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.

Climate Change Adaptation programme East Africa

Since 2008, Wageningen International has been involved in a new initiative on Climate Change adaptation in East and Southern Africa. The initiative focuses on linking research to policy makers by making available the WUR resources on climate change to regional partners in East Africa. The initiative is funded by the dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

In June we organised a scoping workshop with partners in Nairobi to identify the focus of the initiative and linkages with other ongoing programmes. In November we facilitated a follow-up meeting. Key partners in the initiative are IUCN, ASARECA and RUFORUM. The meeting was well attended and had several positive outcomes that will drive the continuation of this initiative.

The participants of the meeting concluded that the following activities will be pursued:

1. Organising a 2-week climate change adaptation course, to be organised in the second half of 2009;
2. Developing the 'Hotspot idea', by offering a framework for assessing climate change adaptation Hotspots and starting action research in the region;
3. Exploring policy engagement, by organising a high level meeting for policy makers.

Work on the climate change course and the hotspot idea will start immediately, while the policy engagement event needs more thinking and discussion, which will evolve when we engage in the other ideas.

More information about the initiative can be found on this website

Training Programmatic Approach ICCO facilitators Asia

In 2008, Wageningen International implemented a learning trajectory for ICCO on their new 'Programmatic Approach'. In this new approach ICCO will move away from projects in developing countries to larger programmes that will be developed by coalitions of partners working towards the same goal. In the course of the year we conducted 7 modules for about 70 ICCO staff in Utrecht about the underlying concepts and practical tools that you can use in the programmatic approach.


On 12-13 November we conducted a tailor-made training on the programmatic approach for 4 facilitators from ICCO in Asia. These facilitators will develop new ICCO programmes with partners in the field of HIV/AIDS in three countries (see link at the ICCO website. The training was well appreciated and we will do continue to support the facilitators in their work.

In 2009 Wageningen International will continue with another learning trajectory for ICCO in Utrecht, both for dutch staff and for newly recruited staff in different regional offices.

SNV Montenegro - MSP training

From 3-7 November I conducted an introduction course on Multi-stakeholder processes for SNV Montenegro in Podgorica. It was my first time to work in the Balkans, a great experience.

The 14 participants are working in different sectors (tourism, forestry, rural development), but multi-stakeholder processes are at the heart of SNVs work in Montenegro.

In 2009 one participant from Montenegro will join me as co-facilitator in a two-week MSP course for SNV in Albania.

Three-week MSP training in Wageningen

From 8-27 September we conducted the public Multi-stakeholder process course in Wageningen. 29 participants from 17 countries attended the training.

The course covered state-of-the-art thinking about participation from local to global level and introduced the most up-to-date methodologies and approaches for facilitation and participation. How MSPs and social learning relate to concepts such as dialogue, interactive policy making and adaptive management was fully explored.
Typically MSPs involve business people, policy makers, community representatives, NGOs, politicians, researchers and educators from different scales, sectors and disciplines. The degree and nature of their participation and interaction will vary and needs to be carefully negotiated, planned and facilitated. This leads to questions about governance and democratic participation, which have become important topics on the global agenda as we work towards making sustainable development a reality. The course explored these topics and examined the practical implications.
Multiple stakeholder and social learning processes are, for example, applicable, to: integrated rural development initiatives; river basin management; market chain management; development of poverty reduction strategies; interdisciplinary research programmes; food security initiatives; livelihood development; sector wide approaches; interactive policy making; decentralisation programmes; and community-based natural resource management (forestry, fisheries, wetlands).
The training also included field work on Ameland (an island at the northern coast of the Netherlands), in which participants explored a real life multi-stakeholder process: the implementation of European nature legislation (Natura 2000) on the island and the effect on the local communities. The field work was probably the highllight of the training, not only because of the content, but also since it was the very first time for some participants to ride a bike, do mudwalking and visit a real gas extraction site! See video below.
It was a very rewarding training and participants became a close ‘community’ that will stay in touch after the training to implement the new insights.