Providing smallholder farmers with support through conventional government extension approaches is challenging as the number of extension agents is decreasing. At the same time, new information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as short message services (SMS) sent via mobile phones, show considerable promise to complement existing extension services. In the UP-scaling Technology in Agriculture through Knowledge and Extension (UPTAKE) Project, ICTs were used to create awareness and increase uptake and adoption of agricultural innovations by maize farmers in Tanzania.

mNutrition was a five-year global initiative supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) between 2013 and 2018, organised by GSMA and implemented by in-country mobile network operators (MNOs) and other providers. The evaluation was carried out by a consortium of researchers from Gamos, the Institute of Development Studies, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. This briefing summarises key evaluation findings and presents lessons learned on three key topics: 1.

The level of agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains far below the global average. This is partly due to the scarce use of production- and process-enhancing technologies. This study aims to explore the driving forces and effects of adopting innovative agricultural technologies in food value chains (FVC). These enhancing FVC technologies are referred to as upgrading strategies (UPS) and are designed to improve specific aspects of crop production, postharvest processing, market interaction, and consumption.

This training manual was developed for Africa RISING, a USAID funded research-for-development (R4D) program that recognizes gender mainstreaming as key for achieving its overall research and development objectives. The program is based on an integrated action research and farming-systems approach, and strives for gender transformation. A gender capacity assessment in 2015 identified a pronounced demand among Africa RISING scientists for training in gender analysis. As a first step towards addressing this need, an annotated bibliography with selected sources for self-learning was developed.

Food insecurity and the weak position of smallholders in food value chains are key challenges in many low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to increase food security and make agricultural value chains more inclusive, donors, governments and researchers increasingly stimulate partnerships between multiple actors, in which knowledge exchange, joint learning and knowledge co-creation play a central role in reducing the time lag between research findings and their translation into practical outcomes.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed a web-based Rift Valley fever (RVF) Early Warning Decision Support Tool (RVF DST), which integrates near real-time RVF risk maps with geospatial data, historical and current RVF disease events from EMPRES Global Animal Disease Information System (EMPRES-i) and expert knowledge on RVF eco-epidemiology.

Conventional approaches to agricultural extension based on top–down technology transfer and information dissemination models are inadequate to help smallholder farmers tackle increasingly complex agroclimatic adversities. Innovative service delivery alternatives, such as field schools, exist but are mostly implemented in isolationistic silos with little effort to integrate them for cost reduction and greater technical effectiveness.

The building of sustainable innovation capabilities in Africa requires an innovation system capable of producing, disseminating and using new knowledge. This paper assesses the process of constructing the National Innovation System (NIS) in Rwanda. It is posited that consensus on and acceptance of the concept of NIS among stakeholders is crucial in the early process of constructing an efficient and dynamic innovation system. Primary empirical data are presented for the case of Rwanda and analyzed in a regional context.

This brief explores the evidence on the relationships between food aid transfers and investments in climate adaptive agriculture using data from Ethiopia, Malawi and United Republic of Tanzania. Four climate adaptive agricultural investments are considered, namely: adoption of cereal-legume intercropping, use of organic fertilizers such as manure and compost, construction of soil and water conservation structures in fields, and investments in livestock diversification.