Ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture require informed dialogues and decision making. It is important for all actors involved, being it from academia, civil society, the privateor public sector, to have up to date information and knowledge about current developments and processes. As a communications platform the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI) strives to contribute to, and report back from, policy dialogues and processes on an international, national as well as a local level. Throughout the years the platform has developed information and communication material, such as publications and policy briefs, that have supported various actors in their ongoing work and dialogues for achieving the SDG 2 and is perceived as a credibile actor for producing valuable knowledge material.
”SIANI has credibility when it comes to published articles and [other] works (…) I benefit a lot from SIANI’sinformation, news stories and articles as a social science professional. SIANI helps me tweak my specialization to cover environment-related issues as I teach,” says a 35-44 years old researcher in South-East Asia when answering the SIANI annual survey of 2020.
Through the participation in and contribution to the international arena SIANI has developed close working partnerships withinternational actors such as the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Such collaborations have enabled for the network to bring back knowledge from world leading actors as well as contribute to the work of international processes.
“It is sufficient to say that I looked at many documents from SIANI to write the report,” says Maria Teresa Bejarano, Global Health Advisor at UNFPA, when describing the process as main author and coordinator of the UN report ‘Population, Food security, Nutrition and Sustainable Development’.
Similarly, Elisabeth Simelton, researcher at World Agroforestry (ICRAF), often uses one of SIANI’s reports in dialogues and collaborations with swedish representatives.
With followers from all over the world SIANI also contributes to information sharing and knowledge development on a more local level.
”I was able to learn about agroecological practices through the SIANI Newsletter which has helped me in the facilitation of capacity development initiatives to almost 410 farmers’ groups in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,” says a 25-34 years old civil society worker in Sub-Saharan Africa when answering the SIANI annual survey of 2020.
”Through SIANI we applied the lessons of soil health and further got linked up to local experts that helped us implement this on our women farmers. The program was scheduled to run for the whole year but covid 19 interrupted,” says a 35-44 years old civil society worker in Sub-Saharan Africa when answering the SIANI annual survey of 2020.
The work of SIANI could not have been possible without the network’s members, followers and partners. SIANI will continue participating in and supporting the information sharing and knowledge development of international, national and local actors working to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.