The presentation was given for the SEARCA Forum-workshop on Platforms, Rural Advisory Services, and Knowledge Management: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, Los Banos, 17-19 May 2016. It provided an overview about the process of facilitation and coordination in innovation platforms and explored the role of the innovation broker in the facilitation of innovation platforms.
Genetic improvement on local breeds kept by small farmers in developing countries is challenging. Even though good pedigree and performance recording is crucial and an important component of breeding programs, it remain difficult or next to impossible under conditions of subsistence livestock farming. This means that standard genetic evaluations, as well as selection and planning of mating based on estimates of the animals' genotypes, cannot be done at any level in the population of the target breed or genetic group.
Global climate change and food security are complex and closely intertwined challenges. A key requirement for dealing with them successfully is that agriculture becomes more eco-efficient. As researchers work toward this goal, they must always ask, “Efficiency for whom?” Finding answers to this question requires that research be conducted from a systems perspective in a broadly participatory manner involving complex collaborative arrangements.
Communication is a crucial part of facilitating the process of innovation within an innovation platform. It comprises a broad range of practices and approaches which include information management, publishing, use of information and communication technologies, communication for development, knowledge sharing and knowledge management. Its goal is not just to produce or disseminate more information, but rather to use communication processes to power changes identified by the platform.
On 15 November 2012, as part of the IFAD East and Southern Africa regional meeting in Addis Ababa, ILRI was asked to convene and facilitate a 1 hour session on ways that CGIAR and IFAD could collaborate. The session drew on contributions from different CGIAR centres; it involved speakers from ILRI, IWMI and ICARDA. It provided a very good, but short, opportunity to make connections between some CGIAR staff and IFAD and project staff; several individual follow up conversations were triggered.
The presentation (www.slideshare.net/ILRI/cgiar-and-ifad-sharing-and-scaling-up-innovations) reflected on current collaboration experiences between IFAD and the CGIAR, it introduced the ‘renewed’ research for development focus of the CGIAR and its multi-center Research Programs and it explored ideas for future collaboration.
The poster was prepared for Tropentag 2012: Resilience of Agricultural Systems against Crises, Gottingen, Germany, 19-21 September 2012. It briefed the objective, approaches, achievements and lessons of the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project.
The Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada. The LIVES capacity development pillar seeks to strengthen innovation and the learning capacity of value chain actors and service providers to develop livestock and irrigation agriculture value chains. Using participatory processes to assess knowledge and skills gaps of value chain actors and service providers, it identifies capacity development interventions. Project staff then design and implement these interventions
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world. This project analyzed the current gender capacities against desired future gender capacities of the Livestock and Fish partners and subsequently designed tailor-made capacity development interventions.
Ethiopian needs to achieve accelerated agricultural development along a sustainable commercialization path to alleviate poverty and ensure overall national development. In this regard, sustainable commercial of smallholder dairying provides a viable and growing opportunity; with deliberate, appropriate and sustained policy support. A recent empirical analysis concludes however, that Ethiopian smallholder dairy sub-sector has not been able to take-off despite decades of development interventions.