Alumni PBSP

Over 1200 participants from 70 different countries have been trained in Svalöv and this represents a unique resource that Svalöf Consulting will continue to exploit in its future training programmes and project activities. Svalöf Consulting is keen to maintain this network of active professionals in different parts of the world. Former participants are able to get information about ongoing and future Training Programmes and projects on the Svalöf Consulting website.

Sida commissioned Svalof Consulting in consortium with NIRAS to conduct two Alumni meetings and an assessment in order to verify what change there has been for the 130 seed professionals from 25 countries ( Bangladesh, Botswana, Cambodia, China, DPR Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe) who have attended the advanced training program in Plant Breeding & Seed Production over the last five years (2007-2011).

Two Alumni meetings were organized in Cambodia (3-5 October 2012) and in Uganda (31 October-2 November 2012) for former participants from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

In total 58 former participants attended the two seminars.

The overall objectives of the seminars were to promote networking, further learning, sharing of experiences and lessons learned and to assess what changes the training programmes have provided the participants, their employers and nationwide.

Considering the challenges that lay ahead of us and what we have learned from this assignment? And what can we learn from a few long-term experiences?

The experience gained in Asian countries in the seed and agricultural sector, is an “asset” for other countries to learn from. Such experience sharing took place during the phases of the past five Plant Breeding & Seed Production program.

The participants of the  Alumni workshop in Phnom Penh decided themselves to establish an “alumni network” and appointed an “executive committee” in order to get started and find ways how to communicate and what information to share. The participants in second Alumni workshop in Uganda have joined in, electing their executives.

Regarding sharing of information between seed professionals:

Svalof Consulting volunteered in making the following information and presentations from the two Alumni seminars available on their website:

  • Country Seed Sector Status Papers
  • Project of Change (abstracts; powerpoint presentations; posters)
  • Newsletter