251 – Reflections on the West Africa COP 20th Anniversary Meeting

[00:00:06] Lucie: Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. My name’s Lucie Hazelgrove Planel, I’m an anthropologist and social impact scientist, and I’m here today with David Stern, one of the founding directors of IDEMS.

Hi, David.

[00:00:18] David: Hi, Lucie. Are we gonna carry on where we left off?

[00:00:22] Lucie: Exactly. One of our previous episodes is introducing the 20th anniversary celebration of the community of practice in West Africa, who we support in our research method support role. 

[00:00:33] David: This is the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems.

[00:00:37] Lucie: And so we are going to try and discuss a bit more in detail what happened during this week. You were there much more than I was, so I’m really excited to hear more of the details.

[00:00:47] David: Yeah. And we mentioned in the previous episode why you weren’t there, which was unfortunate, but you were felt and your presence was really felt, and we’ll come back to that as we discuss some of the other sessions. But I think it’s worth starting with the first day.

[00:01:01] Lucie: Yes. There was a lot of planning towards this. I think it was an innovation show.

[00:01:08] David: An innovation fair.

[00:01:10] Lucie: Fair. There we go.

[00:01:11] David: As a community they’re often.. they’re not inward looking, that’s the wrong way to put it, but it’s a tight community which collaborates amongst itself and has lots of interactions within, but not always so much interaction outside. And part of the 20th anniversary was actually held at the big conference centre in Niamey. This is a wonderful, relatively new building, less than 10 years old, it’s the Mahatma Gandhi conference centre, beautiful.

[00:01:47] Lucie: Yeah, from the photos, it looked really smart, it looked huge too.

[00:01:51] David: It is, and we weren’t even in the big part of it. We were in what was essentially a side room. But it was still much bigger than we’re used to, but it was a very nice space. And, as always, there were challenges. What was really interesting is that I arrived the day before, having flown overnight from Rwanda, and went straight to this space to try and understand how we were preparing and setting up, and walked in and it had been set up in a way that was, I’m afraid, to me, it was obvious it was never going to work. 

[00:02:25] Lucie: I’ve heard this, but I haven’t heard the details of why it wasn’t going to work.

[00:02:29] David: Well, outside – I think you saw the photos afterwards of this beautiful hall – they’d put in about a third of it these rather unattractive plasterboard things to create small stalls, five of them.

And, knowing our community, it was absolutely clear that the things people had brought and the posters and so on would not fit within those five stalls. It was just a simple mathematical certainty that everything people were wanting to display would not fit. And you saw this as the whole hall was eventually taken up, and we had the whole access to this whole hall for the fair, but they only had the space for these five stalls.

So we actually spent about three, four hours going round in circles with what to do with these stalls. And eventually, a consensus was reached that we should, instead of having five, we should have 10, and they should go all the way down, and we should have two for each group. So that’s what was decided.

And so they called the people who were going to come and do them, and people started setting up as if we were going to have 10, and it was clear that it wasn’t gonna work, and we weren’t gonna be able to do that. The big group had now dispersed and there was a small group who were trying to set things up, get things ready for these 10, where we were gonna get five more brought.

And the people bringing them weren’t showing up. And as we were showing what it would look like with the 10, it was clear that it still wasn’t gonna work and it was not appropriate. And so the decision was made that we would call it a night and we would get them to take them all down and take them all away, so we’d have none of them.

And so that was the decision, leaving and they were going to come and take them down. And, as you know, we have our counterpart, Aboubacari, in Niger, who I said: “look, please, can you work with the local organisers to make sure these get taken down? “

[00:04:33] Lucie: Yes, I was gonna say, if you left with instructions to the Mahatma Centre…

[00:04:38] David: It wasn’t the centre, this is the thing, the centre wasn’t responsible. It was an outside group who had brought them into the centre. This was clearly out of place in this beautiful centre and these really not so beautiful stalls. And so, I left a counterpart and said: “look, I’m sorry, everyone’s leaving, we’re really tired, but please follow up, whatever it takes, make sure they’re taken down.”

