From 2012-2016, the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated System for the Humid Tropics, or Humidtropics, worked towards transforming the lives of the rural poor in several action sites in Asia, Africa and Tropical America. Initially, capacity development went on almost intuitively, as an integrated part of the implementation process. It soon become clear that such groundbreaking activities and ideas require a more organized and supervised approach.

In 2014 therefore, Humidtropics set up a Capacity Development team of experts to deliver the necessary training, supervise the development of new tools and think of new, innovative ideas to implement across the
flagships.

Since then, many ‘disruptive activities’ were organized and delivered in ways they can be scaled up and adapted to the specific needs and requirements of different projects, organizations and contexts.

Innovation and technology were key in these processes – many communication, connectivity and location barriers were overcome to go beyond mere classroom delivered material and create a community of agriculture professionals who now have new knowledge to build on, new channels at their disposal to use to communicate with their peers and new sources of inspiration and information when trying to find the best solution for the issues they need to address.

A new report brings together all the stories behind this work, from building a learning management system to going beyond traditional on-site workshops, scaling up existing methodologies and tools, as well as developing new ones, introducing fun and exciting projects and activities the rural poor feel excited to use or participate in.

Download the report:

• Dror, I. 2016. The story of Humidtropics Capacity Development 2014-2016. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

Links to some of the products of this work:

• Learning portal and learning management system, with modules on FEAST, mNutrition, IBLI, innovation platforms, participatory video, and more
• Support to FEAST – the feed assessment tool
• Book – Dror, I., Cadilhon, J.J., Schut, M., Misiko, M. and Maheshwari, S. 2016. Innovation platforms for agricultural development: Evaluating the mature innovation platforms landscape. UK: Routledge.
• Eight ‘Capacity Development in Systems Practice Briefs’
• Article – Schut, M., Cadilhon, J.J., Misiko, M. & Dror, I. (2016). Do mature innovation platforms make a difference in agricultural research for development? a meta-analysis of case studies. Experimental Agriculture, 1-24.
• Tools and training materials to help mainstream gender in Humidtropics activities
• Learning cases on innovation platforms for agricultural development

For more information, contact Iddo Dror at ILRI.

More products and outputs from ILRI’s capacity development unit that led this work.