Local innovation in agriculture and natural resource management is the process through which individuals or groups discover or develop new and better ways of managing resources, building on and expanding the boundaries of their existing knowledge. Prolinnova (Promoting Local Innovation) is a NGO-led global partnership programme that is being built from the bottom up, to develop and institutionalise partnerships and methodologies that promote such local innovation. The focus is on building national-level platforms where the different stakeholders in agricultural research and development meet and work out their particular country programmes together. The nine countries involved in the Prolinnova programme at present have analysed their diverse experiences in building multi-stakeholder partnerships and noted some basic prerequisites for effective partnerships: internal motivation, sincere commitment from all partners; good facilitation; shared responsibility; openness and transparency. A fundamental challenge in the process of partnership building is dealing with diversity and potential conflict. It is in creating learning spaces for potential partners to come together and find common ground on which they can work towards common goals that conflict will be countered and successful partnerships will be secured. (Contains 1 note.)