Networking, Partnerships and CoPs

Africa Congress on Conservation Agriculture 18th -21st March 2014 _ Janet C Achora

A community of practice is a group of people who share a commonconcern, a set of problems, or interest in a topic and who come together tofulfil both individual and group goals.

CoPs often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advancea domain of professional practice.

Many communities of practice rely on face-to-face meetings as well asWeb-based collaborative environments to communicate, connect, andconduct community activities.

There is a paradigm shift in the way groups of people interact with a shift towardsNetworks, Partnerships and collaborations.

The ContextThe context under which such communities operate may depend on the

The history of relationship among the members.

The relative power of members and non- members of the group.

The extent of political and cultural control

Complexity of the issues being addressed

Culture of the members and the

Age of the Network.

Farmer and Farmer Organizations (CAFFO) comprised of individuals, smallholder and large-scale farmers, CBOs, Farmer NGOs and Farmer cooperatives.

Women and Youth in Agriculture (CoPWIA)

Developers and disseminators of CA

The idea of Networks, Partnerships and sharing platforms were also discussed during the 3rd World Congress held in Nairobi in 2005. One of the Objectives of this congress was to offer knowledge and information to guide informed decision on how to increase the extent of CA adoption among all stakeholders.

In one of the thematic discussions on Integrating CA in a holistic manner into the farming system, the proposed strategy was to

“ Create platforms for sharing and learning experiences among the various stakeholders and forge synergies and complementary rather than competition among the various agencies involved in promotion of CA “(pg 43)

And in addressing the Entire Value chain addn: the proposed strategy was to “create partnerships that promote value addition through processing and transformation in farming communication…”

Going ForwardIn November 2013, ACT in collaboration with COMESA convened a CA Equipment manufacturer’s workshop that took the bold step towards the creation of a CA manufacturer’s CoPSteps:

1.1 Face to Face 1.2 Volunteers to coordinate the process 1.3 Identification of platforms to share 1.4 Modalities of sharing 1.5 Operationalization of the CoP

Therefore as we continue to convene these forums are we moving forward with the Networking or do we only network in meetings and conferences, are we ready to embrace other platforms apart from the conventional platforms to share the knowledge that we have..

The ball is in our courts, we could either move this process forward or stay in business in usual..