Capacity building and institutional learning   

The capacity of public agricultural institutions to introduce the technology and institutional innovations and to adapt them with the rural communities using a learning approach will be improved The project will also make use of non public institutions (like NGOs) which are involved with their own staff in agricultural development at the grass root level. Many of these institutions are however limited in their area of operation and often work through/with the staff of the public institutions. Such capacity strengthening will focus on introducing/testing innovative methods of technology transfer on priority commodities in and around Farmer Training Centers (FTCs) in the PLS. These FTCs are newly established and staffed with freshly graduated Development Agents (DAs) from the Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) centers. Emphasis will be put on interactive knowledge transfer, aimed at empowering the rural community’s to undertake a market oriented development strategy. The technology transfer and adaptation methods will take into account the farmer’s assets and knowledge on the technologies, as well as gender, HIV/AIDS and environment impacts. The methods will also emphasize improving linkages with other public and private institutions involved in agricultural development. Inter-institutional advisory and learning committees have been created and will be further developed at the PLS (Woreda), Regional and National levels. To mainstream this “new” public capacity, the project will also introduce these concepts in the MoARD’s learning institute i.e. ATVETs.