This paper is a case study of capacity strengthening activities carried out at the Agricultural Research Corporation in Sudan between July 2008 and March 2011. These activities were undertaken through the project ‘Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development (SCARDA)’ which was implemented in the East and Central Africa region by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa.
This document aims to guide a small team tasked to assess the capacity for agricultural innovation in a multi-stakeholder context. The context might be an actual or potential “innovation platform” such as the three commodity-based platforms selected for the piloting capacity assessment methods, or it might be a project or programme that is more generally focused on strengthening of innovation within a subsector of agriculture within a country, such as livestock or horticulture.
This review is an information resource for development practitioners, development agencies and funders of development activities who have an interest in assessing capacity for agricultural innovation in developing countries, including the developing regions of sub-Saharan Africa. In the context that further investment in the agricultural capacity of developing countries is recognised as a development priority, the review explores what is known about the “tools” (i.e. concepts and methods) which are available to guide assessment of innovation capacity in these countries.
Agricultural policy formulation in Sub Saharan Africa has been dominated by research initiatives that alienated other farmers and stakeholders. The Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) seeks to use multi-stakeholder partnerships as an institutional innovation for agricultural policy formulation and development. This paper uses some experiences from the SSA CP to discuss the design principles for an effective partnership that can deliver relevant agricultural policies.
To enhance integrated rainwater management in crop-livestock systems in the Volta basin of Burkina Faso, innovation platforms (IP) comprising of multiple stakeholders were established in the districts of Koubri and Ouahigouya. Quarterly IP meetings were organized to collectively identify and prioritize constraints and opportunities, and to design and implement strategies to address them. IP represents an example of putting the agricultural innovations systems’ perspective into practice.
The aim of this study was to explore the interactions that exist among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda as a way of identifying opportunities and gaps for operation of Innovation Platforms (IPs) under the proof of concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) research project.
African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
This publication provides a collection of papers, commentaries, expert opinions and reflections on state-of-the-art innovation systems thinking and approaches in agriculture. It is the direct output of a CTA and WUR/CoS-SIS collaboration which had its genesis in an expert consultation on ‘Innovation Systems: Towards Effective Strategies in support of Smallholder Farmers’.
This report is divided in three studies about the Agricultural Innovations, Innovation Platforms and Innovation Investiment in Cameroon.
Ce document présente la position de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO) et du Forum mondial pour le conseil rural (GFRAS) sur la place actuelle des services de vulgarisation et de conseil agricole et sur les chemins qu’elle devra suivre à l’avenir. Les résultats présentés dans le document sont destinés à mieux situer la vulgarisation compte tenu de l’avenir de la recherche agricole en faveur du développement.