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ECDPM event

Meeting

ECDPM – IFAD Seminar

IFAD and ECDPM’s objectives partly overlap, especially as regards the integration of small-scale farmers into structured value chains and the promotion of a propitious business environment for agricultural producers and agro-food value chain operators. Both organisations share a common approach to promoting dialogues to improve the policy and institutional environment of the farm and rural sectors, in particular by helping farmers organisations and other non-state stakeholders in gaining a more strategic and evidence-based stance in policy consultations.

Their main entry points for policy dialogue and pro-poor value chain development are somewhat different, yet they are complementary. IFAD has a rich experience in multi-stakeholder agricultural and rural development initiatives at the country level, which could be useful to ECDPM to gain exposure to local practitioners and local drivers of change, better inform CAADP-related policy processes and strengthen its role in linking policy and practice, regionally and locally. ECDPM has developed expertise and methods for facilitating inclusive policy dialogues and integrating political economy and governance concerns into policy debates. This could be useful to IFAD. The institutional profiles of IFAD and ECDPM point to opportunities for knowledge sharing, networking and partnership for engaging in policy processes.

The objectives of this seminar are to (1) share ECDPM’s perspectives and approaches for policy dialogue facilitation and networking support and (2) explore partnership opportunities between ECDPM and IFAD to enhance the effectiveness of their policy process facilitation and partnership-building activities, and, more broadly, the effectiveness of agricultural development assistance in Africa.