Constraints and Strategies for the Development of the Seed System in Mozambique

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Directorate of Economics, Republic of Mozambiquefood security, food policy, Mozambique, seed system, Crop Production/Industries, Q18,

SHG banking: A financial technology for reaching marginal areas and the very poor : NABARD's program of promoting local financial intermediaries owned and managed by the rural poor in India

Reaching 100 million of India?s rural poor with savings and credit by 2008: This is NABARD?s goal through its SHG banking program, leveraging the strength of the formal banking system and the flexibility of informal self-help groups in providing adequate financial services to the rural poor. Through NGOs, government agencies and banks, vast numbers of self-help groups have been established in recent years: as selfreliant autonomous local financial intermediaries. 85% of the members are women; they have proven to be the better savers, borrowers and investors. Most of them are from the lowest castes and other disadvantaged groups. The SHGs mobilize their own savings, transform them into loans to members and plow their earnings from interest income back into equity. On that basis, SHGs and banks enter into commercial relations of mutual benefit, with low bank and client transaction costs and negligible risks. In the absence of interest rate restrictions and with repayment rates >99%, SHG banking is highly profitable – a message that has convinced hesitant bank managers in increasing numbers. SHGs are now forming local networks with their own cooperative financial institutions. The program has turned into a social movement, with high expansion rates in recent years. Fuelled by competence and enthusiasm at all stakeholder levels, it expands rapidly throughout India, including marginal and tribal areas. It is probably the world?s largest and most successful microfinance program for the rural poor – outstanding in its emphasis on self-reliance and local autonomy of the very poor. Here are some outreach and performance figures (Dec. 2000): - 364,000 SHGs established as autonomous financial intermediaries; - 5.8 million SHG members - 30 million rural poor covered as household members - 194,500 SHGs credit-linked to banks - 380 banks and 8000 bank branches involved as bank partners - Non-performing bank loans to SHGs: 0% - 750 NGOs and many GOs involved as social mobilizers and facilitators. A TAG to disseminate SHG banking in Asia – reaching hundreds of millions: NABARD is now facing the combined challenges of how to disseminate the approach throughout India and the region; and how to continue financing the incremental costs of technical and financial assistance to the participating agencies. This calls for a coordinated donor effort: with the objective of strengthening and mainstreaming the program in India and disseminating it throughout the Asia region. IFAD, together with ADB and other donors, might play a key role: promoting financial services that benefit hundreds of millions of the rural poor in Asia. As a first step, a feasibility study is suggested in preparation of a TAG for assessing, packaging and mainstreaming SHG banking innovations and disseminating them throughout India and the Asia region. Cooperating partners may include ADB, SDC, GTZ, NABARD and APRACA. --

Lessons Learned from a Decade of Sudden Oak Death in California: Evaluating Local Management

Sudden Oak Death has been impacting California’s coastal forests for more than a decade. In that time, and in the absence of a centrally organized and coordinated set of mandatory management actions for this disease in California’s wildlands and open spaces, many local communities have initiated their own management programs. We present five case studies to explore how local-level management has attempted to control this disease. From these case studies, we glean three lessons: connections count, scale matters, and building capacity is crucial. These lessons may help management, research, and education planning for future pest and disease outbreaks

empathi: An ontology for Emergency Managing and Planning about Hazard Crisis

In the domain of emergency management during hazard crises, having sufficient situational awareness information is critical. It requires capturing and integrating information from sources such as satellite images, local sensors and social media content generated by local people. A bold obstacle to capturing, representing and integrating such heterogeneous and diverse information is lack of a proper ontology which properly conceptualizes this domain, aggregates and unifies datasets. Thus, in this paper, we introduce empathi ontology which conceptualizes the core concepts concerning with the domain of emergency managing and planning of hazard crises. Although empathi has a coarse-grained view, it considers the necessary concepts and relations being essential in this domain. This ontology is available at https://w3id.org/empathi/

Farmers, seeds and varieties : supporting informal seed supply in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is characterized by an enormous diversity in agro-ecosystems, crops and varieties, with the informal seed systems dominant in seed supply for almost all crops. The book addresses strategies and approaches through which professionals can support informal seed supply, and links these with the conservation and use of the huge genetic resource base of crops and local varieties. The book looks at informal seed supply from a number of different angles, introduces key concepts and strategies, and presents case studies from Ethiopia and other countries. It deals with the technical aspects of, quality and availability of, and access to seed, and of supporting informal supply. It also deals with the role of farmers in the conservation and management of local crops and varieties, and the participation of farmers and communities in plant breeding and research. It takes a particular interest in the role of farmer organizations in seed supply, and how this role can be strengthened by developing community and small-scale seed enterprises. The aim of all the strategies, case studies and reflections on experiences presented in this book is to improve the availability of and access to quality seeds and varieties, thereby improving the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in Ethiopia and beyond

Office of Regulatory Affairs Strategies for Building an Integrated National Laboratory Network for Food and Feed

An interconnected network of accredited federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial laboratories is critical to ensuring the safety of the U.S. food supply and the development of the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS). In 2004, as part of a national policy to defend the U.S. food supply against terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies, the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) was created to integrate the nation’s multilevel (i.e., federal, state, local, tribal, territorial) food-testing laboratories to detect, identify, respond to, and recover from a bioterrorism act affecting the safety of the food supply, or a public health emergency/outbreak involving the food supply. Since 2004, federal agencies have invested an estimated $200 million in FERN. The majority of this investment has been in the FERN cooperative agreements with FDA and USDA-FSIS investing$95.8 million and $69 million, respectively. FDA has promoted the accreditation of state laboratories through cooperative agreement funding, investing more than$50 million to fund these grants. On November 11, 2014, the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) requested that the FDA Science Board establish a subcommittee to evaluate current investments in: (1) the FERN cooperative agreement funding program (CAP), and (2) funding for state laboratories to achieve International Organization for Standardization (ISO) accreditation. The goal was to ascertain how ORA can advance and establish an effective integrated laboratory network among ORA, FDA Center, and state public health and food- and feed-testing laboratories. In response to this request, the Science Board created the ORA FERN Cooperative Agreement Evaluation Subcommittee on July 1, 2015. This report summarizes the results of the Subcommittee’s review

Dancing on a Pin: Health Planning in Arizona

This publication challenges us to step back and reflect on the past, present and future of health systems. Take a deeper look at planning and how we got here, review the roles of competition and regulation, and learn about the health planning matrix along with the concept of health planning bridges. Discover for yourself if these thoughts and tools help the signal of quality health planning rise more clearly from out of the noise