The objective of this paper is to identify the possible role and opportunities for the private sector to participate with governments and farmers in developing and managing irrigation and drainage (I&D) infrastructure. Over the last 50 years, irrigated agriculture has been vital to meeting fast-rising food demand and has been key to poverty reduction. In the coming years the strong demographic demand for food is expected to continue, and intensified irrigated agriculture will have to provide close to 60 percent of the extra food.

The Tugi Silvo-pastoral Project (TUSIP) is a South-South Cooperation between the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE) and the Akwi Memorial Foundation (AMF) based in the North West Region of Cameroon. The main goal of TUSIP was to assess the environmental benefits of a set of silvo-pastoral practices and to empower traditional livestock farmers in Tugi Village by enhancing their capability to manage available crop-animal systems and natural resources in a sustainable manner.

This paper presents a literature review of issues related to recent subsidies and investments in the financial sector that have been designed to address the immediate effects of the crises and to develop the financial institutions necessary to modernize agriculture. Section two of the paper discusses the impact of recent food, fuel, and financial crises on developing countries and the emergency actions taken by countries and international agencies to reduce the suffering inflicted on poor people.

This report demonstrates that financial cooperatives can be sustainable providers of financial services in rural areas and development assistance needs to consider supporting them as a means to enhance access to rural finance. It does not suggest that financial cooperatives are the only providers or the preferred channel in all circumstances. For financial cooperatives to function as sustainable institutions, governments need to provide an enabling environment, not exercise excessive control that restricts growth and consolidation, and not use them as channels to provide subsidized credit.

This report highlights the great potential of the agribusiness sector in Africa by drawing on experience in Africa as well as other regions. The evidence demonstrates that good policies, a conducive business environment, and strategic support from governments can help agribusiness reach its potential. Africa is now at a crossroads, from which it can take concrete steps to realize its potential or continue to lose competitiveness, missing a major opportunity for increased growth, employment, and food security. The report pursues several lines of analysis.

An innovation platform is a space for learning and change. It is a group of individuals (who often represent organizations) with different backgrounds and interests: farmers, traders, food processors, researchers, government officials etc. The members come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities and find ways to achieve their goals. They may design and implement activities as a platform, or coordinate activities by individual members. This brief explains what innovation platforms are and how they work, and it describes some of their advantages and limitations.

Innovation platforms are advocated as a promising way to find solutions to complex problems, such as those in agriculture and natural resource management. As social, economic and environmental problems grow ever more complex, researchers need
to engage more actively with stakeholders such as farmers, development practitioners and policymakers to explore, design and implement solutions. Innovation platforms offer them an opportunity to do so.

Growing local and informal markets in Asia and Africa provide both challenges and opportunities for small holders. In developing countries, market failures often lead to suboptimal performance of the value chains and limited and inequitable participation of the poor. In recent years, innovation platforms have been promoted as mechanisms to stimulate and support multistakeholder collaboration in the context of research for development. They are recognized as having the potential to link value chain actors, and enhance communication and collaboration to overcome market failures.

There is an ongoing debate on what constitutes sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA). In this paper, we propose that a paradigm for sustainable intensification can be defined and translated into an operational framework for agricultural development. We argue that this paradigm must now be defined—at all scales—in the context of rapidly rising global environmental changes in the Anthropocene, while focusing on eradicating poverty and hunger and contributing to human wellbeing.

This is a chapter of the book Innovation platforms for agricultural development edited by Iddo Dror, Jean-Joseph Cadilhon, Marc Schut, Michael Misiko and Shreya Maheshwari.