The next morning we came back and indeed they had been taken down and there was a message in the group saying thank you to Aboubacari. And it turned out he had single-handedly taken them down himself by also paying one of the guards a little bit to help him move them because they were too big for one person. So full credit to Aboubacari for making that happen, because then the next morning everybody set up and it was perfect. If only we hadn’t had them in the first place, it would’ve been so much easier, everything would’ve been prepared the day before and so on.

[00:05:32] Lucie: Because that had been the plan, that everyone would be able to set up the day before, ’cause as you said, people were coming with posters, really large posters, not just small posters.

[00:05:42] David: With chickens. 

[00:05:42] Lucie: Yes, and lots of different food, bags of different food produce that they’ve been transforming.

[00:05:48] David: There were live fish!

[00:05:50] Lucie: Oh. 

[00:05:51] David: And this is the Sahel IPM, which is now Eco Protect, and they also have this black soldier fly project. And a lot of what they do is about insects and about managing pests in ecological ways, and they were now showing how you can also use insects for poultry nutrition and for fish, to raise fish.

And so it was wonderful, and it was beautifully done, in so many different ways, so many different people. The posters presenting the scientific backing, what’s actually been found, the studies, the research, the actual seeds that have been produced for different varieties that have been transformative from different areas, these participatory breeding programmes, the nutrition side. It was incredible.

Of course, I’ve known about the nutrition stuff for years, but it was amazing to see all the different groups. Some came from Mali and Burkina, and they weren’t able to bring that much, but they brought some things. But the guys from Niger had the most amazing stalls. They bought all sorts of things that they’re producing now, these infant feeds, my favourite, this millet pasta, traditional millet pasta.

My main regret is that they didn’t come back after the first day, and I didn’t buy any. I wanted to bring it back for Danny, because of course he needs gluten free pasta. And this is gluten free pasta, which is delicious, locally made, extremely nutritious, and has really incredible potential. And just so many things, it was so impressive to see.

And of course, mougoudougou. I can’t not mention mougoudougou, which is this small little.. Well, actually it’s interesting. So, in Burkina, it’s these small balls, which are often eaten in place of biscuits for kids at break and so on. They are extremely nutritious, made of millet, local traditional vegetables, ground nuts, peanuts. They’re extremely nutritious, very healthy, and used as kids snacks in wonderful ways.

But in Niger, they do mougoudougou, but they don’t make them into balls. They have them as sacks of powder, and then you can make them yourself. And so it was very interesting that the same has adapted in different regions and is used differently in different regions.

I never actually got the story from them ‘ cause they had left after the first day and I was rather busy with other things. I saw it and I thought, that’s really interesting and I never got to follow up. How is this used and consumed in their context? Actually, that group who’s from Tera, which is this village not far from the Burkina border, quite near the border with both Burkina and Mali, they’re the ones who have done this “bebita” and all these other things, this millet pasta, all sorts of other things. And they now had their own take on mougoudougou, but I never got to dig into what that was. 

[00:08:37] Lucie: I’m sure I’ve eaten it with a bit of milk. I found it really good for if you’ve come back from sport or something, when it’s not in a ball.

[00:08:44] David: Yeah, but that’s something different, they would call this porridge that you’d put with milk. And you’ve done that with mougoudougou?

[00:08:51] Lucie: Yeah, I think mine sort of crumbled through being transported. 

[00:08:55] David: You used it as a sort of porridge. They have other formulas for the porridge where they do that and they do with milk in different ways. But you are right, the mougoudougou is a very similar formula, it also takes a shape, which is really nice to have as a snack. 

[00:09:07] Lucie: Yeah. Anyway, the fair was incredibly interesting and very rich, then it sounds like.

