Presentations and Program

Opening

Ken Hackett, President, Catholic Relief Services

Keynote Address

Kathy Sierra, Vice President, Sustainable Development, The World Bank Chair, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

Introductory Session

Integral Human Development and the new CRS Agriculture and Environment Strategy

This session set the context, to understand CRS’ approach to development and how this informs the new CRS Agriculture and Environment Strategy. It illustrated the importance of a holistic approach to agricultural development, fostering inter-sectoral collaboration for greater synergy and impact. [session abstracts]

Presentations
  • Integral Human Development conceptual framework and the CRS Agriculture and Environment strategy. David Leege, Deputy Director, Program Quality and Support Department, CRS   [presentation]
  • Innovations in farmer group development: Five key skill sets. Geoff Heinrich, Senior Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment, CRS   [presentation]

Pillar Sessions

Pillar 1.  Agriculture for Emergency Response – Seeding Recovery

This session highlighted some of the experiences of CRS and practitioner partners in implementing quick and effective market-led responses to emergency situations, including assessing seed system dynamics and developing appropriate interventions. [session abstracts]

Moderators
  • Tom Osborn, FAO Agricultural Officer – Seed Security, FAO
Presentations
  • Emergency Seed Aid: Overview and Advances. Louise Sperling, Senior Scientist, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)   [presentation]
  • Seed systems and security assessment: Seed systems in four locations in El Salvador. Jose Angel Cruz, Director, Agriculture for Basic Needs, CRS/ El Salvador   [presentation]
  • Customer-focused: Seed vouchers & fairs in Burkina Faso. Tom Remington, Principal Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment, CRS/Africa   [presentation]
  • Seed system innovations: The Great Lakes Cassava Initiative. Stephen Walsh, Seed Team Leader, Great Lakes Cassava Initiative   [presentation]

Pillar 2.  Agriculture for Health – Nutrition for Vulnerable Populations

This panel brought together the experiences of various projects to emphasize the important links between agriculture, nutrition, water and sanitation, and health. [session abstracts]

Moderator
  • Anne Swindale, Director, FANTA-2
Presentations
  • Links for Life: Promoting Integrated HIV, Food and Nutrition Security Programming. Gwenelyn O’Donnell-Blake, Senior Food Security Technical Officer, Project Concern International   [presentation]
  • Keyhole gardens: Improving nutrition in HIV and AIDS programming. Sempe Lerotholi, Program Manager, CRS/ Lesotho   [presentation]
  • Arborloos: Improved hygiene intervention increases agricultural production. Mayling Simpson, Regional Technical Advisor for Health, Water/Sanitation and HIV/AIDS, CRS/ East Africa Region   [presentation]
  • Breaking the cycle of malnutrition: Totonicapán, Guatemala. Hugh Aprile, Head of Programming, CRS/ Guatemala   [presentation]

Pillar 3.  Agriculture for the Environment – Water and Weather

This session included examples from Asia, Africa, and Latin America that highlight interventions in agriculture and environment, the evolution of methods and the increasing need for inclusion of risk management in agriculture programs. [session abstracts]

Moderator
  • John Ambler, Vice President, Oxfam America
Presentations
  • Water, agriculture and learning in Central America: Going to scale with integrated agriculture/environment programs. Gaye Burpee, Deputy Regional Director for Program Quality, CRS/ Latin America Region   [presentation]
  • Water security and agro-enterprise for promotion of sustainable, licit livelihoods-Applying lessons from India to the Afghan context. Kamal Bhattacharyya, Regional Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment, CRS/ South Asia Region   [presentation]
  • Participatory integrated watershed management and livelihoods in drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. Zemede Abebe, Hararghe Catholic Secretariat, Ethiopia   [presentation]
  • No-tillage systems for climate variability adaptation. Rob Delve, Senior Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment – Soil Fertility, CRS/ Africa   [presentation]

Pillar 4.  Agriculture for Income—Finance for Scaling

This session highlighted experiences in making links with rural finance, how organization and self-management has helped to link farmers to markets, and ways of scaling up these approaches with both private and public partners. [session abstracts]

Moderator
  • Tom Kennedy, Cognizant Technical Officer, FIELD-Support LWA, USAID
Presentations
  • Integrating savings-led microfinance and agroenterprise: Chickpea value chain in Tanzania. Melita Sawyer, SILC Program Specialist, CRS [presentation]
  • MFI lending for scalable market-oriented agricultural production. Abebe Kabede, General Manager, Metemamen MFI, Ethiopia [presentation]
  • Scaling up navy bean production and exports in Ethiopia. Legesse Dadi, Agriculture/Natural Resources Management Manager, CRS/ Ethiopia and Don Seville, Co-Director, Sustainable Food Lab [presentation]
  • ACORDAR: Going to scale through a value chains GDA initiative. Jefferson Shriver, Chief of Party for ACORDAR, CRS/ Nicaragua [presentation]

Lunchtime demonstration

  • Micro-computers and distance learning platforms. Thomas Collette, Vice President for Educational Sales, Agilix Labs, Inc.

Learning Session

Agriculture and Learning – Leveraging Learning Alliances and ICT

This session highlighted some promising methods for agency-wide learning, partnerships with technology providers, the use of Global Information Systems and the using learning and knowledge management to facilitate scaling of agriculture initiatives. [session abstracts]

Moderators
  • Carol Bothwell, Chief Learning Officer, CRS
  • Shaun Ferris, Senior Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment, CRS
Presentations
  • Working Together, Learning Together: Learning Alliances in Agricultural Development. Rupert Best, Agriculture consultant [presentation]
  • Strengthening partnerships between the CGIAR and civil society. Ren Wang, Director, CGIAR [presentation]
  • Preparing for disaster: GIS and global emergency response in CRS. Chris Legg, GIS Consultant [presentation]
  • Shovel-ready ICT for rural field workers. Mathew Taylor, Intel Corporation [presentation]

Wrap Up

  • Sam Worthington, President and CEO, InterAction
  • Dorrett Byrd, Director of Program Quality and Support Department, CRS