families would already be quite an accomplishment. Finally Fall mentioned that land tenure policies often very negatively affect family farming.

Dr. David Nabarro, Special Representative of UNSG on Food Security, saw with satisfaction that after many years of neglect, agriculture and food security are back on the development agenda. He emphasized that the food crisis is deepening. Food insecurity was already a serious issue before the food price spike of 2008. Now, after the spike, the economic contraction is generating a further negative impact. The crisis is also deepening. Poor people are increasingly susceptible to climate change and systems that do not work.

Global availability of food is not the problem said Mr. Nabarro. The problem is inequitable access and utilization. According to him the question is not “how to feed the world” as the Economist headlined a few weeks ago, but “how to ensure people can exercise their right to the food they need”. Since agriculture is back on the global agenda, Mr. Nabarro is optimistic. He feels major stakeholders are coming together and promising approaches are emerging.

The European Commission, DGDevelopment highlighted aspects of the new EU Framework for support to Food Security and Agriculture. A representative from AIDCO explained how a 3-year funding time frame helps create some continuity in the funding for agricultural research. Several other participants commented on the presentations of the experts.

Rajul Pandya-Lorch - the only women on the panels - of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, rose at the crack of dawn to contribute her views, but unfortunately technology failed us. Her slides were available on paper and the first one framed the problem nicely: In the late 1950 there were 1 billion people going hungry every day. In 2009 ……. 1 billion people still go hungry every day.

Visit the Brussels Briefings blogs to see all presentations and summaries of presentations.

For more background information on food security check the Euforic newsfeed.

EC invites to comment on Issues Paper on Agriculture and Food Security

noreply@blogger.com (Rosien Herweijer) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:20:00 +0000

Food Security and Agriculture are very much back on the agenda. Building on its Food Security Thematic Strategy Paper 2007-2010, the European Commission is currently developing a new Policy Framework to assist developing countries addressing agriculture and food security challenges. On 9 december 2009, at the CTA organized Brussels Briefing “From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity”, the Directorate General for Development elaborated on its Issues Paper on food security.

The new policy framework will build on central elements of the past framework:

• The aim remains not simply to deliver food aid but to achieve Food Security for all
• Maintain a link between relief and protecting sustainable livelihoods and crisis prevention
• Address four pillars: availability (1), access (2), quality and utilization (3), and crisis management and prevention (4)

The Issues Paper was published 16 november 2009 and is part of the consultation and policy development process which has to lead to Council Conclusions – an official statement of the ministers of EU members states – on a Policy Framework on Agriculture and Food Security in May 2010.

Until 9 January 2010 you can voice you opinion about the Issues Paper at www.ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/consultations

Several participants at the Brussels Briefing organised by CTA commented on the presentation by the DG-Development representative. ActionAid welcomes the EC initiative but feels the Commission has no long term approach to investment in agriculture and food security. Also, according to ActionAid, the EC approach lacks attention for women’s access to credit, land and services. For example, compared to an earlier version, the chapter on agriculture has been removed from the current version of the EC Gender Action plan, a document stakeholders may comment on next week. ActionAid also warns about the so-called “whole of union approach” that the Commision wishes to explore in connection with issues of Food Security. This approach suggests that members states – besides official development cooperation - use all kinds of other resources to achieve development objectives. However, ActionAid and Concord are concerned that the "whole of the union" approach is more about “counting all resources” as opposed to really “using all resources”.

Subscribe to the euforic newsfeeds on food security and eu cooperation for more news

Brussels Briefings live on the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (euforic) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:01:00 +0000

The Briefing “From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity” live on the Internet!. This way, you can easily follow the presentations and debates.

WHEN: December, 9 – 8:30 – 13:00 (Brussels Time)

This service (in English and French) is FREE and requires simply the use of a computer connected to the Internet.

To get access, please click on this link: http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/index.php?sessionno=401 (use of the Internet Explorer browser is recommended)

For the programme, background note and registration form, please check http://brusselsbriefings.net/.