[00:09:13] David: And of course, the point of the fair wasn’t just that it was extremely rich for us, and I always enjoy seeing this, but we actually had representatives from the ministry, the first day was held at this special venue to be more open and to actually have the representatives from the ministry, of Niger of course, but also Mali and Burkina. And it was very unfortunate that there was a problem, again, with the travel documentation for the Burkina representative.

[00:09:43] Lucie: Oh, he wasn’t able to come?

[00:09:44] David: No, unfortunately.

[00:09:45] Lucie: And this is the same person who’s usually, well, who’s been present before?

[00:09:49] David: Yes. So he was not there, and I believe he was supposed to come with somebody else from the ministry, and they weren’t able to be there.

[00:09:57] Lucie: Yeah. I saw that he wasn’t there and was surprised. 

[00:10:00] David: It seems it was a paperwork issue. I was involved in the organisation, but there were limits to what I felt I had the bandwidth for. That was very unfortunate, but there were the representatives from the Mali government, there were the representatives from the Niger government.

[00:10:16] Lucie: And this is important because, in Burkina Faso, the Minister of Agriculture, they really want to work with agroecology, that’s written in their policies.

[00:10:24] David: Absolutely, but actually all three countries now, to some extent. So Burkina is in the lead on this. Burkina is really, I would argue, in that region driving this. But this is now something which is recognised in all three countries, it was really good to see the interest that came from the Niger representatives.

And it was also really good to see Batamaka, who is one of the regional representatives for the programme, in a mode that I can now imagine him in when he worked at the UN, being properly diplomatic and politically correct and fitting in with protocols, being served at coffee break rather than going and having it and discussing, as you would normally do, because it had protocol, there was real protocol behind it.

It is not his preferred choice, but he excels at that too. Normally, he is so open and just part of what’s happening, he doesn’t like standing on protocol. But to see him in that mode, it was actually great fun, and it was also great fun ’cause I know him well enough to know that he wasn’t entirely comfortable being in that mode. It was really good to see him actually in those interactions, bridging between the Mali representatives, the Niger representatives. 

[00:11:46] Lucie: To be able to influence politicians in that way, it needs someone to be able to do that, to be able to follow and speak their language.

[00:11:55] David: Absolutely. And it’s wonderful, you know, this is, again, it’s our role, we’re research method support, we support in many ways. But at times like this, I’m at the back of the room, I’m observing what’s happening and I’m not part of that. And that’s correct, that’s how it should be. People like Batamaka, then, centre stage. And it was great to see and to just see how that room was present.

And, as I said, the press was there, there was a big news article on that first day. And the following week, I met one of my collaborators from the university who said, oh yes, I saw your event on the television, this is really impressive, what’s been happening. So it really, it was well represented, and that first day, it wasn’t just the fair that was there. You know, these innovation fairs, there’s many of them in different ways. It was not the first, it was not more impressive than others. But what was so impressive and, I think, different about it is that because it’s a research community, every practical thing was backed up with research. You had the posters, which corresponded to the research, on one side, and you had the innovations on the other side, and you could see the relevance of the research and the evidence behind the impacts. They went from the seed systems, and then you had your big yellow jerry cans of “oga”, human urine, because research has shown the importance of this and how this has happened, the story behind it.

And so there were things related to soil fertility, to the seed systems, to the farmer research networks, there were some of the outcomes of that. There were, of course, all the things on pests and diseases, the Sahel IPM. There were all the things on nutrition, it was just this whole spectrum, leafy vegetables, African leafy vegetables. 

[00:13:48] Lucie: So, if I understand correctly, there were lots of invited people, even just for that first day, especially Nigeriens. 

[00:13:55] David: Yeah, there were a number of extra people invited from Niger for that first day.

[00:14:01] Lucie: That’s really great. 

[00:14:02] David: It was sort of 50% more than we had on other days, other people who had come in.

[00:14:07] Lucie: So one of the things that we haven’t done so much before too in these fairs is encouraging the project to create innovation papers so that people can pick up these bits of paper, take them home with them, and then know how to use the innovation or how to put it into practice themselves.

