The ISSD Africa Community of Practice prioritises the co-creation and sharing of knowledge-focused solutions to complex bottlenecks that hamper seed sector development in Africa. The CoP brings together experiences and insights from not only our own activities, but also enables open sharing of learning from partners’ own initiatives and programmes.
At the core of ISSD Africa’s action research are four distinct – yet highly complementary – action learning projects, namely;
- ALP 1: Resilient & diverse seed systems (led by the Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT and WCDI),
- ALP 2: Humanitarian seed response in fragile and conflict-affected states (led by Mercy Corps and SeedSystem),
- ALP 3: Seed business development in fragile contexts (led by Mercy Corps and IFDC) and,
- ALP 4: Seed governance and peace (led by WCDI and KIT).
While ISSD Africa has traditionally focused on longer-term seed sector development outcomes, this new phase pays specific attention to seed sectors in contexts where humanitarian needs require attention to emergency seed and peacebuilding interventions.
Under ALP 1, the programme’s activities build resilience and capacity for local, farmer managed seed systems to adapt to and continue to function in times of conflict and/or climate-related crises. Under ALP 2, activities help strengthen the local suitability and sustainability of emergency seed interventions, supporting humanitarian actors to think and act systemically. Under ALP 3, activities support actors to intervene in seed sectors in fragile contexts from a market-oriented perspective, supportive of local and national seed businesses. And under ALP 4, seed governance is addressed from a peacebuilding perspective in which governance mechanisms are inclusive of, and build agreements and strategies on, the diverse, and often competing, priorities of seed sector stakeholders.
In each action learning project, collaborative teams strategise, design and implement on-the-ground action research, stakeholder workshops and knowledge product development. The action learning projects are supported by an international coordination unit, which helps to scale emerging insights and products to international audiences and fora. This is achieved through the convening of international events that enable the validation of emerging insights, the forging of new connections and partnerships and the integration of ISSD Africa outputs into wider humanitarian, development and peacebuilding interventions on seed.