Community of Innovation Facilitators

Innovation Support Services has emerged as a vital link between niche-level innovators and Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS). Furthermore, the first cycle of support for DeSIRA projects underscored the critical need for effective innovation facilitation, which was often overlooked or inadequately addressed in project designs and strategies.

To address this gap, DeSIRA-LIFT has embarked on training innovation facilitators for DeSIRA projects in its second cycle of support. This region-based training aims to equip cohorts of innovation facilitators to effectively support ongoing DeSIRA projects while also preparing them to contribute to other projects and organizations beyond the DeSIRA scope.

The purpose of this Community for Innovation Facilitators

Strengthening Cohorts and providing a space for ongoing collaboration to exchange best practices, address challenges, share achievements, and contribute effectively to project outcomes.
Sustaining Innovation Trajectories: DeSIRA-LIFT aims to sustain innovation processes across different regions and projects by fostering ongoing communication and collaboration among Innovation Facilitators. This continuity helps keep stakeholders engaged and ensures a seamless progression of innovation initiatives.
Professional Recognition: DeSIRA-LIFT sees value in supporting certification schemes to recognize Innovation Facilitators as a profession formally. This involves defining standards, and certification processes, and establishing professional bodies or associations to promote and uphold quality standards globally.

Training pathway

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Testimonies from trained Innovation Facilitators

Gabriela Gomez- AGROINNOVA project

The training of Innovation Facilitators in Latin America is an excellent opportunity to strengthen our capacities for those who are directly involved with facilitating innovations in the field. I think that all the tools that were given to us so far are excellent, which will allow us to be better at our jobs, and obtain better results with the objective that the men and women rural producers benefit from this knowledge. All the materials related to the Theory of Change are interesting to me, taking into consideration that in projects with origin in 2019, like AGROINNOVA, the theory of change was not a concept that was implemented or the log frame. It would be important for us to have coaching about the theory of change to make the results more tangible and to prepare us for future project development.

Jaimmy Caceres – ABRIGUE

The training was very helpful. We don’t know how to innovate, we don’t have the right skills, despite that many of us are researchers who have worked in academic processes, motivating innovation is not that simple. I believe that learning to facilitate is very important and I think it would be fantastic to have done this course before because it strengthens our abilities to go to the communities and engage with the communities. We usually start by discussing what innovation is but it is important to have these methodologies and skills. Also, I believe that these exchanges between organizations are important. How to strengthen connections between organizations that are carrying out research and innovation, to get them to speak the same language. Even though each organization has strengths, it is hard to work together.

Matilde Acevedo – IDEAS

For us as community representatives, it has been very innovative and useful to understand the processes and how to improve our objectives: to understand the importance of governance processes, and for us leaders to be aware of our roles and how to improve to achieve the communities’ objectives. For future courses, I would like to see training on how to improve my communication skills and have tools to improve the organization of the many events that I am involved with.

Valentina Fonseca Cepeda – IDEAS

I like very much that on the one hand, it is rich to hear about other projects’ experiences, because we sometimes think that we are alone in the challenges we face, and it turns out that many other projects face the same challenges. To listen to how others solve these processes is very fulfilling. On the other hand, the approach is very interesting because particularly during the last years we have gotten skills in negotiation and persuasion, which is very useful for us. For the future, I would like to go deeper into the tools learned. Something important is the Theory of Change, which is crucial for us to understand and particularly the specific mechanisms of the donor, the EU, for example, what indicators, MEL, admin processes. These trainings are important for us to be aligned with the donor demands.

Yerson – ABRIGUE

Initially, the training was very practical and it allowed me to understand the concept of innovation and to facilitate innovation for our work as promoters of innovation in the field. The training has given me very valuable tools, practical tools and information management to work in my daily life as a facilitator. About the content, it has been very punctual given the short time. I would have wanted to have more literature scientific or papers that we could read in our work.

