agrl_innovations_in_ssa.pdf?utm_content=buffercb41d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Box 1: CAADP/FARA-related research reforms in Africa
The African Union–New Partnerships for Africa’s Development (AU–NEPAD)’s CAADP operates
through four ‘Pillars’, 1. Land water management, 2. Market access, 3. Food supply and hunger and,
4. Agricultural research and its uptake. FARA is mandated to deliver Pillar 4 through supporting
member organisations in Africa.
Since 2006 FARA and two sub-regional organisations, Conseil ouest et centre Africain pour la recherche
et le développement agricoles/West and Central African Council for Research and Development
(CORAF/WECARD) in West Africa and Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern
and Central Africa (ASARECA) in Eastern Africa have made important strides with a process of
integrated reform of the way research is done. These have centred on the introduction of an impactand
client-oriented ‘business unusual’ that addresses weaknesses in African agricultural research to
target the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This includes:
• Reform of technological research to be more demand-led and appropriate
• Enhancement of policy and institutional research
• Strengthening of capacity in the sub-regions
• Meeting demand for information.
FARA has the responsibility of running the SSA Challenge Programme that is built around the IAR4D
paradigm within a broad innovation systems context.
Source: NEPAD–CAADP, 2011
FARA has been a key player in developing and promoting Integrated Agricultural Research
for Development (IAR4D), which uses an innovations systems approach in bringing partners
together within Innovation Platforms (IPs), a concept that was also developed by FARA. For
example, FARA’s Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme with Pilot Learning Sites (SSA CP
PLS) in Nigeria’s Kano and Katsina States and Niger’s Maradi Province (KKM), around Lake Kivu
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, and in Zimbabwe, Malawi and
Mozambique (ZMM) are playing an important role in this process (FARA, 2009). In addition
the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID)-funded Research-Into-Use (RIU)
programme that covers a number of African and Asian countries is based on encouraging
an innovations systems approach. There are many other instances where stakeholders have
worked successfully together before the concept of innovation systems approaches was
promulgated. This review documents the experiences of 21 case studies in SSA, to identify the
reasons for their success and the lessons to be learned from these initiatives
Innovation systems approaches are often based on improvements in a commodity value
chain (Figure 1), in which knowledge and/or research products, together with purchased and
farm- or household- provided inputs are used in natural resource based production systems,
marketed and processed for sale and consumed. Inevitably such a supply chain involves many
actors from producer to consumer.
Any value-chain approach requires identification of the actors involved in all stages along the
chain, followed by a systematic analysis to identify constraints and opportunities thus ensuring
a fair reward for all, particularly producers, who are often major target beneficiaries. Innovation
can be shaped in different ways, depending on the initial context, whether the key actors are
from public or private sectors and whether they operate at international, regional, national,
district, local government or community levels (Table 1).
10 Agricultural Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa