This paper illustrates the Small Stock Innovation Platform, an initiative which is one of the key tangible outcomes of the Strengthening Capacity in Agricultural Research for Development in Africa (SCARDA) program, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural research systems in selected countries and institutions in all three sub-regions of Sub Saharan Africa.
The Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures final report provides an overview of the evidence and discusses the challenges and choices for policy makers and others whose interests relate to all areas that interact with the food system.
Innovation in Vidzeme Planning Region is realized in the frame of National innovation system, the elements of which correspond to innovation and innovation system theories, and the best practices of which are applied in the most innovative countries of the world. Nevertheless, innovation in Vidzeme Planning Region is fragmented and is being introduced slowly, and its impact on economic development is faintly visible. It witnesses a problem, which was identified, analysed and its solutions searched by the authors.
This paper has been presented at the Fifth International Seminar on Dynamics of Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems: Socio-Institutional, Economic and Technical Context, Kathmandu, Nepal, 25-26 March 2010, organized by Farmer Managed Irrigation System Trust. International Water Management Institute, the then International Irrigation Management Institute (IWMI) began its activities in Nepal since 1986 with a Memorandum of Understanding with His Majesty's Government of Nepal, now the Government of Nepal.
This article reviews the approaches proposed by SCARDA to address capacity strengthening for research management, how implementation took place and the lessons learned from the implementation activities. It begins with an overview of the intended project outputs and approach to capacity strengthening, followed by the implementation processes as undertaken in each sub-regional organisation and finishes with the lessons learned.
This paper looks at two aspects of institutional development in a university setting. It looks at how the design of South – North collaboration may have a bearing on the type of partnership that evolves. And it addresses the issue of how institutional commitment influences the depth and intensity of change processes.
This paper examines the design and implementation of a package of capacity strengthening interventions undertaken between March 2007 and March 2011, which aimed to enhance the performance of the national agricultural research system (NARS) in Lesotho. It also identifies some initial outcomes from these interventions and makes recommendations to sustain the process of organisational and institutional change and build on the results that have been achieved.
The poor performance of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is known to be largely due to the lack of effective and client- responsive agricultural research and development that could generate appropriate technologies and innovations to stimulate the agricultural development process. As a contribution to address this challenge, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), developed a project for Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA).
The 2012 RUFORUM Biennial Conference is the third in the series. The main objective of the Biennial conferences is to provide a platform for agricultural research for development stakeholders in Africa and beyond to actively exchange findings and experiences, while at the same time learning lessons towards improving performance of the agricultural sector and ultimately people’s livelihoods. The biennial conference is RUFORUM’s most comprehensive meeting for the diversity of stakeholders in agriculture.
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) partnered with the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) in 2011 to conduct a series of policy dialogues on the prioritization of demand-driven agricultural research for development in South Asia. Dialogues were conducted with a wide range of stakeholders in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal in mid-2012 and this report captures feedback from those dialogues.