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ILRI Ethiopia hosts AgKnowledge Innovation Process Share Fair

Laureene Reeves Ndagire

ILRI Addis Campus, Ethiopia

25-26 May 2015

What is a Share Fair?

Share Fairs present a unique opportunity for participants to share and discuss the ways in which they have applied new methods of communication and knowledge sharing to improve the effectiveness and impact of their work.

The Share Fairs are interactive events that employ various knowledge sharing formats such as market stalls and booths, and workshops and presentations designed to encourage discussions.

Participants are shown the benefits of collaboration and are given examples that illustrate how knowledge sharing is applied to real life experiences and work. Share Fairs also usually feature examples of activities at the country level and people making use of local and indigenous knowledge.

Why this Share Fair?

‘’Better ways to share and learn. Better ways of working’’

CGIAR and other organisations working in agriculture and rural development are transforming the ways they do business. The transformations call for much stronger capabilities to design and deliver truly effective ‘process’ improvements that lead to applied innovation, social learning and value for money. Today’s business ‘un-usual’ has to be the tomorrow’s new ‘as usual’.

These process improvements are needed at different levels, from individuals to systems. Some of the important drivers for this transformation include:

  • The ambition of outcomes and impacts ‘at scale’ requires sustained engagement and joint actions of different actors over time. Bringing and keeping diverse people together requires a mix of process ‘arts’ and ‘science’ to deliver results.
  • Collaboration across teams, disciplines, institutes, cultures – and time zones – is essential for success and must be properly initiated, facilitated and nurtured.
  • Partnerships for impact are more likely to succeed when the shared interests of partners are developed through facilitated processes leading to meetings of hearts, minds and expertise, and a genuine social learning approach that transforms all the actors involved, in sometimes small but enduring ways.
  • Sustained locally-applied innovation and development results from the rich and real involvement of community actors in determining, prioritizing and testing research and development interventions in their situations. Participation, engagement and capacity development (and empowerment) emerge from processes designed with these as specific outcomes and characteristics.
  • With increased needs for face to face or virtual interaction and dialogue, good process design, facilitation and documentation ensures that the costs of such transactions are low compared to the value added (or gained).

These improved processes catalyze innovation, learning and results at different scales and levels. There are no magic bullets; there ARE, however, many good principles, examples, approaches and methods that work. We are constantly seeking process improvements that help us.

  • Tackle tough issues through collective actions
  • Collaborate across teams
  • Forge and sustain partnerships for impact
  • Take interventions to scale
  • Engage effectively with local expertise
  • Empower different actors
  • Develop capacities for innovation and learning
  • Facilitate dialogue and conversations

The AgKnowledge Innovation Process Share Fair is an opportunity to improve the ways we do all of the above. Using these ideas as guiding threads, the share fair will use innovative design, process facilitation, and the active involvement of expert practitioners (and learners), to:

  1. Showcase, test and assess a set of the most promising ‘process improvements’ known to make (agricultural) research and development activities, programs, and institutes more effective.
  2. Energize, catalyze and capacitate a wider generation of ‘transformers’ able to take these approaches to scale.
  3. Help participants develop strong engagement and participatory approaches for problem-solving and foresight.
  4. Help participants assess progress on the challenges they encounter, individually or collectively.

Designed around Liberating Structures (and other similarly empowering approaches), each session combines an experienced ‘convener’ sharing a specific issue with process coaching support that leads to genuine collective engagement and learning. This will help ensure that participants learn how to:

  • Include and engage everyone in a group or unit or community in shaping next steps
  • Work more productively with difference across functions, disciplines, and borders
  • Eliminate counter-productive behaviors to make space for innovation
  • Work at the top of their intelligence while creating the same opportunity for others
  • Avoid after-the-fact efforts to sell ideas with buy-in strategies
  • Find alternatives to top-down “best practices” initiatives
  • Work together in a way in which evidence-based practices are complemented by local practice-based evidence-making

The process facilitation team organising this event include:
Carl Jackson
Ewen Le Borgne
Fisher S Qua
Lucie Lamoureux
Nadia Manning
Nancy White
Pete Cranston
Peter Ballantyne