South-South Knowledge Transfer Strategies

SOUTH-SOUTH KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER STRATEGIES for scaling up pro-poor bamboo livelihoods, income generation and employment creation, and environmental management in Africa

For millions of disadvantaged people in Eastern and Southern Africa, bamboo has huge potential to contribute to poverty alleviation, environmental protection and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Bamboo can be easily integrated into agriculture – including wastelands, degraded lands and in homesteads – or farmed as the main cash crop by smallholders.

During 2010-2013, INBAR successfully implemented the IFAD-funded project, Mainstreaming Pro-Poor Livelihoods and Addressing Environmental Degradation with Bamboo in Eastern and Southern Africa. The project aimed at developing livelihood and income generation options which also reduced deforestation and soil erosion, and contributed to environmental sustainability.

South-South Knowledge Transfer Strategies aims to consolidate and build on the investments made through this initiative. The project will mainstream bamboo as a source of income along the entire value chain, from growing to processing to distribution. It will be informed by our improved understanding of local contexts and markets and our existing relationships with local stakeholders in the three beneficiary countries.

The project components are:

• Environmental management- Promoting bamboo planting to reverse deforestation, reduce soil erosion and protect riverbanks.
• Bamboo farming system development – Including bamboo as part of farming systems to raise income, provide feed and fodder and increase the resilience of poor rural households
• Household energy production – Developing inclusive NGO-Community-Private Partnership enterprise models for organised household charcoal production and aggregation
• Livelihoods diversification – Developing enterprise models to produce quality bamboo products for diverse markets

You can view all available technical reports for the project in INBAR’s library: Branch cutting; Culm cutting; layering; macro-proliferation; rhizome-offset propagation; seed-based propagation.

For more information about the communications aims and indicators for this project, please read our guidelines here.

You can download posters about the project in Amharic, English, French, Malagasy and Swahili here:

• POSTER_AMHARIC
• POSTERS – ENGLISH
• POSTER_FRENCH
• POSTER_MALAGASY
• POSTER_SWAHILI