PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 199

F) Lessons learned
What lessons have you learned from science, policy-oriented and capacity building
activities that could improve:
1) Future research on Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture
Use a wider scale than the village or the watershed. Market influences, livestock, fauna
and social networks reach far beyond the limits of a village or a watershed.
2) The role of research in generating policy-relevant information in support of LNV
and other policy institutions
The role of research is important in highlighting links between biophysical and
socio-economic situations which provide the basis for policy-relevant information,
but research is slow and hampered by practical problems in large projects in African
countries (communication, funds transfer). The bulk of interesting results cumulates
at the end of projects, when time is short for integration and exploitation by coordi-
nating parties.
3) Partnerships and development efforts in the South
Research should link up with the interests and problems of local stakeholders. Their
perspective can improve scientific tools and integrating them into the research
process leads to better understanding and insights. Working with researchers and
research institutes in the South is key to make the link with local stakeholders.
However, the capacity of national research institutes, especially in poor countries, is
often limited. Research must deal with constraints such as poor infrastructure (transport,
computers, etc.), which can only be partly solved by the project itself.
4) Interactions between research and decision makers, both in The Netherlands and
the South
Involving decision makers in the South greatly improves the effectiveness of research,
but is not always easy. Decision makers are usually involved in many issues and
research may not always be their first priority.
5) Which insights were gained by employing a multi-disciplinary methodology that
would have been missed by disciplinary research?
There is an intricate link between agricultural and natural production systems,
though they are very differently valued by user groups even within the same village
community. Besides technical and biophysical aspects, socio-economic aspects greatly
influence the management of agricultural and natural production systems by small
holder farmers in the studied region. This would not have come out of mono-
disciplinary research into, e.g., the biophysical fluxes, the floristic composition or
the socio-economic setting only of the inland valleys studied.