Within the last four years, a number of high profile reports outlining new strategies for pulling African agriculture out of its current impasse have emerged. These include the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme of NEPAD, and the InterAcademy Council Report commissioned by UN Secretary General Koffi Annan. Whilst these strategies are a welcome improvement on those that have characterised African agriculture in the past, it is argued here that like their predecessors, they fail to focus on business-competitive approaches as an integral part of the reform package needed to stimulate African agricultural productivity and development. This paper draws on innovation, business and organisation literature to highlight some of these approaches. It focuses on three concepts: value innovation, lead user focus and organisational value logic.
This case study systematises the experiences of the ICCO Alliance in introducing a multi-stakeholder approach in all of its relations with partner organisations and in its development cooperation practice. Using Ken Wilber’s framework of institutional change, the author presents the...
Analysis of the role of Global Value Chains (GVC) in accessing knowledge and enhancing learning and innovation. Global Value Chains, Innovation Systems, Governance, Foreign Direct Investment, Learning, Upgrading, Productivity. Three main conclusions emerge from the analytical framework and evidence presented...
Ethiopian agriculture is changing as new actors, relationships, and policies influence the ways in which small-scale, resource-poor farmers access and use information and knowledge in their agricultural production decisions. Although these changes suggest new opportunities for smallholders, too little is...
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...
Innovation platforms are groups of individuals or stakeholder representatives with different backgrounds and interests. They come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities, and find ways to achieve their goals. When innovation platforms are set up by development projects, their processes...