[00:14:24] David: So what was interesting is these technical bulletins, if you want. They were produced for this, but they are going to be now repackaged into a different form to be able to have a longer term impact. And it’s been really interesting to see just how prolific the small community has been.

Now, of course, it’s not been working in isolation. There’s many other bigger actors working in this space who our community collaborates with, interacts with. For many of the really successful projects, McKnight is not even the largest funder. So in many of those cases, they have used the McKnight funding often as the initial supporter, but their work has become recognised enough that they now have multiple sources of funding in different ways.

And there were indeed in the room other funders present, the Agroecology Fund was there, and so on. It was a really, I guess, as all the COP meetings have been, it was a really rich experience. But, I guess, the difference this year was that there was a real sense of history that came out at times through the process. And you were part of that, your presentations related to the 20 year history were actually very well received and appreciated. So it’s worth saying that after that first day, we then went into our smaller group, the core group, I should say.

[00:16:00] Lucie: Ah, okay, yeah. I was gonna say, in these meetings, it’s rare that there’s a conference style setup where there’s just one speaker at the front and everyone has to sit and listen. Generally, it’s very much more workshop style with small group discussions and then feeding back and all the rest.

[00:16:17] David: Yeah. And this is where you were missed, the contributions that you had, and in particular the contribution related to the looking back 20 years reflection. 

[00:16:29] Lucie: What I really appreciated from that is, when everyone else then started standing up and saying, ah, but you didn’t bring up this point, that the community of practice has also sort of enabled this thing to happen and everything. I think I only had discussions with about six people, so obviously the data I could have collected was very limited, especially seeing as I only joined the community of practice about four years ago. So the discussion it enabled or the sort of things it enabled other people to bring out was really great.

[00:16:56] David: Absolutely. And you could really feel that sense of reflection and community. And of course, this is one of the bits where our planning let us down. But we were, myself and Oumar, the main facilitator, we were trying to navigate how we moved the discussion on to reflecting of the next 20 years. 

[00:17:18] Lucie: Exactly. I don’t remember if I was able to listen into that session, what happened? Oh, it was small in groups, wasn’t it? 

[00:17:25] David: Well, it went, it was very nice. I ran it very well, where we got people to reflect individually, then in pairs, then in groups of four, in groups of eight, and then back to the whole, reflecting back in plenary. And I think it was a very good exercise. I would have, if we had been able to plan it slightly more.. I didn’t feel that distinction of looking 20 years ahead rather than 5 to 10 years ahead. I think people weren’t quite as ambitious in what they were doing and actually thinking about the scenarios and looking ahead in a way that I would have hoped.

And with hindsight, even the document that was shared, which did have these future looking scenarios, didn’t articulate them clearly enough to make it easy for people to latch onto that in ways that I think are important. Because the thing you’ve got to remember is that this is a region where, 20 years ago, the population was half. The population has more than doubled in 20 years, it’s gone from what was a very peaceful region to one where insecurity is a big problem.

There’s so many changes over the last 20 years which have happened in parallel to these amazing advances within the community of how research has changed, and how powerful now the farmer federations are as partners within research. And so while the looking forward was really good, in my mind, it never really got past the 5 to 10 year mark. Really looking at what could happen a generation into the future… 

[00:19:05] Lucie: Exactly, perhaps it should have been proposed more as “dreams for the future”. 

[00:19:09] David: It was a really valuable session and, as an organiser, I’m always so critical on these things, we could have really pushed the vision making a little bit. 

[00:19:19] Lucie: You are very good at seeing the long term vision, whereas most of us are more, as you say, even five years is quite hard for most of us.

[00:19:29] David: But it’s an interesting exercise, and I think it was a useful exercise as it was. But, as I was reflecting on what was happening back, I was just thinking, oh, the details, if only we’d made these really clear scenarios. You know, there was a big long document that was read, and, well, it should have been summarised into a one page document where things were really clear. 

