Strengthening ISSD principles & approaches

BENEFIT–ISSD organized a three-day training on ISSD Guiding Principles and Approaches on April 17-19, 2018, in Bishoftu town for project staff from all regional project units. The training was intended to acquaint new experts with ISSD guiding principles and approaches, and to refresh knowledge of existing staff. Overall, 18 participants including seed business development and marketing experts, seed value chain experts, farmer organization experts and seed experts attended the training.

The training covered key issues such as history of seed sector development in Ethiopia; introduction to ISSD approaches and guiding principles; informal seed systems and local seed business; multi-stakeholder partnerships and sector governance; gender mainstreaming and analysis; crowd sourcing; and business model canvas. It was  facilitated by Gareth Borman, Dr. Amsalu, Dr. Mohammed, Teshome, Sanne, Selam and Miressa.

Welcoming speech was made by Dr. Amsalu (BENEFIT – ISSD Manager) in which he gave an overview of the purpose and agenda of the training and talked about key components in establishing a successful organization in today’s world: vision, passion, value and discipline. His speech was followed by a power point presentation on history of seed sector development in Ethiopia.

The training employed group work exercises, power point presentations, reflection methods, debate and role-plays to help participants appropriately internalize the concepts and enhance active participation. The session on seed business model generation was found to be helpful by participants whereby they were able to come up with business ideas. A power point presentation was made on what business model is and why it is useful for seed sector development. During the group assignment on business model canvas, participants identified: key partners, key activities, value proposition, customer relationship, customer segments, key resources, channels, and cost structure and revenue streams. At the end, they designed business models around three areas: Seed Producing Cooperatives, Seed Inspection and Certification Agency, and Farm Service Center.

Another important session of the training was gender mainstreaming in which participants were introduced to basic gender concepts; why gender is implemented in agriculture; and tools for gender analysis. Through group work exercise participants were able to internalize basic tools employed for gender analysis. Another group work exercises focused on analyzing the effects of the seed sector regulation on farmers.