Other networks
ICA (International Co-operative Alliance)
ICA supports the creation of cooperatives throughout the world and considers that this is the key to improving the living conditions of the poor. The spearhead of Agriterra’s work is the development of cooperatives, which means that coordination with ICA is practically a given.
Amongst other things, we work together in Asia in the foundation of farmer’s cooperatives, with model cooperatives serving as a practical example. In addition, the three of us (including the Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen, CIDIN) participate in a research programme that aims at providing efficient policy tools and feasible strategies which help improve agricultural cooperatives in developing countries.
http://www.ica.coop
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
FAO is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which supports the modernisation and improvement of agriculture, forestry and fishery in developing countries and aims at guaranteeing food security for all.
Agriterra works together with FAO, for example, on the development of free software for cooperatives. This allows a cooperative to directly save its data digitally, thus enabling it to keep track of the deliveries of its members, identify the products that sell better and gain insight into problems in production. Moreover, we work together in the establishment of Farmer Field Schools: schools in rural areas where farmers can gain more agricultural knowledge in a practical way.
http://www.fao.org
IFDC (International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development)
IFDC is an international institute for soil management and agricultural development and aims at increasing sustainable agricultural productivity through rural development and the transfer of knowledge concerning effective and environmentally-friendly food technology and agricultural marketing.
Agriterra and IFDC work together in a number of projects, such as the Mistowa project in West Africa, which focuses on improving the access to market information for traders and producers. The “From Thousands to Millions” project is also being implemented in Africa, through which we aim at reaching one million farmer families through local projects.
http://www.ifdc.org
IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development)
IFAD is a United Nations international fund that develops, sponsors and implements projects in order to combat poverty in the rural areas of developing countries. IFAD has contributed and still contributes financially to several projects of Agriterra in Africa. An example is the strengthening of the East African Farmers Federation, an umbrella organisation which affiliates a number of farmer’s organisations from East Africa. In addition, we organise an annual Farmers Forum, during which farmer’s and producer’s organisations and government institutions together discuss agricultural development and the reduction of poverty.
http://www.ifad.org
ACWW (Associated Country Women of the World)
ACWW is the largest international organisation for rural women and represents more than 9 million people. It strives to improve the standard of living of rural women through education, training and community development programmes.
Agriterra has developed a programme specifically for women, AgriFem, in order to improve the position of women. ACWW also contributes (financially) to different activities within this programme, such as leadership trainings for women and the provision of a better access to credit and market information.
http://www.acww.org.uk
LANDac
Agriterra participates in LANDac: the International Cooperation Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development. This alliance aims at bringing together researchers, policy makers and development practitioners in the field of land governance and development. Agriterra’s participation expresses the Academy’s ambition to take into account the needs and ambitions of one of the ultimate stakeholders in land tenure issues (the farmers and their organisations), and to share research results with those same stakeholders. Other LANDac partners are: International Development Studies, Utrecht University (leading partner); Africa Studies Centre, Leiden; Disaster Studies, Wageningen University; Hivos, The Hague; KIT (Royal Tropical Institute), Amsterdam; Sustainable Economic Development Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), The Hague; Triodos Facet, Zeist.
For any questions related to Agriterra’s role in LANDac you can contact Jur Schuurman.