[00:19:49] Lucie: Well, I think that that had been the aim and then, you know, people ran out of time.

[00:19:52] David: Yeah.

[00:19:53] Lucie: Were there any things that came up? Did anyone share any visions for the, let’s say 5, 10 years future that stuck in your mind? 

[00:20:01] David: There were. You’ve gotta bear in mind there were 10 groups of 8 which shared, there were so many different visions. I don’t want to single out anything in particular, I think, because there was so much of value, but I think what I will say is that when people looked back at the last 20 years and they saw the evolution of the way the interactions between researchers and the farmer federations and the farmers themselves have evolved, there was definitely this emphasis on how that is going to continue to evolve and to become something even more powerful which is maybe an overriding part of the vision.

[00:20:39] Lucie: And is that.. I was gonna ask, what your vision is too. Is that yours as well?

[00:20:44] David: I’d love that to happen, yes. I think the thing which is a big part of what I think is gonna happen over the next 20 years, which I don’t think came out as strongly as I might have thought it would, is the way in which over the next 20 years, technological innovation is going to shape the region for better or for worse.

This is something where at the moment it’s sort of, I feel very much hanging in the balance. But it’s clear that this is already happening and I think it’s going to hit this region particularly hard for better or for worse, because it’s been left behind in certain ways by some of what’s happened elsewhere, in East Africa for example, just because it is that bit more isolated and remote. But with Starlink in Niger transforming the way the internet is available in rural areas.. This is what’s so interesting, we were using Starlink as part of the meeting and everyone was complaining the internet isn’t that good. Aminou told me: “this is Niger, there’s too many people using it in Niamey, go out into the rural area and it works perfectly”.

[00:22:06] Lucie: Ah, okay. It was hard to follow online because of the internet connection. 

[00:22:10] David: The internet was really problematic – feedback for Starlink – but there was just too high a density. It was such a transformative technology, but of course, many people in Niamey all want the internet, and therefore it’s actually created a density which means that it does struggle. Whereas, Aminou was saying, in the rural areas it’s perfect, it works so well.

These are the technologies which make me so excited because if your internet works better in your rural areas, your digital jobs can go back to your rural settings rather than urban centres, it entices people back. If they can have better internet access in the village, then as long as they can get power, they can be well educated, they can be doing good digital jobs, you know, remote work, as we do, but they can be doing it in the village. 

This is the positive change that I could see. Imagine villages in rural Niger having a community of people who are working internationally on digital jobs. This is now an export of talent, of youth, where this could now be serving a global market and at the same time reducing inequality because it’s bringing money into these rural environments which are then actually developing. Because at the moment they’re stuck because they’re so isolated. If transport links are difficult to set up, you could get the internet and you could have power. 

[00:23:44] Lucie: Yeah with solar and everything. Yep.

[00:23:47] David: Yeah, anyway. We’re not the only people to think about that and to dream about that, but it is something where I did, despite the frustrations and the challenges of the difficult internet, I did enjoy the thought that it works better in the villages.

[00:24:06] Lucie: So we’ve been discussing just two of the sessions, two hour sessions basically, in the whole week. We don’t obviously have time to discuss the whole week. 

[00:24:15] David: Maybe I’ll choose one more, because it’s one that we were central in, of course, and it got very squeezed. The research method session, which led into the climate session that Roger came to give, and it went down very well.

And it was something where there was history there which came out in that session that was just powerful for the community to know, because there were people in the room who had been part of the 20 year history, but a lot of people, like myself, we’ve joined halfway through. I’ve been involved for over a decade, and I’ve been with a lot of people who have been there for a decade. And so we’re people who now hold quite a lot of the history, but not all of it.

And so to have some of that history come out in that climate session, where climate is still, I would argue a weak point. You know, what’s happening in Burkina is exciting and they’re really taking it forward and they’re really pushing. And so there was this desire and this movement where people felt and came up to us afterwards to discuss bits around climate.

