Capacity development

Improved capacity and inclusivity of agri-food system stakeholders to collaboratively develop innovations that improve livelihoods is an explicit goal and outcome within the GLDC impact pathway. Hence, capacity development is critical for the success of the CRP as it strongly contributes to achieving development outcomes based on the CRP’s research outputs. The GLDC hypothesis is that real-life impact can be achieved only by developing the skills of various actors. As such, all GLDC FPs contribute in different ways to developing capacities of diverse stakeholders. Many activities simultaneously achieve the capacity development SLO as well as other SLOs.

The main focus of GLDC’s capacity development will be on National Innovation Systems, specifically NARES, national and regional development agents and private sector entrepreneurs who wish to invest in GLDC agri-food systems. GLDC commits to contributing to developing these actors’ capacity and each FP has articulated its contribution. CGIAR and NARES teams are already partners in many R4D projects, often on equal footing, but also with evident gaps in skills and facilities.

While all GLDC participants take responsibility for capacity development of partners, a GLDC Taskforce, consisting of experienced facilitators of transdisciplinary research processes, will support the GLDC team in being more efficient in their efforts. The Taskforce will therefore focus on the development of the CRP teams’ capacity to conduct capacity building. Concrete activities in this sense will be coordinated during the implementation of the program. They are likely to include stakeholder analyses, capacity development needs assessments of partners, specific skill trainings for NARES scientists (e.g. leadership or science writing trainings), financial support for partner inclusion into FP activities, fund raising for capacity development activities, trainings for partners in capacity development approaches and techniques and support in embedding cutting-edge expertise into the curricula of National tertiary education programs. GLDC will leverage the principles, established modes and networks for capacity development that prevailed in its predecessor programs, CRPs Grain Legumes, Dryland Cereals and Dryland Systems. The CGIAR Country Coordination and ICRISAT’s Country Strategies will both enable and strengthen implementation of the GLDC capacity development strategy, as will the close ties with the CGIAR Capacity Development Community of Practice.

A key initiative of GLDC will be the Innovation Fund that can provide resources and stimuli for capacity development aligned with GLDC objectives.