This paper characterises some of the main issues confronting water-catchment managing in a climate-changing world and addresses wide-spread concerns about the lack of connectivity between science, policy making and implementation. The paper’s arguments are ‘framed’ within a paradigm of systemic and adaptive governing, regulating, planning and managing understood as a nested systemic hierarchy. It is argued that climate change adaptation is best understood as a coevolutionary dynamic, principally, but not exclusively between human beings and the biophysical world.
With the rapid pace of climate change and its impact on food security and livelihoods, climate-smart agriculture is one strategy aiming to help farmers adopt more sustainable farming practices. This study looked at farmers’ adoption of agricultural innovations and the role of social networks in the process.
The Global Innovation Index (GII) aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation by providing a rich database of detailed metrics for 127 economies, which represent 92.5% of the world’s population and 97.6% of global GDP. As Ban Ki-moon, the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, noted at the UN Economic and Social Council in 2013, the GII is a ‘unique tool for refining innovation policies . . . for providing an accurate picture on the role of science, technology and innovation in sustainable development’.
This concept note has been developed within the context of the EU-funded CDAIS project, which is jointly implemented by AGRINATURA-EEIG and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to support the TAP Action Plan in eight pilot countries in Africa (Angola, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda), Asia (Bangladesh, Laos) and Central America (Guatemala, Honduras) .
This training manual was prepared under the EU-funded project Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS), a global partnership (Agrinatura, FAO and 8 pilot countries) that aims to strengthen the capacity of countries and key stakeholders to innovate in complex agricultural systems, thereby achieving improved rural livelihoods.
CDAIS is a global partnership that aims to strengthen the capacity of countries and key stakeholders to innovate in the context of complex agricultural systems, to improve rural livelihoods. The goal of the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS) project is to promote innovation that meets the needs of small farmers, small and medium-sized agribusiness, and consumers.
The timeline tool is generally put to use when stakeholders embark upon the self-assessment phase of their innovation partnership. Stakeholders are asked to recall moments they feel were significant for the partnership, from its beginning to the present and to reflect upon how the partnership has evolved since it began.
The capacity-focused problem tree pinpoints a core capacity issue, along with its causes and effects. It helps clarify the precise capacity-development objectives that the intervention aims to achieve. The focus should be on functional capacity, but room should be left to acknowledge technical capacity issues too.
This tool enables participants to become cognisant of the functional capacities discovered through the capacity scoring questionnaire, and test the limits of these capacities through simulations or role-playing (e.g. problem-solving, collaboration, information sharing, and engagement). The simulation game leads to an intuitive understanding of innovation capacities and of the importance of the enabling environment, helping participants to learn about the significance of these capacities.
The Action Planning is a tool that formalizes commitments and plots the route to their implementation. An action plan is intended for the use of the core actors, who will have been identified beforehand in the visioning phase. It determines who does what and when, and is therefore essential to ensuring that things get done and that the goals and visions set out in the capacity development strategy are achieved.