In this book, the authors assessed the role of biotechnology innovation for sustainable development in emerging and developing economies. This book compiles studies that each illustrate the potential, demonstrated value and challenges of biotechnology applications for sustainable agricultural innovation and/or industrial development in a national, regional and international context.
Heat-tolerant wheat varieties, developed by ICARDA and Sudan’s Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC), are helping farmers adapt to the heat stress, however, bringing higher and more stable yields. Farmers across the wheatproducing regions of Sudan are now achieving up to six t/ha over successive growing seasons.
According to the authors of this paper, actual methods of scaling are rather empirical and based on the premise of ‘find out what works in one place and do more of the same, in another place’. These methods thus would not sufficiently take into account complex realities beyond the concepts of innovation transfer, dissemination, diffusion and adoption. As a consequence, scaling initiatives often do not produce the desired effect.
Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) are seen as a promising vehicle to achieve agricultural development impacts. By increasing collaboration, exchange of knowledge and influence mediation among farmers, researchers and other stakeholders, MSPs supposedly enhance their ‘capacity to innovate’ and contribute to the ‘scaling of innovations’. The objective of this paper is to explore the capacity to innovate and scaling potential of three MSPs in Burundi, Rwanda and the South Kivu province located in the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
IFPRI’s flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2016, and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2017 at the global and regional levels. This year’s report looks at the impact of rapid urban growth on food security and nutrition, and considers how food systems can be reshaped to benefit both urban and rural populations. Drawing on recent research, IFPRI researchers and other distinguished food policy experts consider a range of timely questions:
■ What do we know about the impacts of urbanization on hunger and nutrition?
This report provides summary findings and conclusions from a set of five case studies examining the scaling up of pro-poor agricultural innovations through commercial pathways in developing countries.
This presentation on innovation systems and innovation platforms was presented at the Africa RISING Training Workshop on Innovation Platforms, Addis Ababa, 23-24 January 2014.The presentation explains the concepts of innovation, innovation systems and innovation platform (IP) and also defines roles and characteristics of the IPs.
This report assesses trends in investments, human resource capacity, and outputs in agricultural research in SSA, excluding the private (for-profit) sector. The analysis uses information collected by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI)—led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) within the portfolio of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM).
Every year, farmers in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from unacceptable levels of crop loss as a result of plant health problems, threatening their food security, income and livelihoods. This working paper shares lessons from Plantwise, an initiative to improve smallholder farmers’ access to plant health services in Uganda so that they can improve their yields, increase their incomes and improve their food security and livelihoods. The working paper presents lessons from almost ten years of experiences in implementing plant clinics in Uganda.
The purpose of this report is to show how development issues and policy initiatives shaped the design and structure of the science, technology, and innovation (STI) capacity-building program that eventually emerged from the partnership between the Government of Rwanda and the World Bank.