Facilitating a multi-stakeholder learning alliance: a case study describing the activities, outputs and impact of the Pig Systems Development Alliance in Lao PDR

This paper describes the formation, activities, results and impacts of an active Pig Systems Learning Alliance consisting of national and international researchers, development practitioners from NGOs and government extension services in northern Laos. The original objective of the researchers was to find a way to link with development practitioners in order to scale out a promising new technology, the supplementary feeding of the forage legume Stylosanthes guianensis CIAT 184 to village pigs. The case study showed that Alliance partners scaled out Stylo to more farmers in more villages more quickly than would have been possible through the government extension service or a single development project. The approach thus achieved the original objective. It also did a lot more: It created an informal network of like-minded professionals working for a diverse range of research and development organisations; it resulted in participants having a better understanding of the different institutional cultures of the research and development organisations involved in the Alliance; it improved the skills of Alliance participants in evaluating interventions with farmers and extending successful examples to other farmers and villages; and it helped them source relevant information through their new network contacts. Farmers benefited by having quick access to appropriate pig production technologies and working together with extension workers in selecting, evaluating and adapting new technologies for their situation.