Ajay Vashee of IFAP opened the partnerships session, stating that, “you cannot improve what you do not believe in and you cannot improve what you do not measure.”
For Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, partnerships start with a “sense of humility and commitment.” He added, “the best way to manage partnerships is to put a big chunk of the responsibility in the recipient, and have country-led initiatives.”
Sophia Drewnowski of the World Bank emphasized the need for communities of practice to allow cross fertilization and a focus on improving current partnerships instead of just doing more and more.
Dr. Lawrence Haddad of the UK Institute of Development Studies renewed important examples highlighting cases where participation by farmers leads to better impacts, and used examples of projects that build demand for better participation and provide the valuable “how.”
The private sector group suggested that they should try to influence the thinking about development needs in terms of business case possibilities for all stakeholders involved. Participants noted that farmers could facilitate partnerships where resources are equally distributed, and farmers should be included in all the stages of the research and development cycle and take into account their competencies.
Read about the study Perspectives on Partnerships
See the pre-GCARD workshop Web site
THE GFAR BLOG 
2 thoughts on “GCARD2010: Improving Partnerships”