This paper investigates multi-stakeholder arrangements initiated by businesses and NGOs from the North that aim to enhance a more sustainable agricultural production at specific localities in Southern countries. The study aims to better understand the search for concerted action in multi-actor arrangements. Therefore, this paper presents a diagnostic framework with three strategic challenges the partnership projects are facing: linking global economic objectives to local needs, values and interests; bridging public and private interests and responsibilities; and seeking trade-offs between social, environmental and economic values. Starting from the partnerships’ Theory of Change, this diagnostic framework is applied to comparative case studies of partnership projects in the cocoa sector in Indonesia, which are part of a Northern-based public–private partnership to improve farmers’ prospective. It is concluded that the economic reality faced by the farmers differs from that of the Northern actors; collaboration with governments is difficult because of different organizational cultures; and the partnership projects underestimate the strength of vested social relations the smallholders are part of. Overall, the initiators of the partnerships seem to work with a too restricted economic interpretation of the local reality
The Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) is a network of organizations, enterprises and individuals that focuses on bringing new products, processes and forms of organization into economic use, together with the institutions and policies that affect their behaviour and performance. In...
Various authors have identified the potential relevance of innovation system approaches for inclusive innovation, that is, the means by which new goods and services are developed for and by the poor. However, it is still a question how best to...
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...
This study describes the evolving context and organisational linkages in the agricultural innovation system of Azerbaijan and suggests ways to promote effective organisational ties for the development, distribution and use of new or improved information and knowledge related to agriculture....
This article starts by describing the evolution of innovation in agricultural research and cooperation for development, including an historical overview of agricultural research for development from green revolution to the re-discover of traditional knowledge. Then the authors analyze participation in...