And so there is a desire there, and we’ll see, we’ll see whether this actually does start moving in a few more projects and is able to sort of keep building. But it was very good.

[00:25:35] Lucie: And, in terms of climate, in terms of research projects, thinking about climate, we are encouraging them to think of anything, things as simple as just being aware of a season with an important drought or the alternative. There’s a whole range of things that they could consider, and there are some very simple things that they could consider.

[00:25:54] David: There are some very simple things, and it’s really exciting that Issouf is now probably going to start his PhD in this area, related to some of the projects. And some of the things which kept coming up are, well, you know, if you’ve done two years of experiments, can you use the historical data to put those two years into the perspective of the last 30 years?

Because it’s all rain fed agriculture in the Sahelian environment, which is where rainfall is problematic and difficult, that ability to put the results into context is so valuable. And it’s possible, but it’s not easy. That’s a big part of it, and that’s relatively simple. And then you have Roger Kabore and what they’re doing where they’re trying to implement PICSA, which is wonderful. And doing this in a way which is led by farmer federations rather than by researchers. There’s real possibility and hope around that.

So yeah, that was nice and exciting. But I have to finish with the key messages session.

[00:26:53] Lucie: This is following our workshop, the workshop that we led in Autumn 2025 to help people think about how to communicate the key results from their research to different audiences. I think they were asked to present, they had two minutes to present key results, basically, key messages that they wanted, that were worthy of being shared. And then it was actually set up as a competition.

[00:27:17] David: Yeah. And we haven’t done this before, it was set up as a competition. And thank you, you set up remotely that they filled in this questionnaire around each of these, and it went well. That meant that they were the ones voting on each other. So this was not a jury, it was “your peers are deciding”. And the peers decided and it was really nice that, when we did the top performers in each of the three categories, we had, in my mind, the right people come to the top.

And it was wonderful, there was a whole range, but there were some people who really took the training that we’d given last November to heart and really thought carefully about messages and how they did this. I’ll mention at least four different groups who were part of the top three in different cases and really stood out.

One of the categories was: you had to choose your audience, and it was how powerful is the message for that audience. And the top of that was a nutritionist Madam Ba, who has done incredible work, but her presentation was just so clear, so simple that she didn’t use two minutes, she used one minute, she got her message across and she left. And it was powerful, and everybody could feel how powerful that message was for the audience that she was speaking to. 

[00:28:50] Lucie: Two minutes is actually quite long, really. 

[00:28:53] David: Nobody else used less than two minutes, no one. She was the only person and she did it perfectly. And she got up there, she had a beautiful visual, she spoke to the key points, and it was done, and it was beautiful. And you could feel the powerful nature of that message to the audience. And so she won in that category. People appreciated this.

The second one, the second category I’m going to talk about is the evidence. And second place in the evidence was Fuma Gaskiya, a Farmer Federation. I was presenting research and I pointed this out, how proud, that 10 years ago (it’s 15 years ago now, almost) they were given their first research grant. And the local research institute said “you cannot give a research grant to a farmer federation! We’re the research institute, we should hold the research grant and we can subcontract them.”

And the foundation stood its ground and said, “No, we are giving this to the farmer federation.” And now here you are in terms of research evidence and how they presented it. And they came second. And it was just, it was deserved, it was so well presented as, yes, this is clearly scientifically sound, and beautiful.

And of course they were only topped by Sahel IPM.

[00:30:23] Lucie: Okay. 

[00:30:24] David: Which is the project which has been going on for 20 years, led by these entomologists, and they presented just the key research that goes back 20 years. They didn’t talk about anything else, they talked about the research evidence related to this pest, which mines through the millet. And they have a natural enemy they’ve been supporting, and how this is now cost effective. They’ve shown and they’ve got the evidence that this can be deployed at scale in really cost effective ways, run by local farmer federations maintaining the population of this natural enemy, helping keep the natural enemy in the population enough to protect the millet.

