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Jenean Pretorius is from Clear-AA, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, from the centre for learning, evaluation, and results, Anglophone Africa.
Right now, she is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, South-South Nigeria at workshop mounted by IFAD/SUSTAIN International on mitigating climate change effects on farming.
She spoke with newsmen covering the workshop and said role is in capacity strengthening. Her work is to open up six international centres. We are based in Johannesburg. She said her team has been supporting the IFAD project through sustained grants. “And through our partners, those that are based in Switzerland, we have been supporting this programme and this is the fourth country that we have rolled out in but we are the implementing partners supporting in Eastern and Southern Africa.”
On what makes Nigeria unique, she said they just arrived in Nigeria, so they don’t have a sense yet of what is peculiar in Nigeria. “But I think if we are to look at the previous countries where we have rolled out for IFAD such as Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda, I would say its always challenging in terms of programme schedule.”
To Pretorius, the time allotted for the training is too tight. “The experience shows that its usually jam-packed. In the three and half days, it’s always challenging because it’s never enough time to cover 10 modules for both teaching theories and then practical and field work.
On the complaint by Nigerian women that rural farming is done mostly by women but they are not included in policymaking, Pretorius said such concerns would be sent back from the field to the government.
“So, I think there’s definitely that kind of feedback at the end of each training. We have a feedback and evaluation form because we also want to learn what we can do better.
“Our role is to bring everybody on board. When it comes to inclusion, and our role is basically to bring everybody together and ensure that the right people are in the right room. I think whatever issues and concerns that come up is important for policymakers to be aware of.
I think there has been emphasis particularly from IFAD that such issues be brought in.”
Probably, a lot more needs to be done, and I think through the petition systems and through the various grievance redress mechanisms. It is important to report everything that rears up.
It gives us such concerns to make sure we follow the chain of command. So, we agree that such concerns be taken note of and addressed at policy level in terms of inclusion.
