My name is Klaus Fleissner and I'm an International Research Staff of AVRDC (The World Vegetable Center) in Cameroon. 

I completely agree with Francis Chilenga's statement (Message 18) on the importance of rural resource centers. I would like to emphasize especially the importance of non-governmental rural resource centers, because rural non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) are closer to the needs of the people in rural areas! I consider rural resource centers as one of the most effective scaling-out (and even scaling-up) tools for agricultural innovations. In Cameroon, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) has developed local NGOs into rural resource centers to promote agroforestry and they have been very successful in reaching a large number of farmers. AVRDC has over the last years developed a local CBO into a competent and successful "vegetable resource center" and we reached hundreds of vegetable producers with this! But to avoid countless numbers of rural resource centers, I propose to create synergies and establish rural resource center, which are able to address several components of the farming system of the surrounding farming communities (e.g. agroforestry and vegetable production or agroforestry, crop and livestock production). It would really be a worthwhile investment for donors to provide funds to develop the capacities of local NGOs and CBOs into multifunctional rural research centers!

Dr. Klaus Fleissner
Agronomist\Breeder - Vegetable Cropping Systems
AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center
West and Central Africa
Liaison Office Cameroon
P.O. Box 2008 
Messa, 
Yaoundé, 
Cameroon
T  + (237) 22 10 84 48 
M + (237) 76 78 14 89
Skype: fleissner_kwe
E-mail: klaus.fleissner (at) worldveg.org
http://avrdc.org
 
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