Making Professional Dynamic Slideshows and Videos with Animoto.com

This summer I encountered a new and exciting webtool: animoto. This allows you to make amazing professionally looking slideshows and videos online.

We started using it at Wageningen International to make a video for the new website of the Change Alliance (see below), and I soon got the hang of it. It is so easy you won't believe it. You can make short (30 sec) clips for free (see example on the YPARD post) and at a low subscription fee clips up to 10 minutes.

An exciting tool! Try it: (https://animoto.com/sign_up and use referral code "islkvcbg") .

Strategic Planning for YPARD, Rome

From 25-27 August I was with the Young Professionals Platform on Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD). This is a network organisation that builds the capacity for young professionals in agricultural research for developmet (ARD) and lobbies and advocate for a more pro-poor ARD.

YPARD is an interesting and exciting network with an important cause. It has some 1400 members from all over the world (mainly in developing countries). This week I facilitated the development of a new strategic plan that will focus the operations of the organisation over the coming years. It was a vibrant meeting in Rome (hosted by FAO) in which we tried to balance the needs of young professionals in developing countries and the goal of lobby and advocacy. The draft strategic plan that we produced will now further be development and is to be used as a business plan for fundraising and management.

I have quickly become a member of YPARD myself - a great cause (and it's free!), just go to their website .
Some impressions from the planning workshop:

Climate Change Adaptation in Addis Ababa

After my MSP training in Uganda (April) I went on to visit some partners in Nairobi and Addis Ababa for the preparation of a climate change adaptation course. This two-week course took place from 12-27 June in Ethiopia.


At the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) Wageningen UR has initiated a support programme for climate change adaptation in Eastern Africa in 2008. In partnership with ASARECA, IUCN – EARO and RUFORUM we held a scoping workshop and follow-ups in to see how to respond to capacity building needs. The focus was on capacities needed to better integrated climate change adaptation responses into agricultural, rural development and natural resources policy processes. The initiative led, among others, to the development of a new training course in 2009, implemented by the partnership, in collaboration with HoA-REC at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.



For me this was a completely new territory, and a very exciting one. Together with my colleague Catharien Terwisscha van Scheltinga we developed a very comprehensive course that tried to bridge the gap between science and policy on climate change adapation in East Africa.

The regional training on Climate Change Adaptation in agriculture and NRM took place from 15 to 26 June 2009 in Addis Ababa. It was attended by 26 participants from Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Participants were drawn from universities, agricultural research institutes, non-governmental organisations and government departments. I facilitated the course with Catharien, and Dr Mekuria Argaw from Addis Ababa university, complemented by presenters and lecturers from various universities and institutes.


The course covered a variety of topics related to climate change adaptation. As always, we used very interactive training methods. Experiences of participants were the entry point for interaction – and participants brought in their own examples of climate change hotspots that were used for joint analysis. The course included field work to practice vulnerability assessment and an interactive seminar with policy makers to discuss and refine strategies for policy development and programming on Climate Change.




It was a great experience to be in Ethiopia, working on this topic. The curriculum we developed for this course is a great mix between 'content' topics on climate change adaptation, vulnerability and sustainable development, and 'process' topics such as stakeholder analysis and policy development. We will deliver the same course again in East Africa in March 2010 and plans are underway to extend the capacity building programs to other continents. Exciting! More information: course report.

SNV Uganda - Third MSP Course

From 30 March to 3 April I facilitated another Multi-stakeholder course for SNV-Uganda in Kampala. This was the third course Wageningen International has done for SNV to increase the capacity on multi-actor engagement.

In May 2008 a 4-day course was facilitated with senior advisors and portfolio
coordinators. In August 2008 a 4-day follow-up was conducted focused on a
value chain approach to MSPs. This course in 2009 is the last one in the
series and included another group of SNV advisors from 3 sectors and 4
portfolios.

This training introduced the concepts and practice of how to facilitate change
processes through a MSP approach as understood and practiced by
Wageningen International.

