Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is a practical approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation, developed for use with complex research-for-development projects. PIPA begins with a participatory workshop where stakeholders make explicit their assumptions about how their project will make an impact, and produce an ‘Outcomes logic model’ and an ‘Impact logic model’. These two logic models provide an ex-ante framework of predictions of impact that can also be used in priority setting and ex-post impact assessment.

The development and scaling of orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) during the past 25 years is a case study of a disruptive innovation to address a pressing need – the high levels of vitamin A deficiency among children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. When the innovation was introduced consumers strongly preferred white or yellow-fleshed sweetpotato, so it was necessary to create a demand to respond to that need. This was at odds with the breeding strategy of responding to consumers’ demands.

Multi-stakeholder platforms have become mainstream in projects, programmes and policy interventions aiming to improve innovation and livelihoods systems, i.e. research for development interventions in low-and middle-income contexts. However, the evidence for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions and their added value is not compelling. This paper focuses on stakeholder participation as one of the channels for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions, i.e.

Participatory Research (PR) at the International Potato Center (CIP) included seven major experiences. (1) Farmer-back-to-farmer in the 1970s pioneered the idea of working with farmers to identify their needs, propose solutions, and explain the underlying scientific concepts. The ideas were of great influence at CIP and beyond. (2) With integrated pest management (IPM) pilot areas in the early 1990s, entomologists and social scientists developed technologies with farmers in Peru and other countries to control insect pests.

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation’s ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part. This discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India.

ICTs are being increasingly used for Knowledge Management (KM) nowadays. In spite of this, rapid deployment of ICTs for KM is a major challenge. This paper explores the challenges in using ICT for KM using the case of “agropedia” – an ICT mediated knowledge management platform for Indian agriculture. The paper argues that KM is no more a technical challenge, but rather constrained by social and organizational barriers. Without initiating institutional and policy changes in addressing these barriers, KM continues to elude Indian agriculture.

Papa Andina began as a regional research program focusing on the Andean potato sectors of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, but later shifted its focus to facilitating pro-poor innovation. To accomplish this shift, a number of approaches were developed to foster innovation, by facilitating mutual learning and collective action among individuals and groups with differing, often conflicting, interests.