Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Innovative funding for innovative partnerships

22nd September 2010. Brussels. Promotion of Sustainable Development in Agricultural Research Systems in the South (DURAS). Interview with Oliver Oliveros, former coordinator of the DURAS programme, at the European NGO meeting: "Reorient research towards more demand-driven approach for African family farmers?". 

After four years of implementation, the DURAS Project wrapped up its activities in June 2008.


The DURAS Project was conceived in order to support the opening up process being promoted by GFAR and to contribute to strengthening the involvement of southern stakeholders in the agricultural research process and ensuring that their voices are heard at the international level. It also aimed to enhance the scientific potential of these stakeholders through the implementation and management of research programmes which they believe to be strategically important for their regions.


The project’s three components included:
• Support to the strengthening of regional fora in agricultural research, particularly in enabling relevant stakeholders such as NGOs, farmer groups and small and medium agri-enterprises to actively participate in the R&D process
• Reinforce functional information communication management (ICM) system and development of Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS)
• Launch a Competitive Grants Systems to encourage and promote innovation; to scale up innovative practices developed in the south; and to enhance scientific capacity southern partners


Related:
Three hundred bright minds from business and industry, science, governments, NGOs and farmers’ organisations, recently met in Brussels from 11-12 May 2010 at an international conference called “The Art of Farming”. They explored the potential of sustainable business models that include small-scale farmers. 



Money for farming
Complete issue as a PDF file, 48 pages, 4.1 MB
Farming matter June 2010

Farming Matters is published by ileia, the Centre for learning on sustainable agriculture. ileia is a member of the AgriCultures Network; eight organisations that provide information on smallscale, sustainable agriculture worldwide. www.ileia.org 

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