It has become a habit that following completion of a research programme, a review or assessment is performed. Partly to justify the money and efforts that went into the programme and partly to identify novel directions for new programmes. Following this tradition, the sponsor of the International Cooperation research programme (DLO-IC), the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV), asked a small group of scientists to draw lessons from its recently completed North- South programme. The task group was asked to focus on the research theme ‘rural development and sustainable agriculture’ (RDSA) to contribute to future thinking about issues related to poverty alleviation, food security improvement.
