Five DeSIRA projects presented their results on strengthening multi-actor mechanisms to accelerate innovation in the agriculture sectors of Ethiopia during the 10th Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) meeting in Addis Ababa, Nov. 2023. 

The working session was a deep dive into case studies and concrete experiences to demonstrate successes in increasing innovation capacities at the country level.  

Representatives of DeSIRA LIFT projects shed light on the different types, functionalities and challenges of implementing multi-stakeholder platforms used to promote innovation processes and contribute to farmers’ livelihoods. Speakers came from a selection of projects covering a wide range of technical topics, as follows:  

• Bekele Haile manager of Yayu Coffee   – Hanns Neumann Stiftung 
• Alemu Tesfaye Mel Officer of project Women Coffee Climate project – OSRREA/AECID 
• Teklu Erkossa Project manager of PRO-SOILS/ PROSILIENCE – GIZ 
• Andrea Bozzetto Country manager and Gaetano Ladisa Scientific administrator of WATDEV project- CIHEAM/AICS  
• Frank Vanweeret coordinator  and Andre Kooiman scientific coordinator of LSC-IS Project – WUR 

Joined by experts Per Rudebjer from FAO’s Innovation Office and Mari Jo Cortijo from GFAR, they engaged in a fluid dialog aiming at: 

• Discussing the models that these organizations utilize to strengthen not only technical but also functional capacities to achieve their goals. 
• Discuss to what extent the multi-actor innovation mechanisms contribute to behavior or policy changes. 
• Demonstrating the significance of implementing these models and approaches to advance the TAP agenda. 

To start, Aurélie Toillier, leader of DeSIRA LIFT Service 1, set the scene with a short presentation focusing on approaches and tools to strengthen the capacity for innovation in agriculture implemented by DeSIRA projects. She highlighted that the promotion of “multi-actor mechanisms” is one of the principles of the DeSIRA initiative and that there are many managerial challenges to make them work efficiently. She concluded by emphasising the support provided by DeSIRA-LIFT through joint learning webinars, training and coaching. Renaud Guillonnet, leader of the DeSIRA LIFT Community of Action and Reflection, complemented the presentation with remarks about the tools to promote collaboration and peer learning between the DeSIRA projects. 

The panel took the form of a fishbowl exercise, with two questions: What models of multi-actor mechanisms are promoted by DeSIRA projects to support innovation in the agricultural sector in Ethiopia? To what extent the multi-actor innovation mechanisms are new, and to what the project is adding value to existing platforms? After a brief engagement with the audience, several takeaway messages from this working group derived: 

1. Different models of multi-actor innovation platforms with various intensities of research contributions operate at the country and regional levels, and these require upgraded functional capacities to be able to coordinate in complex environments and deliver their outcomes. 
2. DeSIRA projects play a crucial role in developing these functional capacities through needs-based, adaptive, continuous and local support, based on multiple tools and approaches such as: needs assessment, stakeholder mapping and engagement, design of governance mechanisms, communication and coordination support, monitoring, evaluation and learning systems. 
3. To sustain these types of functional support beyond project duration, well-trained professionals in the domain of innovation support who work in local and national organizations are necessary. Some countries initiated the introduction of new training curricula in Universities, to have a national workforce on innovation support. For more impact, the development of adequate research and education innovation policy incentives remain a big area where to invest efforts in countries. 
4. DeSIRA LIFT is in itself an enabling mechanism to bring together the experiences of DeSIRA projects, facilitate joint learning and develop capacities of DeSIRA members to further collaborate for achieving common objectives in countries.   

The contribution of DeSIRA projects accentuated the need to mainstream Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) approaches at national and regional levels, targeting key research and development organizations and policymakers, with a particular focus on integrating inclusive, needs-based bottom-up approaches into AIS.  

TAP is a G20 initiative, launched in 2012, with the mandate to work towards bridging the capacity gaps for agricultural innovation in the tropics. Its objective is to increase coherence and effectiveness of capacity development interventions for agricultural innovation systems, for sustainable change and impact at scale. The 10th TAP Assembly counted the presence of over 60 in-person attendees and approximately 20 participants who joined virtually, representing nearly 30 distinguished organizations from across 25 countries. 

The lessons, success stories and challenges presented by the DeSIRA projects in the group work session and plenary sessions contributed to boosting synergies and exploring future joint action among TAP members.  

• 09:00-11:00 CEST: English session for DeSIRA Projects in Asia, East and Southern Africa
• 16:00-18:00 CEST: French – Spanish session for DeSIRA projects in West Africa and Latin America. (Simultaneous interpretation FR-SP will be available).

