Saturday 9 January 2010

Announcement: The farmer voice initiative

December 2009. The Farmer Voice Initiative is an initiative of ALINe. ALINe is a non‐profit project run by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and Keystone, with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Currently in its pilot phase, ALINe is exploring new approaches to improving thinking and
practice around impact planning, assessment and learning in agriculture with a special focus on
farmer voice.

The farmer voice initiative aims to build learning around the question:
  • how can development agencies make sure they listen and respond to farmers, systematically, across different places or activities?
  • How do agencies ensure they listen enough to farmers? Which farmers are involved in dialogue with agencies – do they include poor and disempowered people? How can ‘listening enough’ be defined in different contexts?
  • How can agencies ensure that they respond to what farmers say?
  • How do agencies support and encourage staff to listen and respond to farmers –
  • and how do they assess whether all this is happening to a high enough standard?

The awards are for innovations that agencies are using to listen systematically to farmers. The awards are open to any size or type of development agency working in agriculture in
developing countries. The closing deadline for all applications is: 29th January 2010. Awards will be announced on 25th February 2010.

Reference:

Announcement: ALINe’s Farmer Voice Innovation Awards. Open Invitation for Applications