Global Workshop on Cash Transfers

Learning Workshop

Date: 17th - 19th November 2009
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Organisation: World Food Programme, supported by the government of Spain

The workshop  was convened jointly by the Policy Planningand Strategy Division (OEDP) and the Programme Design and Support Division (OMXD) of WFP (OMXD). The purpose was to review the experiences of WFP country offices in cash and voucher (C&V) programmes, and to identify lessons learned and policy and operational issues requiring follow up. It provided a forum for the exchange of information among WFP staff and with a number of invited external (non-WFP) participants, and generated inputs for the improvement and finalization of draft WFP guidelines.

Click here to view WFP's policy to find out more about their cash and voucher (C&V) programmes and the lessons being learned.

Agriculture and Rural Development Day

Date: 12th December 2009
Location: Copenhagen

A group of more than 300 policymakers, farmers and scientists meeting in Copenhagen urged on negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to recognise agriculture’s vital role in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The event came on the heels of the FAO/GoDenmark event and preceded Forest Day on 13 December.

To see the outcomes from this event click here.

How to Balance Food Security with Sustainability of Agriculture Production

Date: 18th – 20th February 2010
Location: Wilton Park, UK

This event was supported by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA); Associated British Foods; and Cargill. The conference focused key questions surrounding food security and sustainable agriculture production including; How to balance the need to meet increased demand for food with the ability to increase production given climate change, scarcity of land and the depletion of resources? What is a sustainable diet? How will this change and with what impact on the needs of agriculture? What trends in foreign direct investment and with what impacts? How to square the circle between enabling countries to ensure adequate food supplies for their populations yet guarantee food to net food importing countries? What should international food and agricultural policies look like for the next fifty years? 

For more information on this event please click here.

Land Investment and Development

Date: 24th January 2010
Location: Rome, Italy

Land tenure and access to land are key to a number of rural development issues, not to mention basic economic and social human rights, such as the right to food.

Land Day focused on land and associated agro-industry related global challenges with a long-term rural development perspective.

It provided an important opportunity to share knowledge on the diversity of initiatives related to land policies, land governance and investment and rural development, and provided a menchanism to move towards identifying a tool kit for improved coordination among stakeholders.

Click here to see the programme and for further details on this event.

Global Donor Platform for Rural Development Annual General Assembly

Date: 26-27 January, 2010
Location: Rome, Italy.

Co-hosted by IFAD and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and drawing over 100 participants from the donor community, international financial institutions, foundations, farmers’ organisations and CSOs, the Assembly sought to advance the Platform’s strategic agenda through four thematic working sessions.26 January1. Agriculture and Climate Change.

For more information on this event and to view all presentations please click here.  

Training course: Facilitating Community-based Planning

Learning Seminar: Information, Communication & Technology

Date: Feb. 20, 2010
Location: India International Centre (IIC),New Delhi
Organisation: AIDMAT

Future change leaders have to be geared through the channels of the graduate entrepreneurship process with new technological support backed up by ideas incubating in to innovations. In order to promote and inculcate a spirit of innovation in India, many steps have been taken by both the government of India as well as by Industry leaders to encourage application of breakthrough technology ideas in the society. Some of them have been documented but the majority have remained unnoticed and unsorted.

The objective of the ICT-3Is is to create an innovation eco-system in the country by sensitizing, encouraging and promoting innovators and facilitating commercialization of the innovations through training and incubating young potential entrepreneurs. It would also enhance employability of youth with ideas and creative mindset.

Click here for more information on this course.  
 

4th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation

Date: 21st – 27th February

Location: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Training course: Managing for Impact in Development

Date: 8th – 19th March 2010

Location: South Africa

Provider: Khanya Aicdd

The workshop will include theories and backgrounds; methodologies and tools related to the core areas of the managing for impact approach. The core topics which will be treated in detail include strategic and operational planning and participatory monitoring and evaluation, with the managing for impact perspective.

For more information on this course please click here.

How can tourism lead to poverty reduction?

Date: 8 March, 2010 - 17:30-19:00
Location: Overseas Development Institute

Spending by tourists in developing countries is almost three times the level of official development assistance. But to date, assessments of the poverty impact of this major business sector have been largely unsatisfactory and the big question remains. How can tourism drive poverty reduction?

Jonathan Mitchell and Caroline Ashley will launch their new book,‘Tourism and Poverty Reduction: Pathways to Prosperity’, which examines the poverty-reducing impacts of tourism across a range of developing countries.

To find out more about this event or to rgister for this event please click here.  

