A training focusing on PVS, crowd sourcing, gender sensitive informal seed system intervention and data collecting system was held at the town of Shashemene from Feb 26 – 28/2019.
Since 2016, ISSD Ethiopia SNNPR unit has been conducting the informal seed system intervention activities with the aim of strengthening the regional informal seed system. So far the project has been targeted 3600 farmers (of which 1800 are females) and participated in PVS and CS, which has been supported by different capacity building activities.
In 2019 the planned 3600 farmers will be supported by the project through selected research centers and woreda farm and natural resource offices. Accordingly, the selected four research centers as implementing partners from Jinka, A/minch, Bonga and Areka research centers has been given training of trainers at Shashemene.
In this session a total of 25 people participated from different zones and woredas even though Keffa zone failed to admit our invitation on their own reason and post ponded their training to the coming month.
This training of trainers (TOT) main objective was overviewing of ISSD project, the highlight of Ethiopian seed system and its challenges, seed system development, the gender sensitive approaches in informal seed system, designing and implementation of crowd sourcing (CS) and Participatory Variety Selection (PVS).
Program was officially launched by Dr. Hussen Mohamed who is serving as ISSD ambassador for the SNNPR unit.
The training was given by the Gender and rural development expert w/ro Workalem Girma regarding the gender sensitive approaches in the informal seed system, the seed expert Ato Mulatu Gabisa was focusing on the highlight of Ethiopian seed system and its challenges and the designing and implementation of crowd sourcing (CS), Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) and how to use observation cards as a method of data collection. The ISSD project overview was presented by the former ISSD project Manager Ato Mesfin Behailu. And finally finical procedures and guide lines was presented by Ato Jemal Roba the Finance officer for ISSD SNNPR unit.
Throughout the training participatory questions were forwarded from the trainers as well as the trainee’s and there was more of a discussion spirit.
As outcome this trainees will be able to build their capacity on gender sensitive PVS and CS, and data collection methods. Finally, the participants will be expected to cascade the training in their respective intervention woredas and train the beneficiaries.
After the training the participants quoted that “this training helped them gain additional knowledge about PVS and CS as well as gender sensitive informal seed system intervention” and they mentioned that this kind of trainings should be conducted frequently so that they will be able to upscale the knowledge of their trainers in the woredas in return.
ENSP - Ethiopia-Netherlands Seed Partnership 
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