Innovation platforms are equitable, dynamic spaces designed to bring heterogeneous actors together to exchange knowledge and take action to solve a common problem. Although innovation platforms are being set up to attain collectively defined development objectives, there are limited methods and tools available using quantitative data to evaluate whether they are effective. This paper elaborates a conceptual framework based on elements from new institutional economics and marketing relationship management to model the impact pathways within innovation platforms and how they contribute to attaining the objectives of the rural communities involved. The paper also proposes a field research protocol based on focus group discussions, semi-directive interviews of key stakeholders associated with the innovation platforms and individual surveys of platform members. The data collected is both qualitative and quantitative in nature allowing useful triangulation to test the model. Successive empirical tests of the model in different contexts should allow long-term strengthening and field validation of the conceptual framework.
Based on international literature, preliminary experiences in a three-country West African research programme, and on the disappointing impact of agricultural research on African farm innovation, the current paper argues that institutional change demands rethinking the pathways to innovation so as...
Written by practitioners, this publication is designed to make capacity development more professional and increasingly effective in achieving development goals. Practical illustrations draw on experiences from the civic, government and private sectors. A central theme is to understand capacity as...
This study reports on the contribution of farmer– to-farmer video-mediated group learning to capital assets building of women in resource-poor households. Data were collected using structured interviews with 140 randomly selected women in 28 video villages and 40 women in...
This volume is an abstract of the Mekong Environmental Symposium 2013 held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from March 5th - 7th, 2013. The Mekong Environmental Symposium 2013 has been organized by the German Aerospace Center, DLR and the WISDOM Project,...
The rapidly changing nature of the global food and agriculture system suggests the need to rethink how innovation can contribute to developing-country agriculture. While scientific and technological changes in agriculture can help foster productivity growth and poverty reduction, their contributions...
