This work is important for the following reasons: - there is an ever-increasing demand for support from our Membership on Farmer Field Schools. As the inventor and main promoter of FFS, FAO is strategically well placed to respond and play a facilitating role.
- FFS have been extremely successful in supporting sustainable agriculture, rural people’s empowerment and farmer resilience. It can be an efficient mechanism to support rapid delivery of the Strategic Framework and Regional Initiatives.
- It is also one of the most successful cases of South South Cooperation, FFS having spread from Indonesia to over 90 countries through SSC.
- In this context AGP is facilitating the creation of regional networks of FFS practitioners in Africa which aim at reinforcing South-South cooperation, while ensuring the quality of capacity development. A similar workshop was convened for countries in Southern Africa in Zambia in December 2014, while others are planned for Eastern Africa and the Near East in 2016.
In particular, the workshop aims to: - Map FFS resources and experts, projects and support needs at the level of the two sub-regions.
- Create a common basis for understanding of FFS principles within sub-regional contexts.
- Undertake a stock-taking exercise of FFS success cases and lessons learnt in the sub-regions.
- Create a regional coordination mechanism to ensure upscaling and institutionalization of the FFS approach while preserving quality of FFS programmes executed.
Guilaine Thébault Diagne, Bure au FAO Sénégal, Yacine Cisse, Bureau FAO Sénégal FAO Représentation au Sénégal - 15, Rue Calmette X Rue El-Hadji Amadou Assane Ndoye, DAKAR |