Target groups for strengthening the support to community management of PGR and AnGR are in principle all stakeholders in GR management. For each group some relevant issues are outlined.
The farmer-households are the most important target-group for direct support in agricultural and mixed production systems. Pre-defining priority-communities or priority type of activities is dangerous. Experiences indicate that improving the access to genetic diversity is effective in many situations, even in high potential areas like India (Witcombe, 1999). The focus of needed support (i.e seed quality, genetic maintenance or enhancing of local varieties, access to new varieties, etc) will depend very much on the specific local situation and problems that farmers are facing. A brief overview of the focus and type of activities in ongoing PGR-oriented projects are presented in table 1 (annex).
Depending the situation and the focus of the support, the target-group for activities can be defined, eg. individual key-farmers, organised groups, women. In general, the information on the role of women in PGR and AnGR is still meager; the planning of activity addressing local GR management should involve a gender analysis. Especially in activities that address seed selection and storage it may be necessary to involve women; in many situations their traditional role and knowledge on seeds and varieties has been overlooked. Community-based activities supporting GR management may be part of any general rural or agricultural development programme. Integration in existing programmes provides the advantage of building on existing community-organisation and actors that facilitate developing process.
Although the needs of the farmer-households have to be the guiding principle in support, some additional points may be considered for technical co-operation in the field of PGR.
Another important target group are the national policy makers, and national research & development-staff in developing countries. The objectives of support to this group of actors are i) to change general attitude (see 4.5), ii) creating a socio-economic and policy environment that is more favourable for use of GR-diversity, and iii) mainstream approaches for support to management of GR-diversity at community level. Bringing about attitude changes is a slow and sensitive process. National NGOs and technical co-operation have an important role to play in this change through lobbying and funding. National policy makers can be addressed directly at the national level. NGOs involved in advocacy can address national policy makers via international fora. International donor agencies can address policy makers in bilateral contacts, via support to NGOs or via the international fora (COP, FAO Undertaking, UN, WTO, etc.) Technical co-operation can have important influence through the funding activities that stimulate such attitude change, like workshops, seminars, training courses, publications etc. This type of activities is corresponding to ‘awareness raising’ and ‘human capacity building’ at the institutional level (see Almekinders, 2000b).
The IARCs are important organisations for the introduction and up-scaling of new approaches and methodologies. Interesting approaches in GR management at the community level are developed by the CG-centres. The SWP-PRGA merits special attention for efforts in this field (see table 1). The set-up of small comparative studies in NRM and PPB, the linkage of IARC and NARs with NGOs, and the significant generation/exchange of information are the crucial element in this network-programme. Projects in the field of (German) technical co-operation may utilise the experiences of such programmes and can integrate with these networks to ensure that experiences from other projects become readily available among a wide audience.
Many NGOs are weak in monitoring and evaluation, and systematisation of experiences. Analysis and sharing of experiences is particularly relevant in a field like GR management at the community level. Projects are usually small-scale and have a local focus. The innovative character of many of these activities is another reason to stress the importance of sharing experiences and learning from each other. Sharing experiences enhances up-scaling and mainstreaming. The sharing of experiences is stimulated through workshops, publications, and network-programmes. These can be organised in the context of technical co-opertion.
Collaboration between organisations is important for the up-scaling of decentralised approaches. NGOs can be functional in facilitating links between between researchers and extension staff of GOs, and farmers (see also Almekinders, 2000b). Such linkage should be based on complementarity and be beneficial for all involved actors (Almekinders & Louwaars, 1999). Technical co-operation could facilitate inter-institutional collaboration in its programmes through joint priority setting, definition, planning and implementation of projects, or by involving members of other organisations as project-partners. Participatory approaches are also important at the level of project planning, with technical co-operation playing a facilitator role.
On the short term, most relevant is the i) generation of information on community systems (particularly AnGR), and ii) exchange of experiences in support to community management. Monitoring and evaluation of project impact ask special attention.
The facilitation of the sharing of experiences is important. The local character of most community-level projects increases the importance of linking with other initiatives to exchange experiences. Another objective of linkage between projects is to create a weight for impact on awareness of researchers and policy makers at national, regional or international level. Network-programmes fill part of these requirements (exchange visits, workshops). Electronic communication (publications, discussion lists) offer interesting potentials (see Almekinders, 2000 b)
Increasing the number of initiatives at the community level is important as well. They will be partly ask for new initiatives. Particularly in the field of community management of AnGR the initiation of more and new activities seems important. In PGR the up-scaling of new approaches and the re-orientation of others seems more relevant.
Workshops, seminars and training courses are the tools to develop participatory capacities of researchers and to up-scale successful approaches (see also 4.5). They also support a paradigm shift in the professional attitude of researchers and stimulate re-orientation of programmes. To arrive at more decentralised and flexible programmes, changes at the policy level have to be realised as well. Such processes of institutional change ask long-term commitment of all stakeholders, including those who provide the financial resources.
Many of the opportunities to support PGR and AnGR management at the community level lie in the area of awareness raising. The majority of the activities aiming at institutional change and market development fall in this category. They can be directed at a range of stakeholders (see 3.1) and issues (see Almekinders, 2000b). There are also a range of activities and tools that have shown to be functional in awareness raising. Seed diversity fairs (Neuendorf, 1999) and animal competitions (Gupta, 1996) are good examples of activities at the community level. Important are the advocacy activities aiming at the national policy makers, such as those in relation to the formulation of legislative frameworks. Influencing the consumer behaviour is another important area for awareness raising activities (see 4.2).
The target group for technical co-opertion exists of all actors involved in GR management at the community level: the communities, development agencies, market-players and policy makers. They all have an influence on what genetic diversity is used and maintained.
At this moment, the innovative activities that specifically address management of GR diversity are still young. The experiences are being exchanged to some extend, but so far serious analysis of results so far is in general lacking (Almekinders, 2000a). This is partly explained by the fact that the relation between (increased) biodiverisity and sustainable agriculture and farmers' livelihood is not well understood. Also, monitoring and evaluation of new approaches asks for an important place in project/programmes. Support and facilitation of exchange mechanisms among organisations active in the field may be needed.
The new approaches are based on the recognition of diversity in and among conditions and communities. Definition of a 'blueprint' for support to management of PGR at the community level is not possible. Extrapolation of successful experiences to other situations do not necessarily give satisfactory results. Approaches that can be adapted to the diversity of conditions and problems faced by communities are likely to be 'decentralised' and based on participatory methodologies for working with farmers and collaborating institutions.
In general. the impact of support to GR management at the community level is expected to be slow.
Support to GR management therefore asks long term commitment of all stakeholders, from farmers and pastoralists to policymakers and donor agencies.
The support to PGR and AnGR at the community level is needed to maintain livelihood systems that harbour important genetic diversity. Providing access to GR diversity is one way to support those communities – and increase their capacity to sustain under variable, marginal conditions, changing climates and socio-economic pressures. The experiences with new approaches and activities learn that there are ample opportunities for translation of objectives in-situ conservation of GR diversity and agricultural development into activities at the community level (Almekinders 2000b, Köhler-Rollefson, 2000). In the field of PGR these opportunities are more clearly identified than in the case of AnGR. Technical co-operation can contribute significantly through support to all actors in the field, i.e. directly to communities, directly or via NGOs and NARs. Also support to NGOs and NARs is needed in order to effectively up-scale and mainstream successful approaches. Technical co-operation can be instrumental in influencing and supporting national policy makers to formulate and effectuate a supportive regulatory framework and a coherent agricultural policy.
