Unleashing The Power of Social Enterprise (1)

Unleashing The Power of Social Enterprise (1)

The NGOs, CBOs, FBOs, non – profits, charities, voluntary and civil society organizations represent the social conscience of our nation. In an era of increased uncertainty about public funding, these organizations are depending on outside capital to finance various programmes in the country that improve quality of life.

Without their work, the nation would be a much poorer society morally and economically. As the gap they fill continue to grow so must our support for them.

The Power of Social Enterprise (11)

The Power of Social Enterprise (11)

With over 120 million Nigerians living below the poverty line, and the latest ranking of Nigeria as 152 out of 188 countries of the world, Nigeria has thus become one of the poorest countries, despite her rich human and natural resources.

Using Participatory Action Research to Improve Development Practice

Using Participatory Action Research to Improve Development Practice

Monday 22 January 2018 - Friday 26 January 2018
Convening Space, Institute of Development Studies

Why attend?

Participatory Action Research (PAR) engages people in communities as agents of change. Traditionally, development project ‘beneficiaries’ have rarely been included in researching issues, finding solutions, designing indicators or measuring change.  PAR provides a way of changing this, offering an inclusive community-driven approach to development. It is also an effective way of building participatory learning into organisations supporting development and social change.

This course equips development professionals with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to design, develop and conduct context-sensitive PAR. The course draws on a range of PAR processes and methods which enable change to happen at scale both in organisations and across communities. These are of particular importance to development practitioners and researchers today, as they can help ensure interventions are relevant, appropriate and inclusive. Whether you work in the global South or North, this approach will encourage a more people-centred way of developing, delivering and assessing your projects and programmes of work.

The diversity of course participants from a wide array of development organisations has supported rich experiential learning and has led to the emergence of a network of participatory action researchers who have continued to learn from each other.  We are excited to be running this course for the third year. (Danny Burns, IDS Fellow and course co-convenor)

Course aims

To equip development professionals and change agents with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to design, develop and conduct context-sensitive participatory action research (PAR).

Who should attend?

NGO practitioners, facilitators and change agents as well as donors developing evidence-based programmes. We also welcome researchers and postgraduate students wishing to orient their work within the PAR paradigm.

How will participants learn?

The course is interactive, inclusive, participatory and applied. Sessions blend theoretical and conceptual learning with experiential learning and sharing. Case studies are used to help deepen understanding.

Prior to the course, you will be asked to think of a critical question relating to your work or your organisation’s practice. Over the week you will explore this question, identify an appropriate PAR process to address it, and learn how to manage this process (including facilitation, recording, analysis, planning and monitoring). This will result in a detailed plan that you can operationalise on returning to your organisation.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, you will:

• Understand how the contribution of the PAR process can improve your own and your organisation’s practice
• Know about a range of PAR methods, key concepts and theories, and understand their appropriate application within your own work
• Understand the ethical, political and practical challenges of using PAR approaches
• Understand how to effectively facilitate, record and reflect on PAR processes
• Be able to identify further training and resources that you or your organisation may need
• Have designed a PAR process to address a key issue relating to your organisational and/or independent professional practice

Teaching Team

Danny Burns - Danny leads the IDS Participation Cluster and his work focuses on participatory learning for social change with a strong emphasis on systems thinking and complexity.

Jo Howard - Jo is a Research Fellow with the Participation Cluster, and uses a range of participatory action research and learning processes to work with marginalised groups, civil society and governmental organisations across the UK social policy field and the international development arena.

Testimonials

'The course provided a supportive learning space, informed teaching and a rich diversity of participants all willing to share and listen – a wonderful opportunity to learn and reflect. Thank you'. (Donna Hurford, University of Southern Denmark)

'It was a wonderful learning experience, well-shaped and considered, offering moments to be challenged, to introspect and to plan. I leave with much to bring to my work and my colleagues'. (Patrick Higdon, World Connect)

'I really appreciate the training which gave me an opportunity to rethink how I could do my own work'. (Satoko Horiuchi, International Labour Organisation, Switzerland)

Entry requirements

The course will be taught in English. To derive the maximum benefit from the course, participants should be proficient in English and able to take an active part in discussions. Your English needs to be of an intermediate standard or higher; participants must have an International English Language Test System (IELTS) score of 6.5 or above, or a Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) score of B2 or above. 

Participants should have at least three year’s practical experience in development-related work, as well as an active interest in participatory practice and an intention to use participatory methodologies.

