Strengthening the abilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly women farmers, to produce for both home and the market is currently a development priority. In many contexts, ownership of assets is strongly gendered, reflecting existing gender norms and limiting women’s ability to invest in more profitable livelihood strategies such as market-oriented agriculture. Yet the intersection between women’s asset endowments and their ability to participate in and benefit from agricultural interventions receives minimal attention.

This paper illustrates the Small Stock Innovation Platform, an initiative which is one of the key tangible outcomes of the Strengthening Capacity in Agricultural Research for Development in Africa (SCARDA) program, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural research systems in selected countries and institutions in all three sub-regions of Sub Saharan Africa.

The contributions and dynamic interaction of thousands of stakeholders from all sectors have created the GCARD (Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development) Roadmap, providing a clear path forward for all involved. The Roadmap highlights the urgent changes required in Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) systems globally, to address worldwide goals of reducing hunger and poverty, creating opportunity for income growth while ensuring environmental sustainability and particularly meeting the needs of resource-poor farmers and consumer.

The Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures final report  provides an overview of the evidence and discusses the challenges and choices for policy makers and others whose interests relate to all areas that interact with the food system.

In comparison with the other EU (27) countries Innovation capacity indicators in Latvia remain low and considerably underperform. Problems and solutions are illustrated to represent innovation capacity in Latvia. The article consists of the following parts: first - theoretical aspects are selected to describe the essential definition of the analyzed subject. In the second part, experience from abroad is described, at the end – Latvian innovation policy and situation is analyzed and suggestions for further needs are formulated.