Learning groups can have big impact

Tags: Small Producers Agency

The Knowledge Programme on “Smallholder Agency in the Globalised Market” is at present building a Learning Network as its core instrument. This network will be a group of some 15 persons from Africa, Latin America and Asia that will focus on the commissioning of innovative studies, the exchange of ideas and the diffusion of the results into the global debate and the capacities of civil society.

A recent publication of IIED reports on the impact on another Learning Network, the Forest Governance Learning Group (FGLG). This group, with participants from nine countries in Africa and Asia, has had substantial success. It has been able to influence forest decisions, change discourses on forest governance, and improve capacities and understanding. The IIED relates this success to three underlying factors: (1) members connected to both local groups and governance circles, (2) clarity and stability of goals, combined with a broad flexibility of actions, and (3) inspiring conveners.

Will the Learning Network of “Smallholder Agency” one day have such clear impact too? The first thing to note then is that ‘one day’ for this network is already very near; the knowledge program will run to only in 2011, which means two years instead of the six of FGLG. Moreover, smallholder agency may well turn out to be a less well-defined subject compared forest governance. On the other hand, we have the experiences from FGLG to build on, and we certainly don’t lack in inspirations!

Click here for the online publication.