Agricultural Partnerships for Productivity and Prosperity (AP3) was a demonstration project of the application of SCALE (Systemwide Collaborative Action for Livelihoods and the Environment) in the medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) sector of Morocco. This document reviews the project and its results from August 2005 - September 2006. This project sought to ameliorate the effects of a Free Trade Agreement that resulted in lower prices for Moroccan cereal grains, thus causing a need to shift to value-added agricultural products. The goals included strengthening social capital and communication networks in the MAP sector, improving linkages in the value chain, and increasing livelihoods for the rural economically poor and their access to global and national markets.


The SCALE methodology was first applied to selecting stakeholders for a Whole-System-in-the-Room (WSR) planning workshop from four sectors - private, civil society, governmental, and environmental. The project scope was widened from a focus on rosemary as a product to a focus on all MAP products, positioning the project to act as a neutral force among the stakeholders and increasing the possibility of networks.


The workshop invitation set a tone of collaboration and of valuing each participant. Participants first created a visual timeline leading to their current production and market situation, and then analysed global trends, developed future scenarios, and identified a list of common-ground goals. Each group then developed a short-term (three-month) and medium-term (three-year) action plan to achieve these common goals. The goals, as stated here, were:

1. Establish organic certification and labeling.
2. Provide training, information, and research.
3. Promote commercialisation and investment.
4. Foster preservation of natural resources.
5. Help shape government policies.
6. Institute insurance and risk management strategies.
7. Conduct monitoring and evaluation.

According to this document, "participants stood in front of their peers and made commitments - personal and organizational - of what they would do to implement these action plans." For example, farmers committed to form the September 22nd Farmers Spokesperson Association to promote MAPs and share information with other farmers. A university researcher committed to training university students in MAPs. International buyers committed to promote the MAP sector in journals and other publications, create a MAP website, and train trainers in MAP organic certification and marketing.


With participants activated, the SCALE staff focused its limited time frame on: 1) strengthening capacity along the MAP value chain to apply the best practices needed to achieve organic certification; and 2) strengthening communication, collaboration, and networks among all MAP sector stakeholders and actors at a national level. To achieve these goals, the SCALE team applied a combination of social change methodologies, including social marketing, education, organisation development, conflict resolution, mass communication, and advocacy.


Included in these foci was a project to create awareness of best practices in wildharvesting and sustainable management of local harvest areas, as well as organic certification processes, and value added product production and marketing. Intersectoral seminars on organic certification and capacity building for distillation processing were project activities.


Horizontal and vertical communication, collaboration, and networking linkages were fostered by:

1. On-going discussions between Moroccan public and private sector MAP stakeholders and MAP international buyers with study tours to stimulate specific new joint ventures;
2. Increasing flow of market information by connecting European and United States MAP industry leaders and buyers with Moroccan suppliers;
3. Providing support for negotiating new agreements;
4. Facilitating stakeholder engagement meetings to finalise and implement action planning;
5. Producing an organic certification video;
6. Encouraging media participation and collaboration;
7. Creating a MAP graphic identity and print materials, developing a MAP website, and writing and distributing a MAP bi-monthly newsletter; and
8. Initiating telephone calls with stakeholders to maintain contact and assess needs.

Because, as stated here, traditional evaluation of behaviour change is focused on one or two audiences and does not take into account wider systems changes, the SCALE team used social network analysis called "(SNA)2" to map and measure the relationships among the stakeholder organisations. The evaluation tools include:

• Social Network Collaboration Form - to collect information by stakeholder group, both prior and post project information, including relationships with other stakeholder groups.
• Collaborative Action Log - used to capture new collaborations as they developed, record brief descriptions of each new collaborative action, and document which organisations were involved.
• Media Log - monitored print media by selecting the major Moroccan newspapers in French and Arabic and searching for articles about MAP, organic farming in general, and organic farming of MAP.
• Semi-structured interviews with value chain opinion leaders - conducted at the beginning, mid-year, and one-year point of the project.

Results showed increased social capital, an increased MAP network of stakeholders, increased workdays, increased quality and price of products, more and stronger linkages in the value chain, better information flow to the media and dissemination through the media, increased "opportunistic" responses by SCALE staff, and increased leverage due to neutral position of staff.


To request a copy if this document in PDF format, please contact: web@aed.org

Email from Sandra Kalscheur to The Communication Initiative on September 15 2008.