Yesid Rios – IDEAS

In terms of content, I had many expectations because innovation and facilitation is something that I don’t know about. In the spaces where I work, I always wanted to strengthen my skills, because I facilitate and interact with the communities and sometimes I feel short of tools to break the ice, capture the ideas of others and generate conclusions. This is one of the abilities of a facilitator that I want to strengthen. You have given us good tools and basses for the different tools and ways to approach. Active listening is key, to understanding the position of others and mine, many tools that I have learned I will use in the spaces of facilitation where I work. I believe one of my weaknesses is to synthesize the ideas. Once I get more familiar with the topics, I get better, but I know that sometimes we personalize things and it would be interesting to have more tools to be able to capture the central ideas and generate a synthesis. This is linked to planning.

Igor Costeira – Sustenta e Inova:

At this moment of transition to another project, this support is proving to be very helpful. This knowledge will surely assist me in energizing processes, interacting with project stakeholders, and applying the techniques that have been presented. Next week, we will have a restitution event that will already fit perfectly into this format. There are some expectations that were not completely met, so the techniques, theories, and group energizing methods that were presented will make all the difference for me. (Igor Costeira).

Bekele Hayle – Yayu Coffee, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS), Ethiopia:

Managerial skills to facilitate platforms are important because the EE Yayu DeSIRA project works with multi-actors from different disciplines, professions, policy and the structural sector. For example: how to manage diverse interests in conflict arrangements. Also, knowledge is important because different knowledge and skills are coming in so managing multi-actor modality, and capacity building in multi-actor modality, not only at my level but at field operation modality, is also similar.

Alfred Tsitsi – TAP AIS – FAO Malawi

This training of Innovation Facilitators has been very helpful. You know, we’ve been doing the capacity development initiatives in Malawi using more or less the same tools but what I find very interesting is that this training is a lot more practical and we have gained experiences and tools on how to navigate around complexities, for example, the group facilitation exercise I have found very helpful. But, perhaps we could find more ways of including practical real-life situations like having field visits maybe in the afternoon every day so that we get to practice the tools with farmers for example, or other stakeholders in real-life situations. That would be very helpful.

Austin Phiri, Department of Agricultural Research Services, Ministry of Agriculture- member of DeSIRA project Climate Smart Malawi

This training has come in timely for me because I have noticed through the training I needed to be capacitated with facilitation skills. I mean to be able to facilitate the process of innovation I realized requires to be capacitated with skills of engagement, skills of listening, skills of managing the flow of emitting to generate useful information for the process of innovating, many things I have learned I was not aware of before coming and undergo this particular training.

Chaluma Kicha, Population, Health and Environment Ethiopia Consortium (local NGO); Project Coordinator for Yayu DeSIRA, at local level

This innovation facilitator’s training is very important for those working in development organizations as well as for us working in governmental organizations. This has helped me and also my colleagues who are participating in the Innovation Facilitator’s training, this very impressive and very interesting to facilitate different workshops and other events with different stakeholders with government and non-government and local communities. For us how we organize different types of workshops from the beginning to the end, how we can capture different ideas from the audience and this is very important for us. For the future, I would like to be trained on different capacities for development especially as I am leading the project organization. I need more knowledge about leadership, how to lead multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary workshops, and how to lead organizations of multi-stakeholder.

Habte Wendime, Yayu Coffee Project.

I am so happy with this training because it’s impressive I have learned many things I have to do for the future [… ] because of many things that I am doing so far I should improve. It is impressive training, and very important for me. When we say training, we simply follow up a methodology of sharing from us to there, reading and listening. I learned so many things in this workshop. Doing or acting needs more thinking than only lecturing, so we are to think about this. And, I understand that we are talking about how we can simplify the training for other audiences. I learned how I could simplify when I give the training, in an easy way of communicating simply rather than lecturing. Also through our dialog, some activities and motivations, these things will improve my activities for the future.

Jean Bosco Nkurikiye, Agroforestry Rwanda. Researcher, doing PhD.