This last MSP course as part of the learning programme for SNV Uganda that
started in 2008 was mainly focused at consolidating the capacity on MSPs in
SNV Uganda. It involved a group of advisors that has been working on MSPs
before, but did not take part in previous courses. It allowed for the
development of a common language and approach to Multi-stakeholder
processes.

It has been a rewarding programme to work with SNV and I hope the relationship will continue to grow.

Local Governance for Rural Development Course

From 9-20 February I co-ordinated the 'local governance for rural development' course in Wageningen. This was a 2-week course, which Wageningen International has organised with the Royal Tropical Institute in French for several years. This year we organised the course in English for the first time, with an audience of 27 participants from 11 countries.

Focus of the course is governance as multi-stakeholder processes for institutional strengthening. The past decade has seen a growing interest in the role of governance in stimulating development and poverty reduction. Private sector organisations are increasingly addressing issues of governance internally and in their relations with other actors. Within the public administration it results in institutional reforms, such as decentralisation, and the outsourcing of public services.

Thinking about the relationships between government, the private sector and civil society has changed considerably. Instead of being perceived as passive beneficiaries, rural populations are increasingly seen as citizens who have the right to participate and who demand good local governance. The role of governments is shifting towards creating an enabling environment and to facilitating development rather than steering it. The private sector is engaging in partnerships for pro-poor development. A new institutional playing field is emerging between civil society, government and private parties in the quest for socio-economic and rural development.

This has led to the understanding that local governance for rural development should be addressed as a multi-stakeholder process with interactions taking place at different levels amongst actors with different ambitions or perceptions. Particularly, the role of local governments is growing with their success being measured in terms of responsiveness and accountability to citizens; improved service delivery; its leadership in promoting pro-poor economic development; and its capacity to negotiate with the private sector, NGOs, local authorities and central government. These changes challenge the actors involved to develop new “institutions” – formal and informal norms, procedures and practices, accountability relations – in order to adjust to new functions and challenges in society.

The course included sessions on defining good local governance; exploring institutional trends such as new public management, decentralisation and the implications for local governance; multi-stakeholder and institutional analysis and change processes; local governance planning; the role of civil society; performance measurement and accountability; participatory budgeting; negotiation, power and conflict. The course also included a mini-seminar on pro-poor local economic development. It very much focused on actual situation participants worked in: their countries and the institutional context of governance, challenges of governance they face etc. Participants also developed action plans to apply the learning in their organisations. The course was very well received and participants have started an active yahoo-group to keep each other informed about the different things happening after the course.

Another course on local governance and rural development is scheduled in February 2010.

Raising the standards on MSP facilitation in Albania

From 19-30 January I facilitated a two-week training on Multi-stakeholder Processes for SNV advisors in Albania. This was the third MSP training for SNV in the Balkans, after Bosnia-Herzegovina (December 2007) and Montenegro (November 2008). The training was attended by 13 participants from SNV in Albinia, coming from three different portfolio teams and three sectors (Tourism, Agriculture and Forestry).

The training covered the usual content of concepts, frameworks and tools for MSP facilitation. But on top of this, the training included 'fieldwork' of the participants: actual facilitation of multi-stakeholder meetings with SNV clients.

SNV Kenya Writeshop

From 7-9 December I conducted a write shop for SNV Kenya in Nanyuki, Kenya. A write shop is a workshop in which participants take time to document something they have been working on.

For this write shop SNV Kenya advisors from different sectors (water/sanitation, livestock, education, tourism) and portfolio teams in Kenya (Northern, Mid-rift) had prepared case studies of projects. The write shop was used to sharpen the case studies, discuss it with SNV partners/clients, sometimes merge cases into a new one and to develop summaries of the cases for the upcoming SNV annual report.

It was the first time for me to do a write shop of this kind. I was happy to work together with a professional editor, Clare McGregor, and I definitely learned a lot about writing myself.

The write shop was very well received and the participants will finalize their cases over the next month for editing by Clare. We hope to do more of these write shops for SNV in the future.

See video below about the writeshop.