Altogether eight representatives from ActionAid Nepal , India , Vietnam and Pakistan including Asia Regional Coordinator of AAI Country Programmes in Asia participated in this shared learning visit to UTTARAN at Satkhira and JJS at Khulna , the two local implementing partners of FoSHoL-ActionAid.

The major objective of the visit was to learn project management cycles including contract management systems of FoSHoL-ActionAid as a case. Although the project is still in its early days of implementation it has been a cross country experience on both sides. The field visits included interactive sessions with farmers and staff of AAB, UTTARAN and JJS.

The learning team was given a brief account of FoSHoL-ActionAid goal, objectives, operational strategies, partnership management process, implementation of the project interventions at field level etc. The team visited several farmers groups both female and male and observed activities being implemented by them in the field. They interacted with the farmers as well as implementation team members of the project. They also attended a networking meeting being conducted to ensure better services to the poor farmers by various service providing agencies from both private and public sector. They also observed a farmers field day, a gathering of people from 2-3 adjacent communities to share learning of the project participants and dissemination of the learning.

Later on a debriefing session was organized on May 6, 2006 at Dhaka by AAB where the visitors presented their learning and observations from the field visit. They were impressed by the implementation and management process of the FoSHoL-ActionAid project and made some suggestions as well (see the PowerPoint presentations).

The debriefing session was attended by the participation of Dr. Ekramul Ahsan, Senior Programme Officer at the EC Delegation to Bangladesh and Task Manager for FoSHoL, Ms. Nasreen Parveen Haq, Country Director, AAB, Mr. Ahmad Salahuddin, Manager-Coordination & Capacity Building , FoSHoL-IRRI, Mr. Mamunul Haque, Communications Officer, FoSHoL-IRRI and professionals from various department/units of AAB.

The FoSHoL-ActionAid project thanked Ms. Shahamin S Zaman, Head, IRM Department of AAB and her team for hosting such an excellent visit and also thanked all participants of the debriefing session.