On June 14, 2022, the second open call of the AVACLIM project took place with the theme of the Communities of Practices (CoP), and more specifically the activities of knowledge and practice exchange. This was an opportunity for the project partners to meet and share their upcoming activities as well related issues and learnings.

The AVACLIM open calls are organized in order to improve the links and exchanges between the AVACLIM project partners, and thus to compensate for the cancellation of international events due to COVID. This Open Call #2 was dedicated to the animation of communities of practice and experience sharing activities.

In addition to sharing organizational, administrative and budgetary elements related to the implementation of activities by each local partner, this open call allowed for rich and instructive exchanges on the way the project actors conceive the activities, and to exchange good practices for the future

Participants were able to share some observations and challenges related to the communities of practice, including:

• A general willingness to find the means and capacities to sustain national (and international) communities of practice. To achieve this Agrisud Internation – Fondation Norsys shared their experience in mobilizing funding outside the project, allowing for greater sustainability.
• The security context in some countries (Burkina Faso and Ethiopia) and the COVID, have hampered the proper organization of activities and alternative means are implemented to maintain them. ARFA's partners have shared their approach of structuring local CoPs, which can continue to meet without having to travel long distances.
• The great diversity of situations and dynamics of CoP between countries, which makes it necessary to better characterize each national case.
• Factors such as geographical remoteness (especially in India), and language barriers were also raised and should be taken into account in proposals for CoP projects and activities

It was also asked to share some preliminary learnings about the knowledge exchange activities, and the following were highlighted :

• Farmers often initiate innovative practices on their own and their knowledge and experience should be taken into account by adopting a participatory approach, in which researchers (among others stakeholders and “experts”) don’t have more importance than others;
• To address travel constraints related to the health or security context, CDPs can be approached at different scales, including the creation of subgroups of cop that can continue to meet in the field.

Additional open calls are planned for the coming months, including adaptations to the evaluation methodology, as well as implementation of advocacy activities at the national and international levels.