Economic growth and rural development cannot be sustained by the continued extraction of natural resources, nor simply through migration of the poor to urban areas. Instead, the steady reduction of rural poverty will depend largely on the development of human resources and social capital, coupled with investments in infrastructure that support market linkages for rural producers.
To achieve progress, we must invest in people at all levels of society. Farmers –women and men– need to understand the best techniques to propagate and manage their trees and how best to process and market their products. They need enlightened advice and guidance of extensionists, grassroots development workers and entrepreneurs. At the same time, researchers must stay abreast of the latest scientific developments and be able to apply science to the solution of field problems. Educators from primary schools to universities likewise hold an enormous responsibility for advancing the acquisition of knowledge A complex construction of information and individual experience with an interrelatedsocial and environmental dimension. (N.B. many different interpretations of knowledgeexist, and this is one preferred in this Toolkit). Also policy makers and shapers must be better informed and skilled if they are to fulfill the growing expectations of society.
The implication for the World Agroforestry Centre is a continued and growing commitment to, and commensurate investment in, the sharing of knowledge and strengthening of capacity among those key individuals and institutions that will drive rural development.
With support from the Government of the Netherlands and the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the Centre has been able to maintain a high level of investment in training and education over the past decade. The Netherlands has, in particular, supported training of trainers courses in agroforestry since 1997. The experience gained through these courses led us to conclude the need for a ‘toolkit for trainers’ aimed squarely at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of training investments. Indeed, our interaction with over 350 participants from 183 institutions in 40 countries provided a rich knowledge base from which to develop this important learning resource.
I congratulate Peter Taylor and Jan Beniest for developing a very practical, concise, easy to understand, set of guidelines for planning and running training courses. Although the training approaches and techniques described here are based soundly on the sciences of pedagogy and education, they also reflect the practical biases of both authors’ extensive field experience in the developing world. For these reasons, I am confident that all trainers in agroforestry and natural resources management will find this toolkit a valuable contribution to their work.
Glenn Denning, Director of Development, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)