Van Mele, Paul

An international project called PADS promoted participatory learning and action research with inland valley rainfed rice farmers in West Africa. All countries received the same training, similar funding, and the same leadership. Although the staff in Ghana were conscientious and gave much training to the farmer beneficiaries, the Mali staff explicitly encouraged farmers to experiment. […]

Africa Rice Centre (WARDA) facilitated the development and translation of 11 rice videos. From 2005 to 2009, WARDA partners translated them into more than 30 African languages. Open-air video presentations enhanced learning, experimentation, confidence, trust, and group cohesion among rural people. The videos strengthened capacities of more than 500 organisations and hundreds of thousands of […]

PETRRA was an agricultural research-management project which used a values-based approach in project design, planning, and implementation. Through an experiential learning process, agricultural research and development (R&D) institutes, NGOs, private agencies, and community-based organisations rediscovered and improved the understanding of their strengths in meeting development commitments. The project successfully showed how values-based research can meaningfully […]