The Great Lakes region of Central Africa is an area abundant in hills, people and conflicts. Its high altitude and cooler climate make it ideal for agriculture. But soils have been exhausted, spare land is no longer available, and farm households in parts of this region rank among the most food insecure and malnourished on earth. Years of civil conflict have moreover paralyzed agricultural advisory and extension services and resulted in poor access to markets. Although there is unclarity about what type of solutions will be effective to address these problems, it is clear that developing, testing and implementing solutions requires collaboration, learning and collective action between farmers, governments, civil society organisations, researchers and the private sector. To facilitate this collaboration, ‘multi-stakeholder innovation platforms’ (hence referred to as IPs) were initiated in Burundi, Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics). An IP is a space for learning and change. It is a group of organizations represented by one or multiple people that often have different backgrounds and interests. Depending on the issue at stake, IPs can include farmers, input providers, government officials, extension officers, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), researchers, media, processors, retailers, etc. The IP members come together to diagnose problems, set priorities, identify opportunities and find ways to achieve their objectives
This report describes issues presented and discussed at a workshop held in Rwanda from 6 - 8 September 2012, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural innovation in post-conflict and protracted crisis (2PC) countries. It was the first workshop of its...
The term 'Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D),' first coined in 2003, acknowledges the complexity of the agricultural system and the need to bring together not only different related research disciplines but also multiple actors (private sector, public sector, producer...
The CLIC–SR project started on 1 September 2012, ended on 31 August 2016, and was implemented in four countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. This report covers the work done in the final project period: January–August 2016. The report adds...
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...
This presentation on innovation systems and innovation platforms was presented at the Africa RISING Training Workshop on Innovation Platforms, Addis Ababa, 23-24 January 2014.The presentation explains the concepts of innovation, innovation systems and innovation platform (IP) and also defines roles and characteristics...