Agricultural research continues to be a good investment. The studies show that investments in international and national agricultural research account for almost all of the total factor productivity (TFP) growth in SSA and large shares of agricultural growth globally. The existing agricultural research institutions have, on average, delivered rates of return to public investment above 30-40%, which is much higher than the 5-10% available to other public investments or the 2-5% cost of borrowing public funds.
TAP and its partners carried out regional surveys in Asia, Africa and Central America to assess priorities, capacities and needs in national agricultural innovation systems. This document provides a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation in Africa. FARA was selected as Recipient Organization by FAO to facilitate TAP implementation in Africa. This is mainly due to its position as the umbrella organization bringing together and forming coalitions of major regional stakeholders in agricultural research and development.
This paper identifies market failures that limit agricultural R&D for Africa and other resource-poor environments, and proposes a way to complement existing institutions with cash prizes for the dissemination of successful new technologies adopted by low-income farmers. The proposed prize institution would use agronomic experiments and farm surveys to document the value of innovations after their initial diffusion, and offer payments in proportion to estimated social benefits in target regions.
This paper discusses the challenges and determinants of agro-operations and innovation initiatives in developing countries. With particular reference to the Caribbean region, available country statistics and data are analysed. A generic model of collaborative innovation for agriculture that stresses collaboration among the stakeholders (government, knowledge institutions, public and private firms and others) is described.
Public–private partnerships that aim at the development of innovations have gained increasing attention from governments, public research and private companies, because they enable partners to draw from complementary resources and profit from synergy and joint learning. This article develops arguments for when partnerships should form and compares them with experiences in real partnership cases in Latin America.
This study describes the evolving context and organisational linkages in the agricultural innovation system of Azerbaijan and suggests ways to promote effective organisational ties for the development, distribution and use of new or improved information and knowledge related to agriculture. Graph-theoretic principles and concepts are employed to assess the existing organisational linkages vital for agricultural innovations.
This study introduces a framework for managing information flow in innovation systems. An organisation's capacity to receive information, to share it with others and to learn from it is assumed to be the key factor that shapes the flow patterns and, hence, the performance of the innovation system concerned. The framework is applied to characterise the information structure underlying the agricultural innovation system of Azerbaijan and to develop an information strategy for the system to accelerate the information flow.
Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) is a collection of institutions enabling agricultural and food system transformation in a country. Any attempt to engage in emergency interventions by institutions and bounce back with higher levels of resilience requires strong organizational and human capacity as a prerequisite. What role do these institutions play in emergencies such as COVID-19 and how can they bounce back after such a crisis is over? What can be done to help these institutions build resilience capacity for such recovery?
The CDAIS Communication strategy for 2015-2018 aims to contribute to CDAIS project's core objective of making agricultural innovation systems more efficient and sustainable in meeting the demands of farmers, agribusiness and consumers. For more information on CDAIS, see: https://www.fao.org/in-action/tropical-agriculture-platform/cdais-project...
This tool helps the design of comprehensive capacity development interventions aimed at strengthening mainly functional capacities. The purpose of this tool is to provide an overview of the different options in terms of capacity development modalities that an innovation partnership can consider while developing the action plan.