This training went beyond my expectations,[…] As a researcher, I came with my mind made. I just wanted to know what the role of a researcher in innovation facilitation is. When I saw the call for applications I said wow, so as I’m planning to have, if I may call it, a validation meeting, so how can I involve different stakeholders, different extensionists in my project, how can I involve them to make sure that my research reflects the reality on the ground. So, that is what motivated me to apply for this particular training, and it has met my expectations beyond that. I […] these are the two areas that I appreciated most from this training. The first one is how as a researcher I can be involved in innovation facilitation, we have seen the differences between researchers, trainers and also extensionists compared to facilitators, this was not clear to me before but during the training it was very clear and I am very happy for that. Secondly, I also benefited from how I can organize a workshop as a researcher not as an extensionist or as a trainer. I have been a trainer of different groups but I was not involved as a researcher-facilitator. So, now I will be able to apply in my next activities. Now, proposal writing for development projects that would be beneficial for me. Now I know how to engage stakeholders but proposal writing will be also beneficial.

Lata Hailu Gemechu, Jimma Agricultural Research. Yayu Coffee. Researcher.

Regarding the innovation facilitators training, I am very happy to participate in this training because I learned many things that will help me in my future tasks, so it is very interesting to participate in this training. I understand new things in different ways, for example, active listening, and how to facilitate workshops and meetings […] I’m very interested in being trained in leadership and scientific writing because they are very important for my tasks.

Meseret Assegid Worku, DARE project. Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Project Manager.

I found [this training] very helpful for my current project. It has given me kind of direction and guidance on how to engage with different stakeholders and how to keep them active in the project, as well as how to make them active in the project. I learned a lot from the participants because they came from different projects and were from different contexts. I learned a lot from the participants, particularly from the discussions and group work. Even some lessons I found it seems like easy for me and I didn’t notice myself and during the practical session when we teaching on how to facilitate, I got a little feedback from the trainer and the participants themselves so that was good learning for me and I will keep that to improve as a facilitator.

[…] or the future I suggest that maybe a kind of training related to how to design innovative type of projects. The (DARE) DeSIRA project has two components in my view, it should come in two faces, very interesting. It has a research component in the household, so implementing research outputs, so this kind of project is merged as one. For me, I would suggest how to design this kind of project, not only design but if also necessary to re-design or adjust between the implementation processes it would be good especially for the higher managers to participate in the design part to have kind of training on how to design this innovation projects contextualized to local situations, so it would be interesting.

The other thing that is important for the already started projects is how to track lessons, how to document these lessons for future interventions and future project design because this Innovation type of projects have a lot of lessons learned in between and there is a learning that also needs another type of intervention. So, it will be nice to have tools for tracking these kinds of lessons and how to document them for future intervention. This training is very important for the implementation process.

Mestawet Gebru, Alliance for Bioversity-CIAT in Addis Ababa Office. Project Ecofoodsystems. Research officer.

I find [the training] very interesting and very useful. As a researcher, we conduct a lot of qualitative and quantitative studies. And, for qualitative studies, it would be very important to have facilitation skills. We usually facilitate different workshops, and getting the different skills, and the things to do and not to do is very important. And, I find it very useful, especially with the current work that I am engaged in. We are conducting a study in the field, co-creation, participatory workshop with students so how to engage the students in the workshop and the meeting has helped me a lot. So, when I do this research I will use the techniques and skills that I learned in this workshop in the study that we are planning to conduct this is very helpful and I am very happy to be part of this training. [for the future…] One thing is the stakeholder analysis we have mentioned this would be very interesting to include as part of the stakeholder engagement.

Tilahun Deressa. Development agent. Yayu Coffee Project. Mettu Office.

We are taking innovation facilitation training here in Addis, Ethiopia. The training is very amazing and useful for the activities, that we conduct in our communities and it helps upgrade our level of understanding and find how to facilitate innovation within the community. It is very nice training.

We now have a deeper knowledge of facilitation skills. We have deep knowledge on how to facilitate innovation processes in the community so this training will be needed for the future to develop our skills on how to serve the community better. How to understand the mindset of people and the approach, as we have to now serve the community. [to me] Facilitation platforms are needed for the training, necessary facilitation skills: how to engage and interact with the community, especially on innovation technologies to upgrade the livelihoods of the communities.