PERU-Hub team, partners evaluate project’s progress at Peru workshop
Tarapoto City, San Martin region, Perú—Two representatives from the Evaluation and Learning Research Center (ELRC) in Purdue University’s College of Education traveled to Peru to lead a workshop for the PERU-Hub project, funded by USAID.
More than 50 representatives of PERU-Hub and its partners participated in the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) workshop organized by the project. It was designed to exchange ideas that allow strengthening strategies and processes in addition to identifying new actions to enhance articulated work between the different institutions. The workshop took place April 15-17, 2024.
The purpose of the workshop was to collaboratively identify and synthesize what the project has learned over its first two-and-a-half years and use that information to plan and adapt for the next two-and-a-half years and beyond.
It was jointly directed by PERU-Hub’s co-directors of learning, Dr. Loran Carleton Parker, associate director and principal evaluation and research scholar at the ELRC; and Dr. Javier Ñaupari, principal professor of spatial information systems at Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina.
ELRC director Wilella Burgess, a consultant on the PERU-Hub project, also attended the workshop with Parker. The two spent four days working with collaborators on the PERU-Hub project from Purdue’s College of Agriculture, the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (Lima), the University of Oklahoma, Utah State University, and CIAT Biodiversity Alliance (Bogota).
“This project is developing capacity in Peru and in the Amazon region, specifically, to create and implement scientific, technical and management innovations to improve agricultural, economic and environmental sustainability,” said Parker. “The ELRC’s role in this project is a nice example of work at the nexus of research, evaluation, and international engagement in which our college excels.”
The CLA event was inaugurated by Dr. Hugo Villachica, director of the PERU-Hub project, who highlighted the importance of these meetings to reflect if the activities and plans of the project’s components are aligned in seeking sustainable development results in San Martin region communities.
During the first day, Drs. Ñaupari and Parker facilitated discussions and engaged attendees in activities to synthesize learning from the diverse components of the project. On the second day, PERU-Hub personnel and partners identified and prioritized plans for adaptation that used the knowledge gained during the first half of the project. On the third day, PERU-Hub and its partners were joined by community leaders and beneficiaries of PERU-Hub in the San Martin region. New links of cooperation and coordination among the different institutions of the project were identified. The information shared at the CLA workshop on innovation, use of technology, circular economy, among other topics, allowed attendees to propose new strategies to sustain the project’s impacts.
Authorities from the La Molina National Agrarian University (UNALM), the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Regional Government of San Martín were present for the closing of the CLA, where all present had the opportunity to observe and sample innovations sponsored by PERU-Hub such as food products from the entrepreneurial beneficiaries of the project, including passion fruit pulp and gummy treats that PERU-Hub is producing in the new UNALM Food Processing Center soon to be officially launched in Tarapoto.
About PERU-Hub
PERU-Hub is an initiative of the La Molina National Agrarian University and The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in alliance with Purdue, University of Oklahoma, and Utah State University and the International Research Center Biodiversity-CIAT. This Project seeks to establish a hub of excellence, taking advantage of the research to adapt the technology and crop diversification.
Source: Communication Component of PERU-Hub