Sign up for the Brussels Briefing newsfeed; see also the Euforic newsfeeds on rural development, food security and the food crisis

Members vote to dissolve the Euforic Cooperative

noreply@blogger.com (Rosien Herweijer) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:00:00 +0000

After nearly 15 years the Euforic Cooperative will disappear. Twenty-four members (out of 34) represented at the special general meeting of members, held on 26 November 2009 in Brussels, voted for the dissolution of the Cooperative.

Fifteen years ago, when the Internet started to become a key tool in information and communication, a diverse group of organizations in development cooperation acknowledged its importance for communication and collaboration and constituted Europe's Forum on International Cooperation (Euforic). Euforic was founded by ECDPM - independent, funded by governmental donors -, Clong, Eurostep, CIDSE and APRODEV - all NGOnetworks - and the ACP Secretariat - representing southern governments. The current group of members remains very diverse, including also a number of research networks and institutions.

In a joint effort the Web was used to communicate and to collaborate. Initially the focus was on sharing and disseminating information, over the last years Euforic supported members in using Internet interactively (Web 2.0) in support of networking and collaboration. Euforic always remained on the forefront in working with members on innovative projects and supporting them through training and consulting.

More recently, Euforic supported ICCO’s Compart project that uses Web 2.0 for collaboration and learning within ICCO and with its partners. With ILEIA a similar project was undertaken on a smaller scale. Euforic was also involved with CABI in setting up a repository storing products of all DFID funded research – Research for Development (R4D). In the process of transforming D-Groups, Euforic associates played a critical role. Similarly Euforic has been a partner in support of CTA’s Brussels Briefings since 2007. With NIAS and DDRN Euforic worked in 2009 on using Web 2.0 for communication of research. Campaigns and events were promoted through social reporting, working with FAO, GDN, Concord, IDS, Helvetas and CTA. In training sessions - either open, or targeted for specific clients – Euforic has been building capacities among a diverse groups of staff of member organizations. Euforic staff will work until mid December to transfer outputs of projects and completing work on the IKM-Vines project and the Brussels Briefings.

Funding Euforic has always been a complex issue. As a Cooperative it had limited income from membership fees which were always kept low as the Cooperative was supposed to earn its keep. The combination of a first class, independent public information service on Europe’s development cooperation while at the same time servicing the diverse membership as well as working with individual members on a project basis was not always easy to manage. Over a period of years deficits accumulated, a loan from one of the members allowed a re-start in 2006 but eventually the members agreed that there was no structural viability to the organization, at least not in this form.

To enable the Cooperative to pay all its outstanding debts and close with a zero balance, ICCO, ECDPM and EADI committed ad hoc contributions, at the same time APRODEV, CIDSE, Bernard van Leer Foundation and ISS doubled their membership contribution over 2009.

While the Cooperative is dissolved, there are also indications that – besides project outcomes and capacity development activities over the years - Euforic's heritage will live on: EADI has agreed to host the public information services that are provided through www.euforic.org. Also former Euforic staff and associates will continue to provide training and consulting services under the name 'Euforic Services' communicating through this blog euforic.blogspot.com.

Note: the liquidation also includes the sale of office furniture. For those interested, please click here.

Next Briefing on food crisis and food insecurity

noreply@blogger.com (euforic) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

The next Brussels Development Briefing will be held on 9th December and will discuss “From Global Food Crisis to Local Food Insecurity” in the context of the new EC policy on Food security to be released.

The Briefing will be looking at the domino effects of increased speculation in food markets (How has the global food and financial crisis affected food production and distribution and the food security of the poorest? Is global food production at risk in the medium and long term and will national food security and food sovereignty be the priority over global food availability? Is the small-scale farming more effective and resilient in times of crisis in least-developed countries?) and the on what realistic policy options can secure food supply and availability at global and local levels.

For the programme and registration form, please check http://brusselsbriefings.net/.

