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
This paper explores the use of actor-oriented approaches in natural resource-based development. It begins by reviewing the need to bring an analysis of actor linkages, coalitions and information flows higher on the agenda in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Various tools which could assist in doing this are introduced and their use is illustrated in case studies of natural resource-based research and development (R&D) projects in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Using Nepal as a case, this paper illustrates how farmers and their supporting institutions are evolving and co-producing climate sensitive technologies on demand. Drawing upon the hypothesis of induced innovation, the authors examine the extent to which resource endowments have influenced the evolution of technological and institutional innovations in Nepal’s agricultural research and development. This study reveals that Nepal has developed a novel multilevel institutional partnership, including collaboration with farmers and other non-governmental organizations in recent years.
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 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’.
Drawing on studies from Africa, Asia and South America, this book provides empirical evidence and conceptual explorations of the gendered dimensions of food security. It investigates how food security and gender inequity are conceptualized within interventions, assesses the impacts and outcomes of gender-responsive programs on food security and gender equity, and addresses diverse approaches to gender research and practice that range from descriptive and analytical to strategic and transformative.
The organization of the Nutrition Innovation Labs represents a novel model for focusing U.S.- supported research on food and nutrition issues in developing countries. Their aims are to discover how policy and program interventions can most effectively achieve large-scale improvements in maternal and child nutrition, particularly by leveraging agriculture and build human and institutional capacity for applied policy analysis, research and program implementation.
This Training of Trainers Manual is designed to help build the capacity of trainers in flash flood risk management, who can then disseminate the knowledge to a larger number of practitioners. The manual presents an eight-day course including a three-day field trip. Detailed lesson plans for 21 sessions are followed by resource materials that will enable the trainers to replicate the course in their own work areas.
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD), self-assessment by the Country Platforms (CPs) and backstopping visits to five CPs. In 2014, the Prolinnova network saw a need to re-strategise in a changing context, and started this process by reviewing the activities it had undertaken and assessing its own functioning.
This guide is intended to assist facilitators in conducting a workshop with Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) providers for assessing their capacity needs. This guide has been compiled by the Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy (CRISP) for AESA with the assistance of a research grant from the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS).