Monica Kapiriri from Uganda has played a key role in Prolinnova from the start. As Co-Chair of the Non-Governmental Organisations Committee (NGOC) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in 2000-02, she accompanied the conceptual design of Prolinnova, assisted in identifying NGOs that could facilitate the building of multi-stakeholder partnerships and supported the struggle to obtain funding for the programme. As the person who brought a perspective of civil society into the Steering Committee of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in 2003-06, she continued to advocate for farmer innovation and participatory research and development and for the Prolinnova programme itself. In Uganda, Monica supports Environmental Alert, the NGO that coordinates Prolinnova in that country, in institutional development as the Prolinnova-Uganda programme is growing, as well as in methods of participatory agricultural research and development and farmers’ empowerment.