Farmed

A game to engage project communities with IFAD’s mainstreaming themes

IFAD aims to mainstream Environment, Climate, Gender, Youth and Nutrition within its projects, but awareness raising is often a hurdle. Gamification is a powerful tool to gather communities around one game.

It approaches notions of planning based on weather and market, improves collaboration and cooperation, brings better gender participation, empowers participants to be decision makers and, above all, improves the understanding of mainstreaming themes, especially nutrition.

“The game is first and foremost - FUN! But it has also proved to be a low-cost and powerful participatory learning tool to sensitize communities in gender and youth inclusion while understanding the issues of climate resilience and market-based production. We have seen how this simple tool brings together communities in decision making and planning.”

– Yassin Doleeb

BIRD-Project, The Republic of The Sudan

RESULTS ACHIEVED

  • Game developed and printed, encompassing IFAD’s mainstreaming themes 
  • Play testing completed with IFAD staff, project-level implementing staff and end-beneficiaries in communities, resulting in:
    •  Enhanced participation, social cohesion and intra-community cooperation regardless of gender and age
    •  Empowerment through decision and planning, preparing communities for climate variability and environmental shocks while considering things like nutrition and market aspects  
    •  Valorisation of social aspects concerning youth employment and gender sensitivity interlocked with productivity and agency  
  • Feedback indicates the game’s success as a participatory learning & action tool and a complement to other interventions on mainstreaming themes

POTENTIAL IMPACT

  • A new, participatory method with a recreational angle to engage people in IFAD’s transformation agenda 
  • A way for communities to “learn by doing” or “learn by playing”, allowing them to take greater agency in decision making while improving overall livelihood strategies for market-based productivity, accounting for climate variability, gender roles, nutritional security and youth employment 
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Recommendations for next steps
(from the project team)

Refined

Having play tested the game in only two communities in Sudan, it could benefit from further pilot tests and refinement. One issue that needs to be explored further is context. The game’s cards cannot be a one-size-fits-all given the diversity in crop cultivation globally. For example, the communities in Sudan reported that it was difficult to relate to the crop cards included. To address this, the game should be refined based on customizing crop/livestock cards by regional ecosystem. 

Lessons learned
(from the project team)

The process was long and full of great discussions and shared ideas. The participation of people and experts from IFAD’s mainstreaming themes was key in this process, as was our collaboration with a well-known, renowned game developer who helped us articulate a vision and keep the game fun. By working together and engaging our colleagues, project implementing units and project beneficiaries in play testing, we were able to achieve a successful product. We hope to test it further, refine it for multiple situations and contexts and bring something new to how we integrate mainstreaming themes. 

© Copyright 2021 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

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