And they just presented this evidence beautifully. Actually, part of their visualisation was some of the work we did with them in November. I don’t know if you remember, but in Niger one of the things that we did is we said, “well relate it to something that people in Niger know”. And so they related it to Niamey, the capital, and said, “look, this is how much it costs to cover the whole capital”. And so they were able to use something and the image of the capital and understand this is actually the area that can be covered for this amount of money to protect the millet.

And it was beautiful. And the research evidence behind it was beautifully presented and it was clear. And so they were at the top. So the only people to beat the farmer federation was this really serious group of entomologists who have done this fantastic work for 20 years of building the research evidence.

And they were the ones who presented the research evidence in a way which was so accessible to decision makers as well. So it was beautiful, it was a really wonderful piece of work.

And then the overall winner was actually a very new project.

[00:32:19] Lucie: It’s a project that I really like. It’s looking at how to improve abattoir waste. So both improve it in the sense of reducing health risks to the population around, but also improving it in terms of creating fertilisers from it, and just managing the waste. 

[00:32:34] David: Absolutely. They presented it beautifully as well. And what was really nice was that the prize for the overall winner was that they got to present again in front of a wider audience, which included the directors of the foundation who were online and got to see that. So this was slaughterhouse waste and did that, which was really nice. And so they got to present their two minute presentation again, which went really nicely.

And the last thing I will mention is that this other piece was how engaging you were to the public. 

[00:33:10] Lucie: Okay. 

[00:33:11] David: And there was Laouali, one of the collaborators from Sahel IPM, who covered for his colleague who was unfortunately ill and couldn’t present on her black…

[00:33:21] Lucie: Black soldier fly.

[00:33:23] David: Yeah, black soldier fly. And so he presented for her, and the evidence was not huge, the relevance for the policy makers, they didn’t do that well on, but he was the top presenter and he presented it brilliantly and he just showed, I’ve known him for over a decade and I would never, a decade ago, I would never have imagined he would have that level of, I don’t know, confidence.

[00:33:54] Lucie: He was a student though when you first knew him, wasn’t he?

[00:33:56] David: Of course. And he has grown. But he’s always been very, you know, some students, Aboubacari’s a student and he can be engaging. Even amongst the Sahel IPM team, you know, Laouali is not, it’s not a natural strength he brings out, it’s a learned characteristic, and that’s what’s so impressive to me. It doesn’t look like it comes naturally to him, but the way he presented there, and the way he made it engaging was so impressive. And it was felt by everyone. So yeah, I bring that out as well. It was wonderful. Such a powerful reminder of just what impressive collaborators we work with. 

[00:34:40] Lucie: And the value of long-term collaborations too.

[00:34:43] David: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just the long term ’cause there were a couple of groups, the slaughterhouse wastes is one, AGROW is another, of course, that are young projects, but are just exceptional and thriving in the interactions with the long-term projects. They’ve got some catching up to do and they feel it, but they’re thriving and they’re coming into it with new energy. 

[00:35:09] Lucie: Exactly, they’re absolutely eager and on the ball. Driving lots of other things forwards in that sense too.

[00:35:15] David: Exactly. And so you can see they will be the long-term projects of the future as well. They’re evolving, they’re recognising what this community can nurture, create. So that mixture of these really long term collaborations with that energy of some of the really impressive people being brought in is creating new energy.

It’s still a small community, and this is something we want to recognise, that there’s value in it being a small community. But at the same time, one of the things we are thinking about in the community as a whole is how this community also can be more influential outside the community.

That was part of what I enjoyed most about the discussions that I had there, where there is a real sense that this community is special, but it can have an influence beyond it, which is exciting.

[00:36:10] Lucie: Great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you very much David for sharing all of that. It was clearly a rich week and I’m sure you have lots more that you could say, but I think we better stop there.

[00:36:20] David: Absolutely. Thank you so much.