Innovation platforms are groups of individuals or stakeholder representatives with different backgrounds and interests. They come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities, and find ways to achieve their goals. When innovation platforms are set up by development projects, their processes are usually facilitated by the support organization.

This Economic and Sector Work paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems,” was initiated as a result of the international workshop, “Development of Research Systems to Support the Changing Agricultural Sector,” organized by the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank in June 2004 in Washington, DC.

The aim of this report is to provide a detailed review of documented social learning processes for climate changeand natural resource managementas described in peer-reviewed literature. Particular focus is on identifying (1) lessons and principles, (2) tools and approaches, (3) evaluation of social learning, as well as (4) concrete examples of impacts that social learning has contributed to.

The study report is based on case studies from Bangladesh (Sulaiman, 2010), Bolivia (Pafumi and Ulloa, 2010), DR Congo (Mbaye, 2010) and Ghana (Adjei-Nsiah and Dormon, 2010) which were carried out with the purpose of assessing needs and gaps with regard to the provision of innovation support services for climate change adaptation. It took the form of desk-studies complemented with key informant interviews.

The purpose of this paper is to map some elements that can contribute to an IFAD strategy to stimulate and support pro-poor innovations. It is an initial or exploratory document that hopefully will add to an ongoing and necessary debate, and is not intended as a final position paper. The document is organized as follows.

The purpose of this article is to investigate effective reformism: strategies that innovation networks deploy to create changes in their environment in order to establish a more conducive context for the realization and durable embedding of their innovation projects. Using a case study approach, effective reformism efforts are analyzed in a technological innovation trajectory related to the implementation of a new poultry husbandry system and an organizational innovation trajectory concerning new ways of co-operation among individual farms to establish economies of scale.

African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.

This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD), self-assessment by the Country Platforms (CPs) and backstopping visits to five CPs. In 2014, the Prolinnova network saw a need to re-strategise in a changing context, and started this process by reviewing the activities it had undertaken and assessing its own functioning.

Most cocoa farmers in Ghana do not adopt research recommendations because they cannot afford the cost, therefore, yields are low. Integrated pest management (IPM) technologies that rely on low external inputs were tried with a group of farmers. The technologies included using aqueous neem seed extracts to control capsids; removing diseased pods to reduce blackpod incidence; controlling mistletoes, epiphytes, weeds; and managing shade. Although yields increased significantly, adoption was constrained by technical, social and economic factors.

West Africa’s smallholders are dynamic and innovative and, if given the opportunity, could easily and sustainably double or treble their productivity. This would have a huge impact on the region’s food security and economic growth. The Convergence of Sciences programme has spent the past decade exploring new pathways for agricultural innovation that focus on enabling smallholders to capture opportunity.