The challenge of HIV/AIDS: Where does agroforestry fit in? - World ...

76World Agroforestry into the FutureUntil recently, national research programmestended to be organized aroundcommodity sectors, which hampered integratedresearch into land managementissues. Now national research organizationsneed to attract funds to fulfil theirnew mandates in natural resources andland management research. The currentorthodoxy is that for such research to besuccessful, it should embrace the followingguidelines: be demand-driven throughparticipatory research, be interdisciplinaryin approach, be market-oriented, and helpintegrate technologies, institutions andpolicies. In doing so it will be able to offerfarming communities a range of landmanagement options that can overcomeconstraints and generate sustainable productivityincreases. Governments, includingthose in developing countries, need tomake long-term commitments to researchfunding, and must ensure that researchresults are better integrated into nationalpolicies and programmes. The experiencesof Brazil, China and India are a testamentto the extraordinary achievements that canresult from making strong commitments toresearch, and these impacts are being feltaround the world.Extension systems must become more flexiblein their approaches; farmers are increasinglydemanding information on marketopportunities and processing techniques inaddition to their typical production questions.Agents or facilitators must have muchlarger information networks and must haveadequate resources to access the informationand then transmit it to clients. Farmersalso demand different levels of service provision,from simple message transmissionto more sustained technical support. To improveland management, it is necessary topromote knowledge-intensive practices suchas integrated nutrient management as wellas more simple transmission of informationon output prices in different markets. Somesigns of this are occurring, for example,participatory rural appraisal is becomingmainstream, but financial resources are oftenthe binding constraints. There have alsobeen attempts to reduce national governments’share of costs and to move towards afee-for-service system, but the feasibility ofthis for poor smallholder farmers is a majorconcern. How to implement these conceptsin practice has remained elusive for themost part.The role of research inshaping land managementpolicy reformsContributions by ICRAF and itspartners in policy reform processesAlthough the Centre has not emphasizeda policy research programme, it has hadmodest success in contributing to positivepolicy change. One of the key policy areasin which the Centre has undertaken a significantamount of research is land and treetenure in Africa and Asia (Fay et al. 1998;Otsuka and Place 2001; Place 1995; Tomichet al. 1997; Traore and van Dorp 2004).This has helped to generate knowledge onthe effects of different tenure arrangementson NRM, and has led to several local tenurechanges in Africa, the development ofa pilot tenure reform in Indonesia (Tomichet al. 1998), and the provision of technicaladvice to global tenure reform processes(e.g. presentations at World Bank and UN-Economic Commission for Africa workshopson tenure issues for Africa).ICRAF and its partners (national agriculturalresearch institutes and universities)have undertaken a large number of studiesrelated to understanding farmers’ NRMdecision-making processes and outcomes.This has also taken place throughout Africaand Asia and has helped to identify majorconstraints and opportunities on whichnew policies and programmes can bebased (Barrett et al. 2002). These have beenpublished in several different media, includingpolicy briefs, and have found theirway into some of the major developmentinitiatives from the United Nations MillenniumProject and the World Bank.Apart from policy research per se, the Centrehas invested significant effort into seeingthat its broader research results reachpolicy makers. The Centre has helpedto bring the concept of agroforestry intomainstream policy documents, researchprogrammes, extension services and developmentprojects. Examples include:the formation of agroforestry research programmesin many African national researchinstitutions, where previously they did notexist; the creation of agroforestry curriculain more than a hundred universities andcolleges throughout the developing world;generation of national agroforestry strategiesand networks in some countries; theexplicit mention of agroforestry in increasingnumbers of global and national policydocuments; and contribution to specificmajor policy and programmatic initiativessuch as the New Partnership for Africa’sDevelopment (NEPAD) agricultural strategy(NEPAD 2003), the World Bank’s SoilFertility Initiative and the UN’s Hunger TaskForce strategy to reduce hunger in Africa.Supporting future policy reformsThere are three major areas where researchfrom an international organization such asthe Centre can best support policy debatesand reforms and improve smallholder landmanagement.1. Identification of land managementproblems and opportunities. Thisinvolves the understanding of how bio-