A busy four days in Honduras ended on Thursday 12 April with a meeting of the national CDAIS team in San Pedro Sula. National innovation facilitators reflected on progress in recent months in the ‘niche’ partnerships in which they work, under the guidance of CDAIS country programme manager Edgardo Navarro. The day’s discussions were facilitated by Nury Furlan, Agrinatura Focal Point for neighbouring Guatemala (on behalf of the Agrinatura Focal Point for Honduras, Stefano Del Debbio), that focused on coaching plan activities and how to document them. Also joining them and the whole week’s activities were Miriam Villeda, communications officer for national partner DICTA (and CDAIS), and Nick Pasiecznik, CDAIS global communications developer. This was the second meeting of the national team this year. And as Edgardo Navarro pointed out, “All of us meeting regularly is crucial for sharing our experiences, for learning and advancing.”
In the previous three days, the Edgardo, Nury and both communicators travelled to the west and north of the country, attending stakeholder meetings at three of four innovation partnerships. On Monday and Tuesday (10 and 11 April), they were also joined by a team from CDAIS partners FAO, in two gatherings centred on identifying policy issues at the niche partnership level, that would be brought to national-level attention at a special meeting to be convened in May.
Then further out west for the second stop, in Gracias, Lempira, on Tuesday 12 April, for a second policy meeting of the coffee partnership. But in addition, the 18 participants also highlighted their main achievements to date, as well as what was remained to be done…
And finally, on Wednesday, 25 stakeholders from the cacao partnership met at CURLA, the national autonomous university. A deep exchange between representatives of cacao producer associations, processors and implicated university staff, ended with the drawing up of an agreed and detailed action plan for the following months, with clear activities, objectives, dates and responsibilities.
The communications team came away with a rich set of interviews from a wide range of people involved in each of the niches. And these, including personal examples of changes in the way they think, behave and operate thanks to the work of CDAIS, will feed into the ‘stories of change’ series, being prepared… And one thing was clear, a key role of CDAIS is ‘creating spaces’ through meetings such as these. Because if people don’t talk, nothing can be achieved…