Scaling-out agroforestry through partnerships and networking: the experience of the World Agroforestry Centre in Southern Africa

Agroforestry (AF) aims to impact on the livelihoods of the rural poor. The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)'s goal for southern Africa is that 400000 smallholder farmers get access to and derive benefits from AF by 2006. The Centre is convinced that this goal can only be achieved by scaling-out; this is with the help of partners and the building of networks. The reasons for forming partnerships and networks are manifold: (1) organisations cannot achieve such goals on their own because of the complex and multi-faceted process of facilitating development impact; (2) organisational learning is enhanced by sharing information skills experiences lessons and opportunities; (3) local and national capacities are built which in turn increases thesustainability of programmes and projects; and (4) the overall efficiency of scaling-up the use of AF technologies and innovations is increased. This scaling-up is of particular relevance to ICRAF's goal in the southern Africa region because it is expected to widen significantly the geographic and institutional reach of AF as well as contribute to greater efficiency in use of ICRAF's limited resources. This paper therefore advances the hypothesis that partnerships and networking contribute in a meaningful way to the efficiency of scaling-up the use of AF. ICRAF's current network in southern Africa has links with over 1000 partners. They comprise various government agencies research centres formal educational institutions international and local NGOs bi-lateral development projects CBOs including farmer groups and private sector companies. Partner contributions in collaborative activities vary considerably but to involve the mainstream of development agents diversity needs to be accepted. Nevertheless this large number and variety in partnerships raises questions about the reach and use of AF in the region and the transaction costs of scaling-out. Some principles in successful partnering and networking are first discussed and illustrated and then the Centre's own experiences in forming partnerships and building national and regional networks are synthesised. Lessons learnt are shared in respect to how scaling-out of AF can be made more efficient and mutual benefits can be increased. ICRAF's tools and strategies used in partnership appraisal are outlined including how ICRAF envisions its partnerships and networks operating in future. To ensure a high degree of quality and success the Centre has established 5 detailed criteria to screen partners. Where strategic partners have been identified strategies to scale-up AF technologies and innovations are jointly developed and/or implemented. ICRAF also recently developed a more holistic and integrated scaling- up approach comprising training programmes for NGO trainers direct training of groups of farmer trainers government extension staff and traditional leaders and continued facilitation of farmer exchange visits. Even greater impact should be achieved through new innovative partnerships that adequately help tackle some high-priority development challenges like HIV/AIDS gender markets and enterprise development. The Centre will also keep on/start facilitating net-workshops and seminars for representatives from partner organisations; their primary objectives being the exchange of knowledge and experience to develop collaboration and to coordinate and link activities among and improve networking between participants. Effective scaling-out requires that projects/initiatives learn lessons iteratively and in an accumulative way. A monitoring and evaluation system that is based on a mutual learning process where evaluations are multi-actor and pro-active provides the basis for successful scaling-out. ICRAF is confident that these coherent scaling-up and -out strategies will help attain maximum reach and cost-effectiveness.

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