A workshop was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 3rd to 7th February 2003 to synthesis and derive common lessons from all six case studies. The workshop was hosted by Ethio-Organic Seed Action (EOSA) at the Ras Amba Hotel, and opened by H.E. Ato Gebremedhin Belay, Vice Minister of Agriculture.

Six of the seven participants who conducted the field- and desk-based case studies managed to attend, together with Elizabeth Cromwell, project coordinator and Carlos Barahona project statistician. In addition John Young (ODI) joined the meeting to advise on communication issues and design the web-site, and Connie Almekinders attended as a biodiversity resource person on behalf of GTZ.

The initial task was to confirm that the case studies that were selected were in fact ‘successful’ in terms of having a positive impact on agro-biodiversity conservation. This was verified and to some extent quantified. The group then split into teams to extract critical information on common themes from each Case Study report. The synthesis reports from this exercise allowed both cross-cutting issues to be identified, as well as differences among projects to be highlighted. These were developed into initial draft ‘Best Practice Guidelines’ and ‘Policy Implications’ for the implementation of projects aimed at the sustainable conservation of on-farm agro-biodiversity for food and agriculture.

A Stakeholders meeting was held on the final day of the workshop. Here the initial findings from the Data Analysis Workshop were shared with seven stakeholders from government departments, NGOs as well as International organizations (view the presentation pdf 194kb). Useful feedback was obtained from the stakeholders on the relevance of the findings in relation to their own experiences. Also, their views on the relevance of this project’s communication strategy were sought.

On the final afternoon, team members discussed the communication strategy, agreed responsibilities for producing proposed information products, and discussed the programme and participants for the final regional meeting.

In addition to the workshop. team members also enjoyed some traditional Ethiopian food, Ethiopian dancing and a field trip to an EOSA project site near Addis.

The project team would like to express their thanks to EOSA for all the logistical arrangements for the workshop, and to all the participants of the seminar for their invaluable advice.