AgriProFocus and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform (F&BKP) organize the webinar “Valuable Vegetables: synthesis of lessons from Dutch investments in the horticulture sector. Focus on: inclusiveness” on September 17. This webinar is by invitation only. 

The webinar will aim to:

• Share and discuss the lessons learned from programmes and private investments in the horticulture sector with specific focus on inclusiveness (particularly gender equality, youth engagement).
• Define challenges that need urgent action to improve inclusiveness in the horticulture sector in LMICs.

Programme

• Presentation of “Key findings and lessons from Dutch publicly funded horticulture initiatives in LMICs. Valuable Vegetables Synthesis Paper” by Edwin van der Maden (Wageningen University & Research/Centre for Development Innovation).
• Short case studies from horticulture sector programmes, focusing on opportunities to enhance inclusiveness of programmes.
• Discussion.

Participants in the webinar will include: key stakeholders from private and public sector, development agencies, governments, producer organizations, civil society, academia and research institutions from key partner countries of the Netherlands in Asia, Middle East and Africa.

This is a webinar in a series of three: the next session is on October 8, 2020.

Context

A stronger horticulture sector in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is expected to contribute to many of the Sustainable Development Goals, as it can contribute to (inclusive) business development, profit and income generation, employment creation, enhanced Food and Nutrition Security and economic growth. This has motivated the Netherlands to substantially invest in horticulture initiatives in these countries over the last years: a quick inventory showed that since 2009, at least 160 projects in 47 different countries were supported with a total value of €210 million of public investments.

“Many of the end beneficiaries of these projects were smallholder farmers, including women. However, in most cases no clear inclusiveness objectives or strategies had been defined, apart from reaching or participation of a targeted number.”

In the context of the Valuable Vegetables initiative, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) was commissioned to conduct an initial synthesis study to collect the key findings from these Dutch publicly funded horticulture initiatives in LMICs. A Synthesis Paper was produced with the aim of summarizing general lessons learned and contributing to improved policy and practice of future horticulture development initiatives.
The study showed that inclusiveness is among the key challenges for the horticulture sector in LMICs.

The overall objective of the Valuable Vegetables initiative is to learn from ongoing and completed programmes in the horticulture sector and to communicate the lessons learned with the wider Food and Nutrition Security network.