This paper argues that Dutch-funded capacity development projects in developing countries for tertiary agricultural education organisations as they are currently carried out are not able to successfully achieve the sustained changes required. That is, changes in how an organisation functions, its cultural norms and rules, and also in how it interacts within wider networks. Rather, long-term institutional change is needed.
We are facing complex societal problems such as climate change, human conflict, poverty and inequality, and need innovative solutions. Multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs) are more and more seen as a critical way of coming to such innovative solutions. It is thought that when multiple stakeholders are able to meet, share experiences, learn together and contribute to decisions, new and innovative ways of dealing with problems are found and turned into action. Still, much remains to be understood about the role and effectiveness of social learning in multi-stakeholder settings.
This paper introduces a new research framework for social learning, to be able to derive ways to facilitate social learning. The authors report on an explorative interview study to substantiate the framework. One interesting conclusion was that hidden agenda’s were shown to undermine trust, which in turn undermined the social learning process. This explains the importance of openness for social learning. Research results show substantiate the research framework, and show that it can be used to derive methods to facilitate social learning.
The horticultural sector in Jordan is undergoing a crisis, due to a decline in export. Innovation can improve the performance of the sector. To this end, the government of Jordan should pursue an innovation policy with the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) as object of the governance. Based on a review of the AKIS in Jordan it is proposed that a Living Lab setting be used to gain experience with the management of a number of innovation projects and capacity building projects.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD project on Restoration of Landscapes and Livelihoods (ROLL P) in Lesotho. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD Smallholder Agriculture Cluster Project (SACP) in Zimbabwe. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
This toolbox has been developed to collate different tools and methods that can be used for food system analysis.
It is specifically based on systems thinking for food system analysis, with the aim to formulate actionable recommendations that can bring about systemic change.It describes both the process of a food system analysis, as well as a set of tools that can be used at different stages.
Mobile phone based money services have spread rapidly in many developing countries. We analyze micro level impacts using panel data from smallholder farmers in Kenya. Mobile money use has a large positive net impact on household income. One important pathway is through remittances, which contribute to income directly but also help to reduce risk and liquidity constraints, thus promoting agricultural commercialization. Mobile money users apply more purchased inputs, market a larger proportion of their output, and have higher farm profits.
Classical innovation adoption models implicitly assume homogenous information flow across farmers, which is often not realistic. As a result, selection bias in adoption parameters may occur. We focus on tissue culture (TC) banana technology that was introduced in Kenya more than 10 years ago. Up till now, adoption rates have remained relatively low.
Strategic management (STM) is recognized as an important element for firms’ success; however, small firms, especially in agribusiness, have widely been overlooked because it is often thought that a systematic STM is exclusively for large corporate firms. Firms engage in STM practices such as environmental analysis, formulation of mission and vision statements, strategic planning, implementation, evaluation, etc., regardless of their size.