Earlier Brussels Briefings looked at 'ACP Agricultural and Rural Development: why Media matters?', 'Upgrading to compete in a globalised world: What opportunities and challenges for SMEs in agriculture in ACP countries?','The Role of Livestock for ACP countries: challenges and opportunities ahead', ' Meeting Food Safety Standards: Implications for ACP agricultural exports', 'Fighting against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU): Impacts and challenges for ACP countries', 'Land access and rural development: New challenges, new opportunities', 'How does international migration affect ACP rural development?', 'Rising food prices: an opportunity for change?', 'New drivers, new players in ACP rural development', 'Does Fair Trade contribute to sustainable development?', 'The climate challenge for ACP agriculture', 'Aid for Trade', 'Advancing African Agriculture' and 'Challenges to rural development in ACP countries.'

Sign up for the Brussels Briefing newsfeed; see also the Euforic newsfeeds on rural development, food security and the food crisis

Information, knowledge and communication – 3rd training on the social Web in Bonn

noreply@blogger.com (Kathrin Hoyer) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:16:00 +0000

In a good tradition Euforic facilitated the third Web2Share Training in Bonn. The event took place from 19-20 November 2009 and was co-organized with EADI, the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.

Like in the years before a diverse group of information and communication professionals from several countries, including Switzerland, Norway, Italy and Germany joined the training. Among other things they expected to learn how to work with social webtools such as wikis to cooperate and to share knowledge in open and closed networks. Furthermore they were looking for guidelines for social media usage in NGOs, good monitoring tools and podcasting.

The Euforic trainers provided an up-to-date overview of possibilities and advantages that web 2.0 tools and social media offer for their work. Popular buzzwords included “social bookmarking”, “RSS”, “wikis”, “blogs”, "Googling", and “podcasting”. Besides, we looked at how to connect and integrate these new tools into daily business processes across the organization, for communication, knowledge sharing and campaigning.

Since an increasing number of our participants have already some experience with the new Social Web, we spent more time on storytelling and discussion then in our first trainings. We compared experiences and explained new ways to apply tools strategically for different purposes. To name just a few, discussions touched upon issues like the pros and cons of social networking sites for organizational purposes, privacy and content ownership, or the use of internal micro-blogging tools.

Towards the end of the training participants were fascinated by the different possibilities the new Web provides but also called for more advanced training.

Some interesting quotes from the evaluation:

"I think I can teach the communication crowd how to work with some of the new tools but I'm afraid it won't go that well with the researchers, who are not always keen on sharing."

"I knew most of the tools already, but this workshop confirmed that you really need to look at the target group to know which tool or package to use. I feel that I don't have the time to use all this, but what is worse is that my colleagues think that everything connected to a computer is up to me, because I'm the IT person"

"The Web still very depends on written language but I'm sure that podcasts are the future."

"I heard what is going on on the Web before but now I'm not afraid anymore to try it out and use it for my organization"

Former Euforic associates and staff will look into possibilities to organize a Master Class in the first half of 2010 which will address the challenges participants face when they go back to their organizations.

See some pictures of the workshop

Explore the Euforic Web2Share Wiki

Find more information about Web 2.0 in our newsfeed

Brussels Development Briefings: more background information available

noreply@blogger.com (euforic) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:18:00 +0000

The report of the Briefing on “Upgrading to compete in a globalised world: What opportunities and challenges for SMEs in agriculture in ACP countries?” held on 23rd September 2009 is available now. The report presents a detailed account of the presentations and debates, and can be downloaded here.

The reader provides extensive background information on the issue - including online resources - and is also available online.

Sign up for the Brussels Briefing newsfeed; see also the Euforic newsfeeds on rural development and agriculture

Cooperative Euforic: in the process of closing down

noreply@blogger.com (Rosien Herweijer) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Euforic has called an Extraordinary General Meeting of members to take place on 26 November 2009 in Brussels. On the agenda is the complete close-down of operations and dissolution of the Cooperative.