Course fee

The course fee is £1,500 (GBP). The fee includes the tuition fees, course materials, lunches, refreshments and one group dinner. It does not cover accommodation or travel costs.

How to Apply

Before applying please read our terms and condtions (pdf).

The application procedure is a three-stage process:

• Stage 1: Apply by completing the online application form. Deadline for applications is 9 October 2017.
• Stage 2: You will be notified by 23 October 2017 as to whether your application has been approved or not. Successful applicants will receive a booking form and an invoice for the course fee. Places on the course are not guaranteed until fees have been received.
• Stage 3: Once fees have been received, you will be sent confirmation of your place on the course and a letter to support your visa application (if required).

You are responsible for organising your own travel and visas (where needed). If travelling from overseas, you must arrive in the UK ready to begin the course at 9:00 on Monday 22 January, and depart no earlier than the evening of Friday 26 January. The course will run from 9:00 to 17:00 each day.

Information about local accommodation will be provided by the course coordinator once your fees have been processed. A limited number of study bedrooms at IDS are available for rent on a first come first served basis.

Please contact the Course Coordinator, Richard Douglass (R.Douglass@ids.ac.uk) if you have any queries.

Image credit: Taylor Spicer (CCAFS) on Flickr

If Eating is “Cool” then Farming must be “Cool” too

By Willfred Iyamuremye

Thu, 04/20/2017

Most youths’ perception of agriculture and agribusiness reflects the image of a dirty, exhausted poor farmer carrying a rusty hoe on puffy, tired shoulders somewhere on the outskirts of modernity.

This old-fashioned guy is not conceivably on Snapchat, Tweeter, or Instagram. Perhaps this is the reason farming is not “cool” to young people? Nonetheless, since young people enjoy eating food, in an equal measure they must partake in the production of food—growing it, investing in it, producing it, processing it, packaging it, distributing it, marketing it, and sustaining it.

What an exciting time! Massive technologies and markets present farming with opportunities. More to the point, challenges facing agriculture and agribusiness offer creative minds similar advantages. Advanced, user-friendly apps that link farmers to consumers are lacking. Websites, magazines, newspapers, and books offering agriculture and agribusiness information are scarce.

Yet they are necessary: agriculture- and agribusiness-related training centers need to be set up for new entrants. Storage facilities are in high demand but largely unavailable. Crop and seed selection mechanisms need innovation. Effective land preparation and efficient irrigation services are not enough to meet demand. Factories for food processing and packaging are scarce. Distribution channels and marketing need a boost. And did you know that consumers of agricultural products would pay for consumption guidance?

Imagine that we probably don’t even have young agricultural researchers! In terms of transport, farmers continue to wait for the day an entrepreneur makes refrigerated trailers abundant. In Information Technology, farmers want to possess a mobile device to enable them to track down the growth of their crops, spot possible crop threats beforehand, and be able to perform basic work on their farms, all while enjoying the comfort of their homes.

Take this example; in Rwanda, consumers of traditional beverages, namely “Urwarwa” (produced out of ripe bananas), and “Ikigage, Ubushera, Umusururu” (produced out of sorghum) have given up drinking their favorite beverages because of the basic way they are produced, packaged, and can’t be stored. Isn’t this a huge opportunity for young creative minds out there? Just come up with innovative methods to better produce, suitably package, and efficiently store and market the above traditional beverages. A cooperative of ten youths should undertake this opportunity. Success is guaranteed!

Take this example. After graduating from Mount Kenya University, Gerald Mutema decided to start a piggery with five pigs on an investment of 500,000 Rwandan francs ($590). According to his calculations, by the end of next year, the pigs will have grown to number a thousand and be making him millions of francs in revenue.

I hereby press the call-to-action button. I challenge you to pause and reflect a while on this enlightening question: if agriculture were one among us, if we let her die, what will happen to us? Do you see how the survival of humanity depends on the survival of farming? If you care strongly enough for your children and their grandchildren, now is the time to engage in agriculture and agribusiness.

I choose to Farm, what about you?

Making Innovation Benefit All: Policies for Inclusive Growth

By Caroline Paunov

Mon, 04/24/2017

 “Inclusive growth” has been at the forefront of policy discussions in OECD and non-OECD economies. These discussions reflect a concern that economic growth does not necessarily improve the welfare of all citizens as income inequalities have risen to unprecedented levels over the past decades. The richest 10% of the population in the OECD area earn almost ten times more than the poorest 10%.

