Despite a growing body of literature on how to scale innovations to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, there has been little attention for how scientists and programme managers engage with the scaling process in practice. Through 36 interviews we found that the dominant understanding of scaling was output and beneficiary-focused, rather than outcome and society focused as the latest literature suggests. This has implications on how scaling is approached in projects on the ground, and on the role of an agricultural Research for Development (R4D) organization such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in bridging science and development. . We recommend more reflection on the scaling process and make more use of scaling capacities and tools to better link scientific knowledge to results on the ground.
To address the issue of integration and employment of young people in rural areas, the government of Mali with the financial support of the International Fund for Agricultural development (IFAD), initiated the Vocational Training Project for Intergation and Support of Rural Youth Entrepreneurship (FIER) in 2014. The FIER project aims to facilitate the access of rural youth to attractive and profitable employment and integration opportunities in agriculture and related economic activities. The economic integration of rural youth goes through a process made up of three main stages, namely (i) support for the identification of the idea of an economic project or choice of project idea, (ii) support for preparation of a bankable business plan and (iii) support for the implementation and consolidation of the economic project. After three (3) years of implementation, the project has inserted 3,216 (FIER, 2018) rural young people, 47% of whom are women in agricultural sectors and related activities. The challenge initially overcome was above all the adhesion of young people to microfinance institutions (IMFs) or decentralized financial systems (SFDs). The adaptation of the financing mechanism of IMFs to the cycle of agricultural sectors chosen by young people and the loyalty of young people to IMFs through the mobilization of their savings remain the challenges to be overcome.
20 years after its foundation in 1996, IICD, the International Institute for Communication and Development, definitively closed. Over the years, IICD proved that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can accelerate socio-economic development and that a methodology based on principles such as multi-stakeholder engagement, demand-driven approach and local ownership, is key to integrate and sustain ICT-enabled activities. IICD investments in enabling individuals, organisations and networks to adequately serve the ICT needs of local stakeholders resulted in conducive environments with experienced partners well suited to offer cost-effective and locally relevant ICT-enabled solutions. Based on the experience of the writer this paper explores the impact of the organization, after five years in a fast changing environement. It also expresses her opinions and shares ideas related to the importance of knowledge sharing for preparedness in a post-pandemic world.
Knowledge retention (KR) can be considered a broad practice within the larger field of knowledge management (KM). KM has many frameworks and maturity models to support itself, and by correlation, knowledge retention has an opportunity to create frameworks and maturity models. Following a peer-reviewed process, Rocio and John offer their thoughts and experiences drawn from their efforts to create a knowledge retention framework and a knowledge retention maturity model. The framework aims to create a shared definition for knowledge retention, and the maturity model aims to create an approach for assessing a team or organization’s knowledge retention maturity. The maturity model outlines steps to increase the maturity of knowledge retention, based on data and evidence to support action. Overall, this paper presents a vision of an ecosystem in which knowledge retention is institutionalized practice, embedded in everyone’s tasks and part of the way we work.
For decades Western development projects have been intervening in Africa?s agriculture with the aim to reduce poverty and hunger. Since colonization and beyond the political independence of Africa, the West, primarily but including other countries, has practiced exclusion, systematic and structural suppression of African ways of knowing and doing. This constitutes epistemic injustice. In this paper I address a central question that has gained little attention so far. It is: do Western agricultural development projects in Africa maintain, reinforce, or even cause epistemic injustice? To answer this question, I draw on studies in African philosophy, Western philosophy and Western sociology. To empirically study epistemic injustice, I reflect critically on a livestock development project in rural Mozambique (2011-2013) via qualitative analysis of 27 project documents. The findings show that the answer to the main question is affirmative. The findings of this study are deeply concerning, because it means that epistemic injustice towards Africa continues, but is covered under benign concepts like 'reducing poverty' and 'reducing hunger.' The thesis defended here is that restoring epistemic justice is an essential part of social justice for Africa.
