New research network for alternative development

Together with organizations from Thailand, Laos, China, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, CICAD has launched the Alternative Development Knowledge Network (ADKN), accessible online. ADKN facilitates for the sharing of experiences and know-how concerning the cultivation and production of alternatives to illicit crops.  The objective is to provide workers from all over the world in the rural development field to access tools to accomplish their work more efficiently.

Currently, CICAD is coordinating ADKN network programs in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru that promote economic development as well as the prevention or reduction of illicit cultivation, illicit production or trafficking of drugs. The site will soon be available in Spanish.

ADKN activities seek to create a knowledge base on rural development, especially in mountain regions and remote areas that already show the presence of illicit crops. This new network originated as an initiative that germinated in 2004 at the International Symposium on Sustainable Highland Development and Networking: Lessons Learned from the Royal Project, (also know as the “Highland Symposium”) when the participants called for an effective medium for exchanging ideas, experiences, practices and know-how for organizations that work in the field of alternative development.

It provides simple yet useful tools to post documents, to make announcements, to hold discussions, and even for rural organizations to create their own Web pages.

An ADKN work group discusses marketing proposals for crops.

Currently a sampling of material on the site includes: information regarding Productos de Paz (Products of Peace), the new trademark of alternative development products produced in Colombia; details of a project to commercialize traditional Chinese embroidery; accounts of successful commercialization by the Cooperativa el Ceibo in Bolivia; and the outline of a case study about development in the mountains of Thailand. 

Participating institutions include: the Royal Project Foundation (Thailand), the Highland Research and Development Institute (Thailand), Chiang Mai University (Thailand), Kasetsert University (Thailand), HEIFER International (Thailand), the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (Laos), the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (China), the Centre for Agricultural Research and Ecological Studies (Vietnam), Hue Agricultural University (Vietnam), the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics (Afghanistan), the Ministry of Agriculture (Afghanistan), the Afghan Development Association (Afghanistan), the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (Afghanistan), the Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Project (Afghanistan), the Presidential Program against Illicit Crops (Colombia), the Inter-American Commission for Drug Abuse Control, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)) and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ).