In this paper, is described the market and social forces which influence the emergence of social innovations through various processes. The authors then look into the evolutionary pathways for social innovations , to avoid inertia and spur initiatives to bridge the social gap in an inclusive manner through mobilization of youth in particular. The ecosystem for social open innovations provides scope for connecting corporations
The authors surveyed small-scale farmers in the Kenyan Rift Valley province (Narok and Nakuru districts) to describe constraints to, and changes in, livestock production and to assess the extent to which farmers have adopted new technologies promoted by extension services. In the arid areas of southern Narok, farmer's main constraints were drought and disease. Farmers in Nakuru district, situated in the fertile highlands of the Rift Valley, were also affected by disease but also lacked markets and capital.
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.
There is a broad consensus that farmers are not simply recipients of promoted techniques: rather, they are also an important source of agricultural innovations. They invent farm tools and equipment, develop new crop varieties, and add value to externally promoted technologies. When scouting, documenting and promoting such farmer-generated innovations, the thorny issue of intellectual property rights (IPRs) often emerges.
Many initiatives to address contemporary complex challenges require the crossing of sector, domain, and level boundaries, which policy entrepreneurs are believed to facilitate. This study aims to enhance our understanding of how, why, and with what effect such entrepreneurs operate to cross boundaries. As this requires an account of both entrepreneurial strategy and the surrounding policy environment, we embed entrepreneurship in the policy frameworks of multiple streams, advocacy coalitions, and punctuated equilibrium.
This report brings a review about the CTA activities in 2018 based on three intervention areas. One is promoting youth entrepreneurship and creating employment for young people, particularly through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The second, digitalisation, cuts across all intervention areas and focuses on the application of digital technologies to transform business models and provide new revenue throughout agricultural value chains.
Over the years, CTA has contributed to building ACP capacity to understand innovation processes, strengthen the agricultural innovation system and embed innovation thinking in agricultural and rural development strategies. The CTA Top 20 Innovations project set out to prove that innovation is taking place in ACP agriculture and in the process has demonstrated that smallholder farmers are beneficiaries as well as partners in agricultural innovation.
This paper analyses a biotechnology-focused project which aims to promote the development and adoption of tissue culture bananas by small-scale farmers in Kenya. The paper highlights the generation of several important narratives that are used to justify the development and dissemination of this technology. First, a disaster narrative, a series of claims regarding rural livelihoods and banana production in Kenya, is generated. This creates a political and technical space for the creation of a new science that can solve these problems.
Multi-stakeholder participation (MSP) has become a central feature in several institutions and processes of global governance. Those who promote them trust that these arrangements can advance the deliberative quality of international institutions, and thereby improve the democratic quality, legitimacy and effectiveness of both the institutional landscape, as well as decisions made within it. This paper employs a heuristic framework to analyze the deliberative quality of MSP.
The Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future De-veloping Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project conducted a three-country study on youth and EAS in Rwanda, Niger and Gua-temala. These case studies provided a land-scape analysis to inform actions to strengthen the inclusion of youth in EAS to improve their livelihoods and increase the effective-ness of EAS systems.