These proceedings include all the papers presented during the AISA workshop either as oral papers or as posters. It also includes the edited text resulting from the Living Keynote process, an innovation in itself.
The AISA workshop was held on 29-31 May 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya, as part of an international week devoted to Agricultural innovation in Africa. The AISA workshop focused on active social learning among participants, developed a collective "living keynote" about the following issues:

This paper explores the use of complex adaptive systems theory in development policy analysis using a case study drawn from recent events in Uganda. It documents the changes that took place in the farming system in Soroti district during an outbreak of African cassava mosaic virus disease (ACMVD) and the subsequent decline in cassava production — the main staple food in the area. Resultant adaptation impacts are analysed across cropping, biological, economic and social systems each of which operate as an interlinked sub-system.

This paper argues that impact assessment research has not made more of a difference because the measurement of the economic impact has poor diagnostic power. In particular it fails to provide research managers with critical institutional lessons concerning ways of improving research and innovation as a process. Paper's contention is that the linear input-output assumptions of economic assessment need to be complemented by an analytical framework that recognizes systems of reflexive, learning interactions and their location in, and relationship with, their institutional context.

In the post-harvest area and in agriculture research in general, both in India and internationally, policy attention is returning to the question of how innovation can be encouraged and promoted and thus how impact on the poor can be achieved. This publication assembles several cases from the post-harvest sector. These provide examples of successful innovation that emerged in quite different ways. Its purpose is to illustrate and analyze the diversity and often highly context-specific nature of the processes that lead to and promote innovation.

This policy brief sets out the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of a learning-orientated monitoring and evaluation approach known as Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) and discusses options for learning-oriented interventions and policy research. 

This paper introduces Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Innovation Systems (RAAIS). RAAIS is a diagnostic tool that can guide the analysis of complex agricultural problems and innovation capacity of the agricultural system in which the complex agricultural problem is embedded. RAAIS focuses on the integrated analysis of different dimensions of problems (e.g. biophysical, technological, socio-cultural, economic, institutional and political), interactions across different levels (e.g.

Parasitic weeds such as Striga spp and Rhamphicarpa fistulosa in smallholder rice production systems form an increasing problem for food and income security in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper we implement the Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Innovation Systems (RAAIS) as a diagnostic tool to identify specific and generic entry points for innovations to address parasitic weeds in rain-fed rice production in Tanzania. Data were gathered across three study sites in Tanzania where parasitic weeds are eminent (Kyela, Songea Rural and Morogoro Rural districts).

This paper reviews a recent donor-funded project concerning the introduction of post-harvest technology to poor hill farmers in India. Rather than conform to conventional development aid projects of either a “research” or an “interventionist” nature, it combines both approaches in a research-action program, which has more in common with a business development approach than a formal social science one. An important conclusion is that the work (and apparent success) of the project is consistent with an understanding of development that emphasizes the importance of innovation systems.

This study identifies entry points for innovation for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems. An agricultural innovation systems approach is used to provide a holistic image of (relations between) constraints faced by different stakeholder groups, the dimensions and causes of these constraints, and intervention levels, timeframes and types of innovations needed. The authors aim at showing that constraints for sustainable intensification of agricultural systems are mainly of economic and institutional nature.

The capacity of existing monitoring and decision making tools in generating evidence about the performance of R4D with multi-stakeholder processes, such as innovation platforms (IPs), public private partnerships (PPP), participatory value chain management (PVCM) is very limited. Results of these tools are either contextual and qualitative such as case studies that can not be used by other R4D interventions or quantitative i.e. impact assessments that do not inform what works in R4D.