This synthesis report presents the outputs of the workshop organised by CTA at its headquarters in Wageningen, The Netherlands, 15-17 July 2008. The outputs are presented in two main parts, each corresponding to one of the workshop objectives, and ends with a section on the way forward as suggested by the workshop participants. It also includes a first attempt to come to a consolidated generic framework on AIS performance indicators, based on the outputs of the different working groups.
This presentation argues the need of green growth in agriculture, analyzes features of the innovation systems and ends with some policies practices. The presentation has been prepared for "Innovation and Modernising the Rural Economy", OECD’s 8th Rural Development Policy Conference, 3-5 October 2012 (Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation).
Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds.
This book discusses innovation problems and opportunities for family farming in the different regions of the American continent, as well as the role of hemispheric, regional and national agrifood research systems. Likewise, it provides a description of the main innovation actions and projects promoted by IICA, and the main success cases over recent years.
The purpose of this paper is to map some elements that can contribute to an IFAD strategy to stimulate and support pro-poor innovations. It is an initial or exploratory document that hopefully will add to an ongoing and necessary debate, and is not intended as a final position paper. The document is organized as follows.
Esta obra se base en los conocimientos y las experiencias de un grupo de administradores y evaluadores de 12 organizaciones, tanto nacionales como internacionales, que llevaron a cabo una serie de estudios de evaluación en Bangadesh, Cuba, Ghana, Nicaragua, Filipinas y Vietnam.
The question of how agricultural research can best be used for developmental purposes is a topic of some debate in developmental circles. The idea that this is simply a question of better transfer of ideas from research to farmers has been largely discredited. Agricultural innovation is a process that takes a multitude of different forms, and, within this process, agricultural research and expertise are mobilised at different points in time for different purposes. This paper uses two key analytical principles in order to find how research is actually put into use.
The 2016 Rural Development Report focuses on inclusive rural transformation as a central element of the global efforts to eliminate poverty and hunger, and build inclusive and sustainable societies for all. It analyses global, regional and national pathways of rural transformation, and suggests four categories into which most countries and regions fall, each with distinct objectives for rural development strategies to promote inclusive rural transformation: to adapt, to amplify, to accelerate, and a combination of them.
The IFAD Innovation Strategy does not set new objectives for staff, but rather defines what is needed to create an innovation-friendly environment and to support staff in achieving the expected results.To strengthen its innovative capabilities and become a better catalyst of pro-poor innovation, IFAD will focus on four clusters of activities: (i) Building capabilities and understanding of challenges requiring innovation; (ii) Nurturing partnerships and facilitating an innovation network; (iii) Embedding rigorous innovation processes and the related risk management into IFAD’s core business
The emergence of a globalised knowledge economy, and the contemporary views of innovation capacity that this trend enables and informs, provides a new context in which development assistance to agricultural research and development needs to be considered. The main argument in this paper, which focuses on The Netherlands, is that development assistance should use this emerging scenario to identify niches where inputs can add value to the R&D investments of others, particularly in activities that help wire up innovation systems, linking R&D to other activities and actors in society.