This report sets out the synthesis of work carried out within the framework of the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) Secretariat Initiative on “The family economy and agricultural innovation: towards new partnerships”. The initiative aimed to stimulate analyses, collect field data and case studies that encourage debates between regional actors, with a view to informing the development of regional policies and actions in order to promote and strengthen producer access to agricultural innovation, where most producers are anchored in the family economy. In particular, the report summarizes the results of the following activities:
(i) An electronic consultation carried out from December 2003 to March 2004 with key regional and international actors; (ii) Field work undertaken in four West African countries: Burkina Faso, the Gambia, Ghana and Mali; (iii) A regional strategic thinking workshop on access to innovation organised in June 2004 by the SWAC Secretariat in collaboration with the WAEMU.
The Convergence of Sciences programme has spent the past decade exploring new pathways for agricultural innovation that focus on enabling smallholders to capture opportunity. Its approach relies on bringing together different actors who can achieve major change in an agriculture...
This paper compares lessons learned from nine studies that explored institutional determinants of innovation towards sustainable intensification of West African agriculture. The studies investigated issues relating to crop, animal, and resources management in Benin, Ghana, and Mali
West and Central African Council for Africulture Research and Development (WECARD) and Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) research that explores how national agricultural research organisations use innovation platforms to strengthen innovation capacity and address capacity gaps in sector development. The aim is to share...
This report documents the history of the systems of rice intensification (SRI, for short) in India in the last few years and presents some of the institutional changes and challenges that SRI throws up. The first part looks at the...
This brief report lays out ten theories of advocacy and policy change. These theories are intended to articulate the policy making process and identify causal connections supported by research to explain how and why a change may or may not...