Understanding and supporting rural producer organizations

Based on the experience of training courses provided in 2004 and 2005 at the Agronomic Mediterranean Institute in Bari, and Montpellier, the Rural Institutions and Participation Service (Jean Bonnal, Bernd Seiffert, Nikola Rass) has prepared Training CDs which are available in the Digital Series "Institutions for Rural Development".

This Distance Learning course has been developed with the objective to help the students to prepare a research project on rural producer organizations in their home region. It offers two optional pathways. One pathway is focussing on existing organisations. The other pathway is looking at opportunities for the creation of new producer organizations. The CD has been prepared and tested for a distance learning course for practitioners at the Agronomic Mediterranean Institute in Bari.

The training course is divided into four modules:

Module 1: Introduction to the Relevance of Rural Producer Organizations for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD)
Module 2: Overview of the different Types of Rural Producer Organizations
Module 3: Organisational Structure (Inside)
Module 4: Environment of the Organization (Outside)

Each module gives 3-5 text units (Inputs), complemented by two Exercises and the introduction of useful Tools ( Matrix, Sociometry, Organizational Analysis Form, Pairwise Ranking, Problem Analysis, SWOT, Participatory Evaluation, Venn Diagramm, Coordination Mechanism Matrix, Collaboration Matrix, Coverage Matrix, Bar Chart, Cashflow Calculation, Logframe).

Furthermore the CD provides a section with links to Literature and a Glossary.

For more information, please contact jean.bonnal@fao.org.

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