Challenges

Africa is home to many indigenous, innovative good practices on food security and nutrition. However, due to the lack of joint and coordinated efforts by most stakeholders, the inexistence of platforms on which to save them and the lack of methodological expertise that would allow for an efficient data collection process, many good practices have been left undocumented or unshared. If these good practices are not documented and shared, regional and national efforts to fight hunger and malnutrition could prove to be less effective and less efficient. It is therefore important to increase countries’ access to successful good practices, improving the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of programmes and policies in African countries.

Toward a Solution

Since its establishment, the Regional Centre of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition (CERFAM) has prioritized the identification, documentation and promotion of good practices to combat all forms of hunger in African countries. This regional hub for exchanges, partnership building and South-South cooperation is a partnership between the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the World Food Programme (WFP).

As part of its knowledge management strategy, CERFAM developed a Knowledge Exchange Platform (KEPT) which serves as a repository of good practices, expertise and exchanges to facilitate the identification, documentation and exchange of good practices on food security and nutrition in Africa and to share them with stakeholders (e.g., governments, development partners, food producers, etc.).

KEPT is the first repository of its kind in Africa. Specifically, the objec- tives of KEPT are to:

• strengthen knowledge of, and access to, good practices and lessons learned, which are assessed and recommended by external experts through a rigorous validation process;
• offer expertise in different focus areas related to food security and nutrition to replicate good practices; and
• allow technical exchanges with experts on good practices.

These services are provided through four components of KEPT:

1. an interface for the submission of practices and a repository of good practices;
2. a roster of thematic experts in each African country;
3. a forum enabling experts and users to exchange information and ideas; and
4. an interface to allow follow-up on the implementation of good practices when replicated or scaled up.

To access the services of KEPT, users sign up either as generic users or as technical experts. Generic users can submit and review good practices and participate in discussions on the forum, while technical experts can review good practices and provide technical assistance for good prac- tice replication when requested.

Submitting good practices and promising innovations on KEPT opens an opportunity for submitters to test their interventions by receiving a comprehensive analysis of their practices and the opportunity to review, understand and improve their initiatives. The nine key criteria for documenting good practices on KEPT are effectiveness, efficacity, relevance, innovation and learning, feasibility, accountability, replicability, partnership and multi-sectoriality, and sustainability. The process of good practice submission is based on a methodology for identifying and documenting good practices developed from an in-depth literature review and multiple consultations with various partners. The process has five steps: 1) preliminary questionnaire; 2) quantitative questionnaire; 3) qualitative questionnaire; 4) technical clearance; and 5) publication on KEPT.

Once the good practice is validated, it is published on KEPT with its associated analysis report, as a good practice and made accessible to the If the good practice does not meet the requirements, recommendations are shared with the practice submitter for further review. This is expected to advise on next steps of the development of practice or replication.

The benefits of KEPT are multiple. First, it creates a robust documentation of good practices and assists in archiving expert knowledge and skills. Second, it fosters mutual learning and sharing of experiences among stakeholders on how to fight hunger and malnutrition by capturing previous experiences and lessons learned. Third, the replication and scaling up of good practices will undoubtedly have a real impact on the livelihoods of target groups. KEPT hopes to help practitioners avoid previous mistakes, be exposed to new ideas and get inspired by the successes of similar initiatives.

KEPT is a strong South-South tool that allows continual exchange and learning among a wide variety of stakeholders in Africa. It promotes the dissemination of African good practices and make them accessible to inform programme and policy design and implementation. KEPT is building a network of experts who can provide technical assistance to countries for improving, replicating and strengthening good practice communication and interaction among countries and partners. KEPT currently features 24 good practices (documented and under analysis) and has a stable of more than 50 experts. One example of a good practice that was shared on KEPT and subsequently implemented is cassava value chain development. The practice was scaled up in the Republic of the Congo with technical assistance of CERFAM’s experts, resulting in more than 180 Congolese producers benefited from skills transfer from Ivorian and Beninese experts on machine production and cassava processing.

As an innovation knowledge exchange platform, KEPT uses digital technology to facilitate knowledge collection, sharing and learning among a variety of practitioners and across sectors into concrete action, thereby helping stakeholders achieve SDG2 (zero hunger) and other SDGs. The documented practices can be replicated in other countries in Africa.