Over the past few years the Board and staff of Euforic have tried to achieve a minimum degree of financial sustainability of the organization. After a profound financial crisis in 2004/2005 the organization’s finances seemed to recover somewhat in 2007 and 2008 but in the course of 2009 the structural financial instability of the organization showed again. When this became clear the Euforic members were contacted and the Board decided on 30 September to proceed to scale down operations and to dismiss staff (see also the announcement)

Over the years Euforic has provided a free, public information service, funded through membership income and surpluses that were generated through the implementation of specific projects with members. Because of the limited core income, and the small surpluses on projects and services, Euforic has always been financially unstable.

In September 2009 it became clear that the operational losses the organization would incur, required that the ExCo and Board seek immediate financial support for the organization to comply with contractual obligations, particularly regarding the personnel. At this stage however it was very much evident that the financial problems are structural, which is why the Board proposes to completely dissolve the Cooperative. Various member have committed contributions - in particular ICCO, ECDPM, APRODEV, EADI and CTA – that enable (financial) closure of the Cooperative.

Euforic has few assets and the motion to dissolve that the Board is presenting to the members of the Cooperative includes arrangements to dispose of these assets. EADI has kindly offered to seek ways to continue to provide some sort of public information services on matters that used to be covered by Euforic, possibly linking to the original Euforic URL. Some staff have indicated they may continue to provide consulting services as independent consultants together with former Euforic associates, for which they consider to establish a collaborative association provisionally called Euforic Services.

Check also the newsfeed for more news about Euforic's cooperative life

European Development Days 2009: the power of networking

noreply@blogger.com (Rosien Herweijer) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:07:00 +0000

Last week Stockholm hosted the European Development Days, a three day event involving a number of heads of State and thousands of development professionals and students from all over Europe, indeed the world. You can read it all on the official EDD-website.

Even though Euforic – as readers of this blog will know – is scaling down its operations, we were present in Stockholm to promote one of the many exciting projects Euforic has been involved in over the last few years: R4D, an information service providing free access to information on DFID (co)financed research for development programs and over 20,000 outputs of these research efforts.

Several Euforic members presented panel discussions at the European Development Days, or the Development D-days as Rajendra Pachauri, Director General of the Energy Resources Insitute in New Delhi and one of the keynote speakers, called them. CTA invited twelve partners from the South to have stands at the Development Village and organized an important event about land acquisition (also known as “land grabbing”). At an event co-organized by AFD, Koos Richelle, head of AIDCO and others examined aid practices. AFD also organized with DFID and DIE a debate about the evolving aid architecture. Concord co-organized an event about development education, sharing ideas and experiences around involving and mobilizing citizens for development. Citizens were also central to the ECDPM-organized event about the EU-Africa Partnership. EADI together with the Development Gateway Foundation looked at the future of European Development Cooperation: Development Beyond 2015 and APRODEV, CIDSE and Concord staged an event on Copenhagen, Climate Justice and the Right to Development. SNV had a session on Accountability and Transparency and cheered us all up with a musical spectacle at the end of the second day.

Most events attracted quite some interest. A crowd of EDD-visitors lined-up outside the forum on Media and Development. In the panel, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Raile Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya, blogger and digital activist Ndesanjo Macha and others discussed the role of media in development. Dominique Darmon of SNV was lucky to get in and reported that there was an extensive discussion around the role of new media. Nowadays in Africa over 17 million phones are in use ... or at least, in use when there is electricity, as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf noted, underlining that energy and infrastructure are critical priorities for investment in this continent. Odinga explained how he used a blog to communicate with the electorate during the recent presidential election campaign in Kenya, but someone in the audience noted that comments from readers of the blog were screened and the comments criticizing Odinga actually never made it to his blog. So new media can promote interaction and participation but they do not eliminate exclusion, whether because of lack of electricity or because of censorship.

Written communication does not reach too many Africans because of the high illiteracy rates, television is important but technically much more demanding than radio which is the number one “old” means of communication in the continent. At the same time, mobile devices are changing the way the good old radio is operating, boosting its use through for example podcast. During the session several other examples of mobile phone use were highlighted for example how they were used to warn people during recent floodings in Burkina Faso. Phones can also be used to hold the government accountable as the HIVOS/SNV project Twaweza demonstrates.

