The concept of "Community of Practice" (CoP) has emerged within development communities to strengthen the connections among likeminded persons who seek to improve, through joint actions and collaborations, both knowledge and practice.
The Pro-poor Livestock Development CoP (CoP PPLD) is a strategic partnership of practitioners, managers, researchers and other actors, working with IFAD. The CoP is involved in livestock development and is keen to exchange experiences, manage relevant knowledge, and support learning across countries and institutions to achieve better results.
Its main scope is to identify key challenges and opportunities to develop collective strategies and priorities to:
- promote livestock as a tool for poverty reduction
- empower poor livestock keepers' to actively participate in decision-making processes and to improve their livelihoods.
The CoP aims to learn from and give a voice to the livestock community contributing to optimize the potential of livestock development as an instrument for poverty reduction. The CoP intends to facilitate technical advisory service provision through strategic partnerships and collaboration with in-country and international organizations such as livestock keepers organizations, national and international development practitioners and decision makers.
The need assessment on pro-poor livestock development
A need assessment was conducted from 19 June to 11 July 2008. It is a starting point to build an effective and powerful Community of Practice (CoP) for Pro-poor Livestock Development.
The initiative was launched within the framework of the “Innovative Knowledge Management Approach for Technical Advisory Services”. This new effort aims to promote connectivity between “committed” people and facilitates the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge to improve the effectiveness of rural development and poverty reduction programs.
The need assessment was sent to 166 resource people and partners involved in livestock development all around the world. The 52% response rate from 45 different organizations reflects the interest in livestock related issues and the importance of livestock in poverty reduction.
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