Innovation Africa: facilitating local food security plans
Innovation Africa is a three-year pilot project (2010–12) that aims to improve the capacity oef civil society organisations (CSOs) to influence food security policies. It is funded by the EC’s Food Security Thematic Programme (FSTP), which provides most of its funds (about 1 billion Euro) to international agricultural research institutes, but also recognises the key role that CSOs can play in promoting food security. Innovation Africa works in one district in each of the five countries’ cross-border regions (Burkina Faso, Niger, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia) where the levels of food insecurity are relatively high and significant government power has been devolved.
There are four key capacity-building elements to the project, aimed at:
- bringing together a wide range of stakeholders at the sub-national level to understand food insecurity, coping strategies and potential solutions;
- understanding the role of local innovation in food security through promoting farmer-led documentation and sharing:
- developing research evidence on food availability, access and utilisation, and the stability of food security in the district: and
- developing an understanding of the political landscape for food security, featuring analyses of key policy actors, institutions and structures.
The multistakeholder consultations, farmer-led documentation and research evidence will be pulled together to develop a local food security plan, while the analysis of the political landscape will be translated into a policy engagement plan.
Key implementing partners are ETC Foundation and the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Regional Desk in Southern and Eastern Africa (PELUM, based in Zambia). The project works closely with local partners in all five countries, including World Neighbors (Burkina Faso), CRESA (Niger), the PELUM–Malawi network and Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), the PELUM–Tanzania network and the Economic Social Research Foundation (ESFR) and the P ELUM–Zambia network and the Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA)
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