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This discussion group was formed to enable participants in the Rural Finance Research Conference held at the FAO Headquarters in Rome in March, 2007 to extend their conversation about the critical issue of Moving Results into Policy and Practice, and to enable others to join in the debate. The original conference papers and presentations can still be viewed in the: Rural Finance Learning Centre

An e-conference was held between 16 - 29 May, 2007, which focused on the following questions:

1.   How can researchers and the results of their work best influence government policy-making?  

2.   How can practitioners and researchers work more closely together to identify and analyze problems?  

3.   How can research quality be assured and in what format should research findings be disseminated to ensure they are used? 

4.   How should donors and research funding agencies prioritize and decide which research topics to support? 

5.   What topics would you prioritize for funding today? 

Introductions to each of these topics and summaries of the key points raised by contributors can be found in the Pages section of the site. Some background reading was posted in the Files section.

The e-conference is now closed. The discussion group remains open, however, to enable the FAO Rural Finance team to post summaries and conclusions.  The site may also be used to invite comments on any draft policy briefs or guidelines that are prepared as a result of the debate.  Members wishing to make further comments or pose questions relating to rural finance research may also continue to use the site.  All messages will be moderated for relevance.

To reply to postings or add new postings in this discussion, you will need to register as a member of the group. Please click on the link to “Join this group” which you will find on the right hand navigation bar. This will take you to the Google groups welcome page where you are asked to sign in to your Google account.  If you do not have one of these, you should click on “Create an account now”. You can create a Google account with your existing email address; you do not have to register with Googlemail.  It is a good idea to enter your full name in the nick name field. 

You will be sent a verification email and when you click the link to activate your account, you will arrive at a page in which you can choose how you wish to read the group’s discussions before clicking on “Join this group”.  We recommend that you select Email or Digest Email as your preferred way to read the group postings.  However, you can opt to read the group on the web or in the Rural Finance Learning Centre where all the postings will be archived (http://www.ruralfinance.org/id/48990). You can always “edit your membership” preferences later.