Some participants in the audience felt that new media pose a greater risk of misinformation while others laud their potential to promote democracy. A BBC reporter asked the politicians in the panel what at the end of the day would make them more uncomfortable: a bad news paper story, or a critical blog ... thus showing that the good old newspaper remains critically important.

Having to attend my R4D stand in the Development Village I saw few live presentations. But I made an exception for the “testimonies” on climate change that were given in the morning of the last day, 25 October. Michelle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, Prime Minister of Haiti and former executive of the Soros-sponsored Knowledge and Freedom Foundation told about the seven (7) hurricanes that hit her country over the last few years and asked for fairness and just reparations as part of the strategy to confront the climate change crisis, “The market mechanism is not going to save the planet”, she insisted. Moderator Sackur, known from BBC’s “Hard Talk” highlighted her systematic emphasis on fairness and justice and he asked her whether – when talking with European leaders, she felt they actually “got it”. Very honestly she replied that her gut feeling was not very good, but she also made it clear she will not give up fighting for climate justice.

President Emanual Manny Mori of the Federated States of Micronesia explained how his country has been fighting for climate justice for quite some time already. The small islands state is very much exposed to the potentially disastrous effects of the sea level increase. To anyone who doubts whether this is a serious crisis he urged to reflect “Who are you fooling? Not the oceans and disappearing species”. Mori insisted that all nations will have to bite the bullet: “We will face a different world in our lifetime”

Mary Simon has been an activist for Inuit interests for decades. “My homeland is melting” she stated, “the situation is terrifying, villages just sink in the ground because of melting permafrost”. The changes may very well exceed the traditional capacities op her people to adapt. Simon concludes that previous efforts to reduce carbon emissions have not done the job, public policies have fallen short and emissions have continued to grow. Simon stressed the interrelation between economic and environmental security and calls for massive investments in clean technology. A Climate Change Adaptation Fund of 20 billion euro needs to become operational now, not by 2022 as current proposals suggest. Besides climate change, Simon also warned for what she labeled to be misguided policies that affect the Inuit people like the upgrade in CITES of the polar bear which makes them an endangered species, and the EU ban on seal products. It is climate change that endangers the polar bear, she said, Inuit hunting practices are sustainable. She felt that such policies negatively affect the Inuits capacity to adapt and preserve their livelihoods.

Back at my R4D stand, I listened to Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, through a video live-stream. She said that the political realities will force the EU to be more ambitious about reduction of CO2 emission and deliver climate justice. With Michelle Duvivier and the others we continue to hope (but fear her gut feeling).

For more stories on the European Development Days, check the official EDD-site and sites of Euforic member organizations.

by Rosien Herweijer

See also Euforic's newsfeeds on Euforic cooperative life on European Development Days and on Information, knowledge, and communication

R4D at the European Development Days

noreply@blogger.com (euforic) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:59:00 +0000

During the 4th edition of the European Development Days - held from 22 to 24 October in Stockholm - Euforic actively promotes the Research for Development (R4D) project.

R4D is a free access portal containing information about research programmes supported by DFID. It provides you with the latest information about research funded by DFID in the framework of its 2008 Research Strategy, including news, case studies and details of current and past research in over 20,000 project and document records. Information is available on a broad range of topics, such as sustainable agriculture, climate change, economic development, health and capacity building.

R4D is unique in the sense that it makes information available to researchers, students and policy makers that hitherto was circulated at a limited scale. Documents and reports are presented in full text, there are various search options for different types of information, plus the Research Dialogue and Communications Corner blogs allow for reflection and debate.

Please feel free to meet with Euforic's Rosien Herweijer at stand 25 to hear the latest about R4D and to subscribe to the newsfeeds of your choice.

You can also visit Euforic's research feedfinder page to subscribe to selected R4D newsfeeds.