Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Food Security Research, Capacity-Building, and Outreach
MSU International Development Working Paper 101
The Michigan State University (MSU) International Development Paper series is designed to further the comparative analysis of international development activities in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Near East. The papers report research findings on historical, as well as contemporary, international development problems.
This document contains an overview of the past 25 years of research, capacity-building, and outreach by MSU’s Food Security Group. The paper describes key elements of the FSG approach and draws lessons regarding the value of that model. It also examines the insights gained from research and outreach, primarily in Africa, and their value to the U.S. Feed the Future Initiative in addressing the major current challenges facing food and agricultural systems.
MSU FSG researchers and their colleagues have been carrying out integrated programs of applied research, capacity building, and policy dialogue focused on food security—largely in Africa—since the early 1980s, building on insights from two decades of earlier projects that addressed agricultural and rural development. Three ten-year food security cooperative agreements—from 1982 through 2012—have been funded by USAID central offices and country and regional missions.
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African nations have long been subjected to extraversion logics from any standpoint... We need to start from our perspectives... Inside out.
One wonders a lot after all these years of institutional research and extensive publications over the woes preventing african development, what are those institutions awaiting to do to fix the imbalances...
In many ways such same institutions have to be seen as the cause of such issues challenging the very survival of Africa...
When will these institutions realize that all is needed is going straight to the farmers, allowing them to produce more while providing them with the market information they need to better value their professions?
2011 have proven to have brought to light, governments rhetoric on development... Civil societies in most countries have helped substantiate such a truth... to the expenses of lives... Now it's clear that non-formal actors are the key players, what more is needed before these bureaucrats start paying attention to those that produce the grains..?
M. Demba
http://comengip.org
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