Building on this potential, Katalyst’s Women’s Economic Empowement (WEE) sector designed an intervention to provide training in modern prawn cultivation techniques and input and create linkages between feed and aqua-chemical companies with women prawn farmers of the Jessore-Khulna Bagerhat Satkhira Narail belt. Through this intervention, 22,170 women farmers have improved access to quality inputs and relevant know-how.
Women in agriculture are far from the end of poverty, zero hunger, quality education, and gender equality — some of the sustainable development goals that can be significantly improved if we achieve greater participation and better working conditions for women in agriculture.
AARINENA was established to strengthen cooperation among national, regional and international agricultural research institutions and centers to ultimately support the agricultural sector in its member countries. Women farmers significantly contribute to the agricultural development in the WANA region, but often remain invisible in agricultural research and knowledge transfer.
The goal of both of this report is to draw lessons from Katalyst’s experience which could be used more broadly. As the private sector assumes a more significant role in the architecture of development it is important to understand more clearly what benefits companies might get from greater engagement; and also what actions work best to facilitate inclusive market approaches.
The number of theories of innovation systems has grown considerably over the past two decades and several innovation system approaches have been developed. The focus of most has been on the development of technological innovations which create economic value.However, addressing macro-level societal problems – sociotechnical and environmental challengesin which the production, dissemination and use of social and technical knowledge and technology can potentially resolve the problem – has been overlooked.
A central concern about achieving global food security is reconfiguring agri-food systems towards sustainability. However, historically-informed trajectories of agri-food system development remain resistant to a change in direction. Through a systematic literature review, the authors identify three research domains exploring this phenomenon and six explanations of resistance: embedded nature of technologies, misaligned institutional settings, individual attitudes, political economy factors, infrastructural rigidities, research and innovation priorities.
Governments of low-income countries and international development donors are increasing their funding for research at least in part on the assumption that research has positive impacts on socioeconomic development. Four pathways are commonly cited to describe how research will contribute to development: 1. Investment in research will drive economic growth; 2. Investment in research will increase human capital; 3. Investment in research will lead to the development of pro-poor products and technologies; 4.
The term ‘systemic innovation’ is increasing in use. However, there is no consensus on its meaning: four different ways of using the term can be identified in the literature. Most people simply define it as a type of innovation where value can only be derived when the innovation is synergistically integrated with other complementary innovations, going beyond the boundaries of a single organization. Therefore, the term ‘systemic’ refers to the existence of a co-ordinated innovation system.
The world’s population is likely to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) believes that 60 per cent more food will be needed by 2050 to sustain all these people. Where possible, this food should be produced where it is needed – in developing countries.
This paper briefly reviews three conceptual frameworks: namely, the national agricultural research system (NARS), the agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS) and the agricultural innovation system (AIS) concepts. Next, the paper reviews the definition of ‘innovation’ and proposes that agricultural innovation can occur at four different but interlinked domains.