Document(s) 13 of 39

Abstract: Millions of dollars are spent each year on research and development (R&D) initiatives to improve rural livelihoods in the developing world. Despite these expenditures, rural poverty remains an intractable problem in many places. Among the many causes of this situation is the limited collective learning that occurs between researchers, development workers, donors, policy makers and private enterprise. As a result, useful research does not reach the poor, lessons learned do not influence research, donor or policy agendas are less relevant then they could be - and development falters. This paper describes how the Rural Agroenterprise Development Project of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT for its Spanish acronym) is tackling this problem by building learning alliances that engage multiple stakeholders with multi-layered sources of knowledge in processes of innovation to promote increased learning and effectiveness in rural entrepreneurial development.

Document(s) 13 of 39