This Coaching Process guide was prepared under the project Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS), a global partnership (Agrinatura, FAO and eight pilot countries) that aims to strengthen the capacity of countries and key stakeholders to innovate in complex agricultural systems, thereby achieving improved rural livelihoods. CDAIS uses a continuous learning cycle approach to support national agricultural innovation systems in eight countries in Africa, in Asia and Central America.

This study reviews the available literature on processed non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in order to comprehensively identify relevant factors enabling or constraining their potential to contribute to rural development. Background and Objectives: NTFPs, such as wild foods, medicinal plants, and raw materials for handicrafts, make significant contributions to rural livelihoods. NTFPs can help fulfil households’ subsistence and consumption needs, serve as a safety-net in times of crises, and provide cash income.

These guidelines are produced by FAO as part of the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems Project (CDAIS). The objective of this document is provide practical guidelines to implement marketplace events to strengthen agricultural innovation. A marketplace is an event organized to facilitate matching of demand and supply and to promote learning, sharing and exchanging of information, knowledge and practical experience on specific topics.

The experiences shared in this book of Conversations of Change capture the outcomes of three years’ work conducted by the eight CDAIS country teams from Angola, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Laos and Rwanda. Collected between January and March 2019, they provide insights and perspectives of different actors engaged in the different capacity strengthening processes, within individuals and innovation niche partnerships, and at organisational and national level.

Rwanda has benefited from ‘hard’ agricultural invest­ ment projects in the past two decades, promoted by a supportive and responsive government in collaboration with various donors and development actors. CDAIS looked to increase the impacts of such investments through strengthening ‘soft’ skills in three innovation niche partnerships surrounding significant public, private or donor­funded infrastructure developments, and linking this to organisational and national levels.

The Newsletter of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) provides regular updates on global activities by TAP and its partners, on the CDAIS projects and on upcoming related events. This issue specifically refers to the period from November 2018 to September 2019.

This note presents an analysis of the obstacles and opportunities for STP’s agriculture value chains, assesses the main sector risks, and provides a series of public sector recommendations for increased private sector investment. While the country will remain a net importer of food and agricultural products for the foreseeable future, a series of opportunities exist, some to increase import-substitution, others to expand exports. Given STP’s land constraints and climate variability, importing food will continue to occur in the near to medium-term future to satisfy local demand.

The Applied Research and Innovation Systems in Agriculture project (ARISA) started in December 2014 with the aim of increasing net farm income for 10,000 smallholder farming households in eastern Indonesia. The project was designed to address a key challenge in agricultural research for development: how to ensure that proven research outputs1 are available and accessible for use in farming communities.