The markets and value chains approach has recently become fashionable in agricultural development interventions. So too have innovation platforms. This brief shows how innovation platforms can be a useful vehicle to promote market development. It is available in Chinese, English, Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese.
One of the most important things that innovation platforms do is to build the capacity of their members to innovate. Some key elements of innovation capacity include: self-organization, learning new skills, changing mindsets, valuing others’ roles in innovation, having a holistic view, being able to adapt to changing situations, creating new ideas, recognizing opportunities, being proactive, using indigenous ideas, and looking to the future. This brief uses the analogy of a traditional African cooking pot to explain how innovation capacity is developed within an innovation platform.
Facilitation of innovation is a flexible and adaptive process during which facilitators manage dialogue and stimulate collective problem analysis by multiple stakeholders to overcome challenges or make use of opportunities. The brief describes what facilitation is about, facilitators' functions and roles, skills and attributes, and who facilitates. It is available in Chinese, English, Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese.
This article addresses the impact of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) on food security among smallholder farmers in three countries of southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi). Southern Africa has suffered continued hunger despite a myriad of technological interventions that have been introduced in agriculture to address issues of food security, as well as poverty alleviation.
The failure of the linear and non-participatory Agricultural Research and Development approaches to increase food security among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa has prompted researchers to introduce an Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) concept. The IAR4D concept uses Innovation Platforms (IPs) to embed agricultural research and development organizations in a network to undertake multidisciplinary and participatory research.
Understanding diversity of smallholder farm households is of critical importance for the success of development interventions. Farming households often will devise livelihood strategies that provide the best guarantee for survival and based on their socioeconomic vulnerability. This study examines how achievements from the Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) approach through participation in innovation platform activities accrue to smallholder farming households of diverse socioeconomic status.