Le Touat-Gourara-Tidikelt est un très vaste espace, qui occupe près du quart la superficie du Sahara algérien. Il fait partie intégrante de la zone la plus aride du monde, aux contraintes naturelles particulièrement difficiles. Cet espace connu comme le « Pays des foggaras » était savamment exploité, depuis plus d’un millénaire, par les oasiens qui profitaient de la dynamique économique impulsée par le commerce transsaharien.
Over the last 10 years much has been written about the role of the private sector as part of a more widely-conceived notion of agricultural sector capacity for innovation and development. This paper discusses the emergence of a new class of private enterprise in East Africa that would seem to have an important role in efforts to tackle poverty reduction and food security. These organisations appear to occupy a niche that sits between mainstream for-profit enterprises and the developmental activities of government programmes, NGOs and development projects.
Participatory communication in development aims to facilitate the integration of interpersonal communication methods with conventional and new media channels, with the focus on encouraging all stakeholders to participate in the process. The growth of internet-based technologies has created new opportunities for facilitating this participation and enhancing the ability of resource-poor communities to access information and support and to share experiences and knowledge.
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 in this paper.
This paper aims to map the experience of the RIU Asia projects and draw out the main innovation management tactics being observed while laying the groundwork for further research on this topic. It provides a framework to help analyse the sorts of innovation management tasks that are becoming important. This framework distinguishes four elements of innovation management: (i) Functions (ii) Actions (iii) Tools and (iv) Organisational Format.
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 known about how changes will ultimately improve the wellbeing of smallholders in Ethiopia. The authors of this paper examine whether these changes are improving the ability of smallholders to innovate and thus improve their own welfare.
This short note discusses the innovation platforms in their potential functions and benefits, with references to southern Africa countries. The initial consideration is that, although appropriate technologies and farming strategies to increase production in small-scale crop-livestock systems exist, farmers often have little or no incentive to invest in these.
This paper presents an overview of current opportunities and challenges facing efforts to increase the impact of rural and agricultural extension. The starting point for this analysis is in recognition that the days when agricultural extension was synonymous with the work of public sector agencies are over.
The DURAS Project, which ran from 2004 to 2008, established a truly pioneering means of integrating innovation from science with that from communities themselves. At the heart of DURAS has been its innovative competitive grants system. Following an original selection and evaluation process that placed a premium on multi-stakeholder partnerships, 12 projects were funded in Africa and Asia over a period of three years, each involving an array of disciplines and partners.
This case study describes the history and business model of the Rural and Community Bank (RCB) network in Ghana, analyzes its performance, identifies key issues, and makes recommendations on the way forward. The study analyzes the service delivery and financial performance of the RCBs. Before the establishment of RCBs in the late 1970s and the subsequent expansion of other service providers into rural areas, access to institutional credit for farm and nonfarm activities was scarce. The main sources of credit were moneylenders and traders that charged very high interest rates.