Gender in Rural Development

Date: March 11th
Location: UN HQ, New York

The Gender Team within the Agricultural and Rural Development Department (ARD) at the World Bank will be holding a one day, joint consultation with UNIFEM and UNDP at the UN Headquarters in New York on March 11th. This consultation will highlight ARD's recent publication of the Gender and Governance in Rural Services: Insights from India, Ghana and Ethiopia and will explore ways to streamline gender in governance work being carried out by these three agencies. The consultation will feature panels on the various work the three agencies are doing in the gender and governance sphere, lessons learned from work done in the field, ways forward and other gender and governance topics. The Key Note Speaker for this event will be Anne-Marie Goetze, Chief Advisor for Governance Peace and Security,UNIFEM.

Click here to go to ARD website.

Agenda 2010: The turning Poinnt on Poverty

DFID Conference on the Millennium Development Goals

Date: 11th March, 2010

At the turn of the Millennium, world leaders came together to make a historic commitment to halve global poverty by 2015.  We are now five years away from 2015, the target date for achieving the millennium developments goals. The international community is preparing for the MDG Summit in September 2010. Great strides have been made in achieving the MDGs, but the world is changing fast and there is much more to do.

These changes present both challenges and opportunities. In order to gain a better understanding of current reality and analyse its implications for development policy and practice DFID is hosting an international conference on the MDGs. The aim is to bring together around 80 leading technical experts as well as key ministers and policy makers from developing countries to discuss to discuss both the specific actions needed to meet the most off-track MDGs (hunger and nutrition, education and health) and the conditions required to meet these – such as economic growth, stable states, the empowerment of women and addressing climate change.

Click here for more information on the conference.  

Vietnam Global Program for Avian Influenza

Learning Event: Vietnam Global Program for Avian Influenza

Date: April 14-17, 2010

ARD and Human Development Network (HDN) in collaboration with the Government of Vietnam are organizing a learning event for task team leaders (TTLs) and their country counterparts managing the WB’s Global Program for Avian Influenza (GPAI).

A recent review of the GPAI revealed that the projects in the portfolio are complex from both technical and institutional standpoints, and the implementation difficulty will likely increase over time as projects are
restructured to reflect a shift from emergency response to longer term development.

The learning event which will also be attended by specialists from WHO, FAO, OIE , UNICEF and UNSIC will identify good practice and draw on lessons learnt implementing the GPAI portfolio, and serve as a guide as the WB and partners move forward on One health agenda. It will comprise clinics and a field trip and it is intended to support the efforts of TTLs implementing GPAI projects and other operations where animal and human health are integrated.

Recommendations from the learning event will inform technical and operational practice and the results of this learning event will be captured as a Knowledge Product for wider use across the Networks and Regions of the World Bank.

Click here to go to the ARD website.

Learning Workshop; Gender Equity & Micro Enterprise Development

Date: 19 April - 23 April, 2010
Location: New Delhi, India
Provider: IDMAT
  
Women produce half of the world’s food supply and account for 60% of the working force but comprise only 10% of the world’s economy and surprisingly own less than 1% of the real estate. They have little access to productive resources and negligible control over family income. This discrimination is the result of gender bias, which forms an inherent part of the global society.

The general observation is that there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. This reflects the trends also prevailing in other spheres of economic activities where males greatly outnumber females. Entrepreneurship is a Herculean task, which is fraught with struggle, entailing both risk and efforts. While women have to go through same stages of setting up an enterprise as do men, and face similar challenges, irrespective of gender based social impediments like social stigma, unfavorable infrastructure, support systems, etc. which block their entry and reduce their pace of growth.

Removing these impediments in the existing set up of micro enterprise development has assumed a critical significance for the economic development of women. The need today is to help women overcome these blockades and draw maximum participation from them to set up micro enterprises, which will help them, achieve self reliance and place them at par with their male counterparts.

 
Objectives of the course:

• Develop gender sensitivity vis-à-vis participation of women in Micro Enterprise Development.
   
• Examine the processes of Gender inequality and their disfunctionality affecting the participation of women in micro enterprises.
   
• Understand the processes of promoting MED through active participation of women.
   
• Acquire skills of identification of potential women entrepreneurs and learn designing and conducting enterprise development motivation training for them.
   
• Be able to explore various learning mechanisms to set up Micro-Enterprises and update the methods of managing activities, develop tools and instruments for effective monitoring and evaluation of promoted entrepreneurs.

Click here for more information on this course.
 

Annual Land Governance Conference

Date: April 26-27, 2010

ARD, in collaboration with DECRG, will be hosting the annual Land Governance Conference to coincide with the Spring Meetings. This year's conference, which features cutting edge research from around the world, will focus on the themes of land governance and large-scale, land acquisition for agro-investment. A draft program will be available on the ARD website along with papers and presentations in April.