Sustainable food systems are fundamental to ensuring that future generations are food secure and eat healthy diets. To transition towards sustainability, many food system activities must be reconstructed, and myriad actors around the world are starting to act locally. While some changes are easier than others, knowing how to navigate through them to promote sustainable consumption and production practices requires complex skill sets.
Les systèmes alimentaires durables sont essentiels pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et une alimentation saine pour les générations futures. Pour faire la transition vers la durabilité, de nombreuses activités du système alimentaire doivent se transformer, et une myriade d’acteurs à travers le monde doivent agir localement. Certains changements sont plus faciles à mettre en place que d’autres, mais savoir comment naviguer à travers ces changements pour promouvoir des modes de consommation et de production durables exige un ensemble de compétences complexes.
Los sistemas alimentarios sostenibles son fundamentales para garantizar que las generaciones actuales y futuras tengan seguridad alimentaria y puedan llevar una dieta saludable. Para hacer la transición hacia la sostenibilidad, es necesario reconstruir muchas actividades del sistema alimentario, y un sinnúmero de actores en todo el mundo están empezando a actuar localmente. Si bien algunos cambios son más fáciles que otros, saber cómo navegar a través de ellos para promover prácticas de consumo y producción sostenibles requiere un conjunto complejo de aptitudes.
RIU is a research and development programme designed to put agricultural research into use for developmental purposes and to conduct research on how to do this. The programme is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). It follows earlier investments by DFID in agricultural and natural resources research, supported through its renewable natural resources research strategy (RRNRRS). While this strategy delivered high-quality research, the uptake of this research and its impact on social and economic progress was modest.
This paper aims to map the experience of the RIU Asia projects and draw out the main innovation management tactics being observed while laying the groundwork for further research on this topic. It provides a framework to help analyse the sorts of innovation management tasks that are becoming important. This framework distinguishes four elements of innovation management: (i) Functions (ii) Actions (iii) Tools and (iv) Organisational Format.
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.
This paper aims to map the experience of the RIU Asia projects and draw out the main innovation management tactics being observed while laying the groundwork for further research on this topic. It provides a framework to help analyse the sorts of innovation management tasks that are becoming important. This framework distinguishes four elements of innovation management: (i) Functions (ii) Actions (iii) Toolsand (iv) Organisational Format.
This paper reflects on the experience of the Research Into Use (RIU) projects in Asia. It reconfirms much of what has been known for many years about the way innovation takes place and finds that many of the shortcomings of RIU in Asia were precisely because lessons from previous research on agricultural innovation were “not put into use” in the programme’s implementation. However, the experience provides three important lessons for donors and governments to make use of agricultural research: (i) Promoting research into use requires enabling innovation.
Over the last 10 years much has been written about the role of the private sector as part of a more widely-conceived notion of agricultural sector capacity for innovation and development. This paper discusses the emergence of a new class of private enterprise in East Africa that would seem to have an important role in efforts to tackle poverty reduction and food security. These organisations appear to occupy a niche that sits between mainstream for-profit enterprises and the developmental activities of government programmes, NGOs and development projects.
The Sourcebook is the outcome of joint planning, continued interest in gender and agriculture, and concerted efforts by the World Bank, FAO, and IFAD. The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff inaddressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations.