A week-long training and orientation workshop was held in Lusaka at the end of June 2002 for project team members.The workshop week consisted of the following sessions:

• Powerpoint presentations by each team member outlining on-going on-farm conservation initiatives in the region with which they are familiar;
  • Ethiopia (view pdf 105kb)
  • Kenya (view pdf 622kb)
  • Malawi (view pdf 75kb)
  • Zambia (view pdf 93kb)
  • Zimbabwe (view pdf 63kb)
• Compilation of an inventory of on-farm conservation initiatives in the region from which six were chosen to form the project case studies.
• Orientation on:
  • agricultural biodiversity assessment issues, facilitated by Darwin trainees from the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre;
  • economic and policy issues relating to on-farm conservation, facilitated by ODI (view the presentation pdf 114kb);
  • participatory field work approaches suitable for assessing on-farm conservation iniatives, facilitated by SSC (view the presentation 35kb) .
• Development of a communications strategy for the project, facilitated by ODI;
• Development of the methodological approach for case study field work, and one day field testing it with farmer clubs in the Rufunsa area, courtesy of the SHAPE project.

At the end of the week project team members left Lusaka with electronic versions of all the documents generated, in readiness for starting field work in the selected case study areas over the coming four months.

The project team would like to express their thanks to the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre as official workshop hosts, and to the Commonwealth Youth Programme Africa Centre, Lusaka, for providing the venue and accomodation.