The 2014 Annual workshop of the CGIAR Consortium CapDev Community of Practice was held from September 10–12, 2014 at CGIAR Consortium Headquarters, Montpellier, France.The workshop was planned by a CapDev Convening Committee comprised of Iddo Dror (ILRI), Diana Brandes (Livestock & Fish), Per Rudebjer (Bioversity), Simone Staiger (CIAT), Mehmood Hassan (ICRAF), Javier Ekboir (ILAC), Alain Vidal/Luis Solorzano (Consortium Office) and a facilitator Nadia Manning-Thomas.
This project report from Wageningen UR (as a contribution to the CGIAR Humid Tropics research program) examines critical issues for reflection when designing and implementing research for development in innovation platforms’. The current document therefore aims to increase awareness about the complexity of research in innovation. The underlying idea is that innovation platforms can facilitate institutional changes and support system innovations through increased interaction, negotiation and learning between stakeholders, including (new) roles of research(ers).
Though research on communication and innovation during the last decade brought better understanding on the innovation process, this has not influenced the underlying paradigm and practice of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in most countries. At the same time there have been few initiatives that tried to experiment with new ways of developing capacities for extension and innovation.
Many capacity development (CD) programs and processes aim at long‐term sustainable change, which depends on seeing many smaller changes in at times almost invisible fields (rules, incentives, behaviours, power, coordination etc.). Yet, most evaluation processes of CD tend to focus on short‐term outputs focused on clearly visible changes.
This paper reviews the current policies and programmes of EIARD members in relation to capacity development and makes recommendations on future directions. The main issues and recommendations will be incorporated into a policy brief in which specific policy options or guidelines will be presented. The goal of EIARDs strategy is to reduce poverty (i.e. MDGs); to promote economic growth, food security, and sustainable management of natural resources in developing & emerging economy countries and to contribute to global development issues and knowledge generation.
Innovation platforms are equitable, dynamic spaces designed to bring heterogeneous actors together to exchange knowledge and take action to solve a common problem. Although innovation platforms are being set up to attain collectively defined development objectives, there are limited methods and tools available using quantitative data to evaluate whether they are effective.
The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is a research in development program which aims to foster innovation to respond to community needs, and through networking and social learning to bring about development outcomes and impact at scale. It aims to reach the poorest and most vulnerable communities that are dependent upon aquatic agricultural systems. AAS uses monitoring and evaluation to track progress along identified impact pathways for accountability and learning.
This report on actors and issues in rural advisory services (RAS) aims to provide the required background information and analysis that will – together with other ongoing validation activities – enable GFRAS, the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services, to develop its long-term strategies and work plans in order to fulfil its mission and functions. The report on actors and issues in rural advisory services (RAS) is based on a review of primary and secondary documentation about RAS and their stakeholders, undertaken in 2010.
This document summarizes the fifteen projects that were selected by a panel of international experts as those which best represent the technological, institutional and organizational innovations carried out with and by small farmers – known as family farming - in LAC. This is the result of a hemisphere-wide competition organized in 2012 by FONTAGRO, with the aim of (1) showcasing success stories in which innovations having positive economic, social, and environmental impacts have been implemented and, (2) raising awareness regarding the importance of investing in innovation.
The Centre for Development Research (CDR), in collaboration with local partnership managed by the Bangladesh Agricultural University worked to establish a platform (i.e. a participatory rural video centre) that acts upon fostering rural women’s capacity for agricultural innovation in the north-west and north-east region of Bangladesh. In this paper, the authors elaborate principles of establishing the centre, and some evidences on Farmers’ Participatory Research (FPR) in the community.