Participatory evaluation of agroecological and socioeconomic innovations in Southern Cameroon

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Participatory evaluation of agroecological and
socioeconomic innovations in Southern Cameroon

• Mala Armand William
• Center for International Forestry Research
  (CIFOR)
• Central Africa Regional Office, Yaoundé

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Outline

• Context of RD in Cameroon
• Background elements of ASB
• Objectives and major findings of the evaluation
• Lessons learned

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Context

• Insuficient funds invested on RD over the past
  20 years
• Research activities are financed by external
  funds and short-term projects
• Crise of extension service
• Farmers fatigue

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Objectives of the 3rd phase ASB

• Three years project conducted between 1999-2004
  in Cameroon funded by EU.
• develop and articulate of new technological
  options along with appropriate policies and
  institutional arrangements for the humid forest
  zone
• develop replicable participatory assessment
  techniques and databases on the social, economic,
  and environmental performance of landscape
  mosaics
• develop methods and models for monitoring,
  assessing, and managing dynamic and uncertain
  environmental and economic interactions and the
  subsequent stakeholder conflicts over a range of
  ecological scales.

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Means for achieving objectives of ASB

• On-farm agronomic testing of a range of
  innovations
• Participatory appraisals and mapping
• Development of criteria and indicators for
  measuring agronomic sustainability
• Community action plans and models of landscape
  use change across a continuum of forest resource
  use pressures

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Purpose of participation evaluation

• Assess the impact of innovations on the
  transformation of socio-economic and natural
  capital as well as the general approach of the
  research

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Major findings

• Participatory action research has induced the
  transformations of the capital and financial
  capital when the collective choices were based on
  the consensus such like in the commercialization
  of the cocoa and horticultural crops
• Price of cocoa per kg has increased up to 250 in
  two years and the numbers of farmers
  organizations and their membership have increased
  significantly from 3 to 15 organizations within 3
  years to reach up to 1500 members

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Findings (contd)

• Changes related to agroecological innovations
  were difficult to capture because there was a
  discrepancy of the implementation of the project
  between the three pilots sites and more
  important, weve identified a gap between the
  social demand of agricultural technology and
  those tested by researchers

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Findings (contd)
Table 1. Gaps between social demand of
innovations and innovations introduced
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Findings

• Social and financial transformations were not
  consolidated in the absence of mechanisms of
  cyclical monitoring-evaluation, of transparency
  in financial management, communication and
  distribution of the benefits
• The links between agroecological and
  socio-economic innovations have been weakly
  articulated during the implementation of the
  project.

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Lessons learned

• Participatory action research can create a
  productive junction between knowledge production
  and transformation of reality when there is (i)
  a good coordination/collaboration of activities
  by stakeholders based on the effective
  distribution of the scientific and methodological
  responsibilities and of the benefits (ii) a
  fluidity of the intercultural communication and
  information flow on the object of research and
  the articulation of the perspectives (iii) a
  joint definition of the socio-ecological and
  institutional bases on which knowledge and the
  innovations will be internalised in
  spatio-temporal scale to improve social and
  economic gains
• Shift from classical RD approaches to
  innovations systems approach
• Issue of governance.

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Issues to our dream of RD in Africa

• RD in Africa should rely on niches where we have
  good comparative advantages leadership
• Industrialisation of agricultural and forest
  products (beef, coton, wood, coffee, cocoa)
• Increase inter-state market
• Funding issue
• Comitment of African governements to support RD
• Good governance.

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