Which competencies and learning facilitate theinvolvement of local actors in territorial governance?The example of a Farmer University in Brazil

摘要

Implementing decentralisation of public policies requires adequategovernance devices, but local actors also need new competencies to getinvolved in the new devices. What are the competencies required, and how canthey be built? This paper analyses a Farmer University in Brazil to see how theactors trained have been able to mobilise their newly acquired knowledge forterritorial development. We formalised the learning process as the constructionof human, social and institutional capital, which, when combined, enable localactors to play an active role in governance. Our evaluation analyses how thestudents have become involved individually in different organisations, and howthe collective involvement of these actors in territorial governance has beenpossible through the creation of a student association. Although the learningprocess helped in building the actors' capital, several limits were identified,especially the difficulty in developing legitimate relations with otherinstitutions in the territory.