Moving from emergency seed aid to seed security: linking relief with development

This report documents the proceedings of a workshop titled "Moving from emergency seed aid to seed security - linking relief with development", which aimed to review state of the art evidence on the effects of direct seed aid, and of the procedures and effects of other types of seed-related assistance during an emergency.  It argues that the aim should be to support activities in emergency situations that help mitigate the immediate problem but that also promote the rehabilitation of stressed systems. One focus of this workshop was on how to link relief to development.

The workshop was organised as an immediate response to the Norwegian White paper on preparedness for humanitarian catastrophes. Related to its recent endorsement of the White paper, the Norwegian Parliament has asked the Government to develop guidelines for seed aid. The purpose of the workshop was to communicate the recent advances in seed aid understanding and assessment (including Drylands Coordination Group 2 concrete tools for better practice), to promote guidelines for more effective proposal development and to share experiences and identify needs for building a more sustainable Norwegian emergency response capacity.