This Breakout Session at the GCARD Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (Punta Del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012)) sought to identify effective strategies for implementing innovation partnerships that improve the livelihoods of the poor on a large scale, including the gaining of evidence and understanding needed for that implementation.
This document is about a session of the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), which was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 2012. The session focused on how to strengthen institutional capacities as well as multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational networking, including through improved policies, management practices, structures and incentives, so that institutions become more adaptive and responsive, as well as more effective in linking farmers, research, education, extension and development actors.
En los últimos 25 años se han producido cambios significativos en la vida rural de América Latina, en sus dimensiones política, económica, social, laboral, demográfica, cultural y ambiental, a partir de lo que se denominó los Programas de Ajuste Estructural y de las decisiones políticas y económicas que tomó cada país en particular. Uno de los elementos centrales y determinantes de las reformas en los Sistemas de Extensión y Transferencia de Tecnología Agraria (SETTA) ocurrió a partir de fines de la década de los setentas y principios de la década de los ochentas.
El estudio buscó caracterizar dos elementos complementarios en el subcontinente latinoamericano: i) el surgimiento de políticas públicas específicas para el sector de la AF, y ii) la forma en que las políticas agrarias clásicas afectan ese sector. El documento consta de dos partes. La primera presenta un análisis transversal del conjunto de estudios de caso nacionales y la segunda parte presenta dichos estudios. Los trabajos de síntesis nacional fueron realizados a partir de la aplicación de una guía de análisis común que comportaba cinco bloques: 1.
Con el objetivo de generar insumos para las iniciativas TIC de las instituciones públicas para la agricultura y rescatar las experiencias y lecciones aprendidas de los países de America Latina y el Caribe que llevan la vanguardia en este tema, a mediados de 2010 el Centro de Análisis para la Agricultura (CAESPA) del IICA inició un proceso de identificación y análisis de los principales factores que retrasan o limitan el impacto de las TIC en esas instituciones.
This study presents a quasi-experimental analysis of the impact of FairTrade certification on the commercial performance of coffee farmers in Tanzania. In doing so the study emphasises the importance of a well-contextualised theory of change as a basis for evaluation design. It also stresses the value of qualitative methods to control for selection bias. Based on a longitudinal (pseudo-panel) dataset comprising both certified and conventional farmers, it shows that FairTrade certification introduced a disincentive to farmers’ commercialisation.
Invasive species such as Ambrosia (an annual weed) pose a biosecurity risk whose management depends on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of many stakeholders. It can therefore be considered a complex policy and risk governance problem. Complex policy problems are characterised by high uncertainty, multiple dimensions, interactions across different spatial and policy levels, and the involvement of a multitude of actors and organisations. This paper provides a conceptual framework for analysing the multi-level and multi-actor dimensions of Ambrosia management.
Private sector actors bring expertise, resources, and new perspectives to agricultural development, but the tendency to short-term approaches and market-based orientation has been unable to drive a systemic change in the development agenda. We explore how multi-stakeholder dialogues can capitalize on and trickle systemic change through private sector involvement. Analysis from the farmer-led irrigation development multi-stakeholder dialogue space (FLI-MDS) in Ghana shows the need for a physical and institutional space to cater for and merge different stakeholder interests.
In Bangladesh, strengthening agricultural innovation calls for facilitation of interactive communication and a wide range of mediation tasks within (and between) stakeholders operating in different social spheres. This paper examines how a public-sector agricultural extension agency has attempted to change its roles in implementing a major agricultural extension project in order to strengthen agricultural innovation.
This paper takes the viewpoint of a social scientist and looks at agricultural scientists' pathways for science impact. Awareness of these pathways is increasingly becoming part and parcel of the professionalism of the agricultural scientist, now that the pressure is on to mobilize smallholders and their productive resources for (global) food security and for reducing persistent rural poverty. Significant new thinking about pathways is emerging and it is useful to present some of this, even if it is not cut-and-dried.