[ ] 66 A Better World Empowering local partners for inclusive and sustainable agricultural development — experiences from the Tropical Legumes Project in Africa Mequanint B. Melesse1, Essegbemon Akpo2, Chris O. Ojiewo3, Victor Afari-Sefa4 The importance of strong local partnerships and alliances for the sustainability and long-term success of agricultural development efforts cannot be overemphasized. This is supported by its inclusion as a standalone goal (goal 17) in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also by increasing calls to make local partnerships and alliances integral components of development projects and programmes. Strong local partnerships are critical not only for identifying development needs, setting priorities, and driving the implementation of validated development interventions but also for scaling and sustaining impacts of such interventions. Establishing functional partnerships for inclusive and sustainable agricultural development requires a commitment to shift more ownership, leadership, decision-making and implementation to local partners through the institutionalization of proposed interventions, with strong support to truly empower them to achieve shared development goals. However, securing successful local partnerships has remained a critical challenge for development efforts, and success stories are not widely documented for co-learning and future project design. This article aims to offer critical insights into what it would take to develop successful local partnerships and alliances for inclusive and sustainable development by reflecting on the experiences of the Tropical Legumes (TL) project. The TL project focused on improving the productivity and production of six major legume crops in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and India and Bangladesh in South Asia. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, TL was led by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and implemented in collaboration with other CGIAR centres and national research agricultural research organizations in the target countries. TL was implemented in three phases over a period of 12 years, TL II Phase I (2007–2011), TL II Phase II (2012–2014) and TL III (2015–2019). TL I and II focused on understanding the legumes’ environment and existing knowledge and developing and disseminating improved varieties, while the TL III project built directly upon the outputs and Graphical representation of the phases, crops and locations of the Tropical Legumes project Source: ICRISAT TL III geographies Chickpea Cowpea Groundnut Common bean Soybean Pigeonpea Niger Ethiopia UP, India Uganda Kenya Tanzania Mozambique Nigeria Ghana Burkina Faso Mali
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=