This paper represents a guidance to USAID on elements to incorporate into a strategy to improve agricultural research, and a technical brief to guide USAID investments in NARS strengthening. The paper is the final output from a one-day Roundtable which was held on March 5, 2013 and that brought together some 30 specialists in agricultural research and agricultural research systems to discuss which USAID interventions would best strengthen NARS in developing countries.
The Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program (Africa Lead), aims to support the capacity building program of the US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, which aligns U.S. Government development assistance with Africa-owned agriculture development plans that are, in turn, aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program
The USAID Bureau for Food Security (BFS) has made available this Technical Brief on USAID role in Supporting National Agricultural Research Systems. USAID has launched its Feed the Future (FTF) program, which aims to address the root causes of hunger and poverty and which recognizes the importance of agricultural research as a critical (although not sufficient) input towards the solution in the longer term. Moreover, it is an input that has been relatively under exploited.
This report details the results of the Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of the Sustainable Nutrition and Agriculture Promotion (SNAP) program in Sierra Leone. This is a five-year USAID Food for Peace (FFP) Multi-Year Assistance Program. The overall goal of SNAP is to reduce food insecurity and increase resiliency among the most food insecure and vulnerable rural populations.
Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovation system draw on different aspects of all three models, while creating a distinct local practice and discourse. We revisit and deepen the critique of Vietnam’s “model” approach to upland rural development, voiced a decade ago in this journal.
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.
La igualdad de genero es uno de los diez principios rectores de las Directrices voluntarias sobre la gobernanza responsable de la tenencia de la tierra, la pesca y los bosques en el contexto de la seguridad alimentaria nacional. La presente guia busca secundar dicho principio mediante el logro de una gobernanza de la tenencia de la tierra que es equitativa en cuanto al genero. La guia se centra en la justicia entre los sexos y en las formas en que el gobierno de la tenencia puede responder a las diferentes necesidades y prioridades de mujeres y de hombres.
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 are usually facilitated by the support organization.
Social learning in multi-actor innovation networks is increasingly considered an important precondition for addressing sustainability in regional development contexts. Social learning is seen as a means for enabling stakeholders to take advantage of the diversity in perspectives, interests and values for generating more sustainable practices and policies. Although more and more research is done on the meaning and manifestations of social learning, particularly in the context of natural resource management, little is known about the social dynamics in the process of social learning.
There is increasing policy, practice and academic interest in “inclusive innovation”. In simple terms, this is the means by which new goods and services are developed for and/or by those who have been excluded from the development mainstream; particularly the billions living on lowest incomes. However, there are many competing perspectives on inclusive innovation, which this paper resolves into an integrated ‘ladder’ model of different levels of inclusive innovation.