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