The perspective that informs this important book is that every evaluation of a capacity development effort should itself contribute to the capacity development effort and ultimately to the organization’s performance. This is a revolutionary idea in evaluation. With the idea have come the questions: Can it be done? And, if it is done, what will be the consequences? This book elucidates and deepens the idea, shows it can be done, and examines the consequences, both intended and unintended, of engaging in capacity development evaluation
Sustainability of rural communities is threatened by a plethora of factors including climate change and disasters which interact in an intricate manner in making rural people vulnerable and poor. This book is the output of empirical research on communities and livelihood strategies in developing countries. It reveals how rural communities are functioning and earning their livelihoods by making the best use of the resources, local/internal or external/new and the combination of the two to counteract the various challenges they face, with the ultimate goal of becoming resilient to local or global shocks and sustaining that resilience. Local governance is identified as crucial in ensuring sustainable livelihoods as it ensures healthy collaboration between communities, on the one hand and civil society and those communities, on the other hand, in promoting self-sustaining development trajectories. Similarly, the role of social capital is not ignored as it brings in community drive and a sense of purpose, direction and solidarity among community members which facilitates problem solving in periods of crises and disasters.
It is estimated that around 1.3 billion tons per year of food produced for human consumption, which is about one-third of all food produced, is either lost or wasted globally. Reduction of the postharvest losses is being considered as one of the sustainable ways to ensure world food security. Postharvest Extension and Capacity Building for the Developing World provides information on postharvest extension/outreach programs, capacity building, and practical methodologies for postharvest extension professionals and food science teachers, food processing trainers, and outreach specialists who work in the field. The book provides information on training of postharvest trainers, food loss assessment methods, capacity building in universities and agro-industry, distance education methods, models for cost effective postharvest/food processing extension work, success stories, and lessons learned from past projects and programs. The book is divided into four sections. Section I explains postharvest loss assessments methods, Section II is on capacity building, and Sections III and IV focus on training and postharvest extension models. Food loss assessment methodologies are highlighted from several high-profile institutions and it is envisioned that researchers and postharvest extension personnel will benefit from the development and field testing of a hybrid methodology, incorporating the strengths and utilizing the best practices from each of the methodologies in current use. Chapters cover postharvest extension work and capacity building in a wide range of regions.
Over the past decade, there have been many international calls to strengthen and support/sustain research capacity in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This capacity is considered an essential foundation for cost-effective healthcare systems. While there have been long-standing investments by many countries and research funding organisations in the training of individuals for this purpose, in many LMICs research capacity remains fragmented, uneven and fragile. There is growing recognition that a more systems-oriented approach to research capacity-building is required. Nonetheless, there are considerable gaps in the evidence for approaches to capacity-building that are effective and sustainable. This book addresses these gaps, capturing what was learned from teams working on The Global Health Research Initiative. This book brings together the experiences of research capacity-building teams co-led by Canadians and LMIC researchers in several regions of the world, including China, Chile, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.
Guidebooks on Knowledge Management (KM) practice have been developed by several institutions but they propose a variety of methods and tools that can be overwhelming for a beginning KM practitioner in the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) sector. CTA’s KM team explored if a framework could be developed to understand KM and a shortlist of KM methods and tools identified, providing a useful starting point for beginning KM practitioners.
This book investigates the role of wealth in achieving sustainable rural economic development. The authors define wealth as all assets net of liabilities that can contribute to well-being, and they provide examples of many forms of capital – physical, financial, human, natural, social, and others. They propose a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation that considers how multiple forms of wealth provide opportunities for rural development, and how development strategies affect the dynamics of wealth. They also provide a new accounting framework for measuring wealth stocks and flows. These conceptual frameworks are employed in case study chapters on measuring rural wealth and on rural wealth creation strategies. Rural Wealth Creation makes numerous contributions to research on sustainable rural development. Important distinctions are drawn to help guide wealth measurement, such as the difference between the wealth located within a region and the wealth owned by residents of a region, and privately owned versus publicly owned wealth. Case study chapters illustrate these distinctions and demonstrate how different forms of wealth can be measured. Several key hypotheses are proposed about the process of rural wealth creation, and these are investigated by case study chapters assessing common rural development strategies, such as promoting rural energy industries and amenity-based development. Based on these case studies, a typology of rural wealth creation strategies is proposed and an approach to mapping the potential of such strategies in different contexts is demonstrated. This book will be relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers looking at rural community development, sustainable economic development, and wealth measurement.
