Knowledge Management Portal

Part I: a basic introduction to KM (definition, processes, technologies, role of people, leadership, culture) that could be used as a guideline for partners to complete the second part Part II: It consists in co-designing the innovation plan tailored for each institution, on the basis of the identified needs related to the KM processes and the feasible solutions to be proposed at capacity building level.

Blog about joint meeting of the FAO-CIHEAM network on sheep and goats during 23-25 October 2019. Meknes, Morocco. Efficiency and resilience of forage resources and small ruminant production to cope with global challenges in Mediterranean areas. The objectives of this meeting were to study and improve the sheep and goat production systems of the Mediterranean Region.

“Knowledge Management is therefore a conscious strategy of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organizational performance” O'Dell & Grayson, 1998

Part I: a basic introduction to KM (definition, processes, technologies, role of people, leadership, culture) that could be used as a guideline for partners to complete the second part Part II: It consists in co-designing the innovation plan tailored for each institution, on the basis of the identified needs related to the KM processes and the feasible solutions to be proposed at capacity building level.

The three-day conference included 18 sessions, representatives of international and intergovernmental organizations, high-level experts and representatives of Mediterranean cities shared their experiences and discussed strategies towards more sustainable food systems that take into account the major challenges to overcome in the Mediterranean region, by linking consumption and production through the Mediterranean diet in a sustainable and healthy way.

In an uncertain socio-economic and climatic context, sustainable farming is a major challenge for farmers as well as for their agricultural advisors. It is therefore essential to develop a decision support tool (DST) that is likely to be useful to establish and evaluate new production strategies, in accordance with farm sustainability and environmental protection. This paper aims, by using the Agricultural Activity concept, to put forward and test a DST based on mathematical programming used to evaluate strategic production decisions, in conjunction with farmers and agricultural advisors. In the test case, the decisions concern the crop activities and their spatiotemporal combinations in order to reduce both the use of herbicides and the risk of weed resistance to herbicides in cereal-based production systems. Moreover, the DST considers the availability of the workforce during the crop cycle to determine the periods which are likely to require the most significant increase in comparison to the current situation. One scenario showing the current situation (Sc_baseline) and two alternative scenarios have been defined to address the weed-herbicide issue. The comparison of the scenario promoting soil tillage and the introduction of spring crops with Sc_Baseline has shown that the adoption of long-term rotations, the increase in winter crop frequency and the return to deep soil tillage have contributed to an increase in farmer income, total labor and water consumption by 7, 21 and 22% respectively. However, the intensity of pesticide use and nitrate fertilization have dropped by 15% and 17% respectively. By allowing the farmer to establish specific contracts for certain crops, the average income as well as the use of pesticide and nitrate fertilization were increased by at least 10%. This situation is the result of a simplification of rotations with a predominance of winter cereals and the elimination of deep soil tillage. The analysis of these scenarios shows that the use of the DST has made it possible not only to put forward and evaluate alternatives that result in strategic decisions but also to understand, with the concept of Agricultural Activity, the biophysical and technical processes relating to farmer decisions and their impacts at field and farm level. Understanding and sharing this functional chain at farm level is expected to strengthen the farmer-advisor relationship in order to address the complex challenges of farming system sustainability.

The communication plan is designed to support the two main objectives of the IFAD-funded initiative ‘Strengthening knowledge management for greater development effectiveness in the Near East, North Africa, Central Asia and Europe’: • Enhancing the knowledge management (KM) skills of key rural institutions and other stakeholders in Moldova, Morocco and Sudan • Fostering and promoting knowledge exchange across in-country, cross-country and transregional partners to facilitate improved knowledge uptake, transfer, and management. The plan reflects the principles and recommendations set out in IFAD’s Strategy for Knowledge Management1, recognizing that effective KM can play a critical role in the promotion of new solutions to tackle rural poverty, and understanding that KM must be rooted in core competencies and embedded in the work processes, cultures and mindsets of organizations to be effective. The plan provides a framework that outlines strategies to implement the following outcomes.

Strengthening Knowledge Management for Greater Development Effectiveness: Inception Workshop day 1 and 2.