Though research on communication and innovation during the last decade brought better understanding on the innovation process, this has not influenced the underlying paradigm and practice of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in most countries. At the same time there have been few initiatives that tried to experiment with new ways of developing capacities for extension and innovation.
Explicitly integrating reflection in the learning process of multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs) increases the likelihood that purposeful change will occur. When reflectivity is made part of learning in MSPs, learning will become clearer and better articulated and it will contribute more strongly to purposeful change in a complex context. MSP facilitators should deliberately include reflective learning sessions and tools in the process design and implementation.
This guide is mainly for researchers already involved in natural resource management (NRM). It assumes some familiarity with the often complex and chaotic reality of NRM projects, and tries to provide a systematic treatment of all the issues that may need to be considered. While many issues are considered in the guide, only a subset of them have to be dealt with in any specific NRM project. This booklet will also be of interest to implementers of NRM projects, as many of the elements and strategies are common to research and implementation.
Many capacity development (CD) programs and processes aim at long‐term sustainable change, which depends on seeing many smaller changes in at times almost invisible fields (rules, incentives, behaviours, power, coordination etc.). Yet, most evaluation processes of CD tend to focus on short‐term outputs focused on clearly visible changes.
Innovation platforms are equitable, dynamic spaces designed to bring heterogeneous actors together to exchange knowledge and take action to solve a common problem. Although innovation platforms are being set up to attain collectively defined development objectives, there are limited methods and tools available using quantitative data to evaluate whether they are effective.
The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is a research in development program which aims to foster innovation to respond to community needs, and through networking and social learning to bring about development outcomes and impact at scale. It aims to reach the poorest and most vulnerable communities that are dependent upon aquatic agricultural systems. AAS uses monitoring and evaluation to track progress along identified impact pathways for accountability and learning.
In this article is presented an emergent capacity development approach that the authors have developed through participatory action research in Peru and Ecuador, which they call ‘systemic theories of change’ (STOC), for organisational capacity development. They argue that capacity development should be understood as systemic learning. The STOC approach promotes reflection about how we as individuals, organisations, and broader social groups and societal configurations, understand how change occurs.
This book reports on the Papa Andina Partnership Program, which has been an especially innovative and productive regional initiative, bringing together researchers, small farmers, diverse market actors, and dozens of organizations in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru to spur innovation in public policies, potato products, and value market chains.
This short note discusses the innovation platforms in their potential functions and benefits, with references to southern Africa countries. The initial consideration is that, although appropriate technologies and farming strategies to increase production in small-scale crop-livestock systems exist, farmers often have little or no incentive to invest in these.
This document summarizes the fifteen projects that were selected by a panel of international experts as those which best represent the technological, institutional and organizational innovations carried out with and by small farmers – known as family farming - in LAC. This is the result of a hemisphere-wide competition organized in 2012 by FONTAGRO, with the aim of (1) showcasing success stories in which innovations having positive economic, social, and environmental impacts have been implemented and, (2) raising awareness regarding the importance of investing in innovation.