Résumé
Following the Franco-British summit in 1995, which called for closer cooperation between anglophone and francophone countries in West Africa, three jointly funded policy-oriented rural development initiatives were developed with a view to sharing knowledge, approaches, lessons and experiences between francophone and anglophone development specialists in West and Central Africa. The EC and CORAF/WECARD, the West and Central Africa agricultural research organization, also contributed funds to one of the programs. The three programs concentrated on themes of central importance to the region in the context of significant macro-economic, political and institutional changes in the 1990s: research - extension - farmers' organization linkages (the 'CORAF Initiative'); land tenure and derived rights of access to natural resources; and West and Central African cocoa policy. Each program involved: collaboration between French, UK and West African partners; significant degrees of stakeholder consultation at regional, national, and local level; regional, national and local workshops for consultation and dissemination of results; and the establishment of a variety of dissemination pathways for lessons learnt. They also had in common a key issue of central interest to current rural development policy: How best can interaction between state, policy makers and rural development actors be facilitated so that rural people gain increased access to, and control over, resources?