Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

222 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

or develop new economic, financial or other relations; these should meet the PO’s expectations for its

future development. In regard to consultations with existing partners with whom more successful and

stronger relationships are possible, the objectives of these consultations can:

• clarify and identify the points of contention between the PO and the partner;


• identify opportunities for improvement or implementation of more profitable relationships with the
  partner, while more precisely defining the conditions that the PO must meet to engage in closer
  partnerships that will enable it to continue existing activities or implement the new action plan.

These post-workshop individual consultations do not follow a rigid framework but should at least aim to:

• gather the partner’s point of view on its relationship with the PO (or with similar POs); identify the
  partner’s conditions and requirements to engage in collaboration or a closer partnership with the PO;


• understand the overall strategy of the partner vis-à-vis the OP; clarify how the partner’s strategy has
  commonalities with the PO’s and what are the points of disagreement; when the PO has previously
  identified problems or blockages with the partner, gather the partner’s own reading of the causes
  of these difficulties;


• assess the extent to which the partner may be involved in the implementation of certain elements
  of the new approach developed by PO members during the assessment workshop and what the PO
  must do to ensure a commitment from the partner.

The information gathered from these consultations should be analyzed in order to identify which of the

partners’ strategic elements may be entry points for an effective collaboration between the partners

and the PO. This requires identifying the prerequisites to developing successful partnerships. When

appropriate, causes of conflicting relationships should be identified to reduce misunderstandings or

disagreements and build new and stronger partnerships.

D. Development of a roadmap for the OP

The last step of the GAIN methodology process is to organize a coordination workshop between the PO

members who participated in the assessment workshop and the partners that have been consulted. The

initiators of the GAIN methodology (e.g., FAO) will facilitate this one-day workshop.

The assessment workshop results and the information from consultations with partners are presented

and discussed. This will further clarify each party’s position and help the OP to better understand what

steps are necessary to implement its action plan developed during the assessment workshop. A final

session will be dedicated to a free exchange and sharing between participants (PO and partners) to

identify opportunities for collaboration or future partnerships, clarify the preconditions and operational

procedures, and establish communication procedures and necessary information exchanges that will

ensure success.

Following this coordination workshop, a report constituting a new strategic plan for the PO is finalized

and submitted to the PO who becomes its owner, validates it and implements it at its own pace and

according to the new partnerships resulting from this process.