Throughout history, innovation has been the main engine of improved living standards and the current period of digital innovation offers similar opportunities. At the same time, periods of substantial technological change are known to be highly disruptive as new technologies render old technologies obsolete. This process creates winners but also losers within and across countries.

How is digital innovation affecting wellbeing? What can innovation policy do to support inclusive growth?

Here are 5 observations that provide answers to these questions.

1. Digital innovations strengthen the welfare of disadvantaged and low-income groups.

Digital technologies have improved opportunities for consumers to find best products at affordable prices, and have also improved education, health and government services in ways that have favoured social inclusion.

Further contributions that emerging digital technologies are making toward inclusive growth include:

• the Internet of Things (IoT) – devices and objects that can be manipulated via the Internet, with or without active human involvement
• big data analytics – a set of techniques used to interpret large volumes of data generated by the increasing digitisation of content, greater monitoring of human activities, and the spread of the IoT
• artificial intelligence (AI) – the ability of machines and systems to acquire and apply knowledge and to carry out intelligent behaviour
• blockchain  – a database that enables value transactions within computer networks and without the necessity of a central institution or third party.

2. Digital innovations can give rise to winner-take-all markets. These types of markets generate rents for top income groups.

Digital innovations disrupt the way markets operate, by changing competition dynamics. Digital innovations give rise to extreme scale economies and network effects, which in turn can result in winner-take-all market structures characterised by strong market concentration and creative destruction.

Winner-take-all markets are a source of innovation-based rents. How do the rents from digital innovation affect income distribution? Paunov and Guellec (2017) argue that they are shared among shareholders of the winning firms, top executives and some key employees, hence contributing to increased income inequalities. In the United States, shareholders have benefitted from a steady increase in dividends and share prices over the past decades. The share of capital (vs. labor) in national income has also increased, particularly in innovation-intensive economic activities.

3. Disparities in regional innovation capacities are a challenge in several OECD countries
Regions within many OECD countries show significant differences in their innovation capabilities and investments. Overall, the top 20% of regions in OECD countries concentrate 40% of total R&D spending and half of all patent applications.

Traditional innovation policies might unintentionally favour leading regions by rewarding excellence. Such policies should also take account of the impacts they have on the regional distribution of innovation.


4. Innovation policies that strengthen opportunities of disadvantaged and excluded groups to innovate can help support more inclusive growth

Many countries have implemented “inclusive innovation policies” – innovation policies that aim to boost the capacities and opportunities of disadvantaged individuals to engage in innovation activities. These policies tackle the systematic under-representation of some groups in innovation activities, such as women, minority groups and migrants, among others. These also take an industrial or territorial focus by providing tools to less innovative firms and regions to engage in innovation activities.  Planes-Satorra and Paunov (2017) provide a comprehensive characterisation of these policies.

5. Higher education systems, enrolment in quality education and the potential of online education tools

Higher education systems can help reach wider inclusion in innovation activities by building the capacities of disadvantaged and lower-income groups. Leveraging on the potential of the opportunities offered by online education tools may help.

This blog post is based on the report Making Innovation Benefit All: Policies for Inclusive Growth

The Inclusive Innovation Policy Toolkit on the OECD-World Bank Innovation Policy Platform provides a practical and interactive guide to designing and implementing inclusive innovation policies.
  The findings expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the OECD or its member countries.

Why Introducing School Agricultural Clubs Could Turn Farming into the Coolest Thing Ever

Why Introducing School Agricultural Clubs Could Turn Farming into the Coolest Thing Ever

By Joseph Kyanjo Lule

 Mon, 04/24/2017

Getting more youth to engage productively in agriculture is not, and won’t be, an easy job. As an aspiring goat farmer and student in agribusiness management, I know that it takes real passion and commitment to make a living from agriculture.

To farm, or Not to farm? Changing the Youth’s Mind-set is the Answer

To farm, or Not to farm? Changing the Youth’s Mind-set is the Answer

By Mercy Melody Kayodi

Mon, 04/24/2017

Let me answer it this way: If you are a youth, you are damned if you farm, and you will be equally damned if you don’t. Farming as an option is very key to enabling the continuous production of food to meet our consumption demand. We are in an era where we have to attract the young people to join food production, since majority of them think it is dirty work. Interacting with young farmers has only left me understanding that, besides the lack of mechanisation, we lack the best farming practices that would otherwise increase our earnings.