Post-Harvest Management/Food Loss Reduction workshop in Jinja, Uganda

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the UN Rome based agencies (FAO, IFAD and WFP) co-organized a workshop on Post-Harvest Management (PHM) / Food Loss Reduction (FLR) in Jinja, Uganda (7-11 September 2015).

The workshop aimed at discussing how to increase dynamics of the Community of Practice on PHM and FLR; to inform and engage stakeholders in PHM/Food loss reduction efforts (ongoing projects, strategies); and to define joint activities and priorities for 2016 for SDC funded projects. The workshop also included a field trip to visit the WFP reducing post-harvest losses programme sites (photos and New Vision article available here), and discuss with local partners and producers involved, and exchange on the model used.

The workshop was attended by more than 20 participants from SDC, WFP, IFAD, FAO, the Helvetas Swiss Inter-cooperation projects in Africa, African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), Natural Resources Institute (NRI), the Uganda National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), the University of Zimbabwe, Swiss Contact Honduras; two National Focal Points (NFP) and a technical assistant from the pilot countries of the UN RBA joint project on food loss reduction (respectively from Burkina Faso, DRC, and Uganda) also participated. They presented the progress made and the challenges they have encountered. 

The following themes were identified as of high interest, and suggested for further discussions on the CoP online Forum:

1. Policy development and influence
2. Business models: what works, what does not work, in what context
3. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E Framework, indicators, implementations, quantitative and qualitative approaches)
4. Best practices in gender approaches
5. Specific and innovative technologies (including information on peculiarities, cost and profitability) and assessment approaches (e.g. APHLIS)
6. Training, for sharing and for discussion on technical and pedagogical content, discussion on the approaches used (pros and cons, etc.); awareness raising and marketing materials to facilitate dissemination and use

Photos ©FAO/Mireille Totobesola