annual report of the open source seed systems programme

Accomplishments ad 1- we successfully organised a capacity building workshop for ethical seed companies jointly with the Worldbank supported Kenya Climate information Centre. After the meeting at least one seed company received additional coaching and investment. The selected seedcompanies do not operate in the spotlights and their products are more focused on local use than export quality. Well appreciated by participants but also KCIC. With KCIC we signed an MoU to continue and deepen collaboration ad 2. In 3 countries in East Africa we created platforms that are starting to operate and come with new ideas for persistent problems in the seed sector. At global level linkages between like minded organisations are strengthened including exploration of alliance building with others like the Seeds Treaty secretariat ad 3. We helped organise and provided ideas and inputs for civil society organisations meetings on seed policy issues in Kenya and Tanzania. These have led to deepening insights in the possibility of adding Farmers rights into policy and legislation with room for open source seed systems