Registration link here

(the meeting will be held in Zoom)

The aim of the webinar is to critically review the different types of multistakeholder innovation facilities (MIF) that are put in place, or promoted, by DeSIRA projects: innovation platforms, innovation poles, living labs, innovation hubs, business clusters, forum, etc. 

We will address the two main following questions: 

1. How DeSIRA projects make use of these multistakeholder innovation facilities to enable strategic collaborations and empowerment of the right stakeholders for innovation development and generalization? 
2. What are the main managerial challenges, risks and pitfalls of these multistakeholder innovation facilities linked to project-based approaches, that could jeopardize their contributions to innovation development and generalization? 

The webinar is designed for DeSIRA project implementers. It is part of DeSIRA-LIFT Community of Practice events that support peer learning to unravel and share the managerial challenges of DeSIRA projects to prove and improve their impacts. Read more on www.desiraliftcommunity.org  

Targeted audience: DeSIRA implementers and their partners

This webinar is part of the DeSIRA-LIFT Community of Practice

For detailed webinar information, please see here

Thursday 16 February

09:00-10:30 CET English webinar for DeSIRA Projects in Asia, East and Southern Africa

16:00-17:30 CET French and Spanish webinar for DeSIRA projects in West Africa and Latin America simultaneous interpretation FR-ES will be available.

Why:

The aim of the webinar is to review the challenges faced by DeSIRA projects operating in unpredictable situations and/ or insecure environments, identify and discuss the adjustments in their innovation strategy as well as the opportunities for innovating that these constraints might generate.

For who:

Targeted audience: DeSIRA implementers and their partners

How come:

The EU-funded DeSIRA initiative (Development of Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture, in short DeSIRA) was launched in 2018 with the aim of strengthening Research and Innovation, within an AIS perspective, in order to support the sustainable transformation of agri-food systems.

Lessons learned from previous EU-funded projects have made it possible to identify the managerial challenges faced by the projects. One of the challenges is how to adapt and respond to emerging innovation support needs in unpredictable contexts, driving projects to adjust their management strategies. Unpredictability and insecurity are two of the major management challenges that research and innovation DeSIRA projects face.

Some DeSIRA projects have reported, during the DeSIRA-LIFT first cycle of services’ offer, how much they are operating or have operated in contexts in which unpredictability and insecurity occurred, affecting the project’s environments in various ways: organizational, geopolitical, climatic, etc.

Unpredictability refers to situations to which a project may be exposed, or to a setting resulting from one or more unpredictable events or factors. The breakout of the COVID Pandemic has generated disruption across the world and changes, some still ongoing, to the environment in which research organizations operate. Long-lasting droughts, enduring extreme poverty, remote territories with less outreach from State actors, or lesser rule of law are examples of factors that may form such situations that affect project management and potentially jeopardize the possibilities of reaching desired impact.

Innovating in unexpected and unstable conditions also provides interesting opportunities.

Based on experience from DeSIRA projects, the webinar will allow identifying the different features of unpredictable situations and insecure environments into which projects operate, how projects mitigate these constraints, what additional challenges this poses and how much it affects their innovative and transformative strategies. We will also identify what benefits and opportunities adjusting to unpredictable situations and insecure environments have brought to their innovation pathways.

For more detailed information, click here:

Three DeSIRA projects were invited to present these new patterns:

• the FO-RI project, implemented by AGRICORD and its partners, working in 16 countries with farmers’ organizations leading research activities to codevelop agro-ecological innovations;
• the Santés & Territoires project, implemented by CIRAD and its partners, conducting research for innovation using living labs in Africa and Asia;
• the TAP-AIS project, implemented by FAO in 9 countries, with the broader scope of using research and innovation to develop policy frameworks for AIS strengthening.

There were also important interventions from invited panelists (CIRAD, FARA, DG-INTPA and DeSIRA-LIFT), emphasizing key challenges and lessons learned on making research partnerships work for AIS strengthening:

• AIS strengthening requires more long-term research partnerships with farmers’ organizations, civil society, the private sector and policymakers, beyond traditional project duration, in order to align their innovation agendas and collaborate further;
• The risk to invest in technological innovation leaving behind social innovation;
• The importance of engaging farmers early in the research projects as drivers of R&I agendas, then reversing the research processes for transforming agrifood systems, through on-demand research approaches led by civil society and farmers ‘organizations;
• The need to shift learning models from science-based approaches to experience-based approaches where scientists co-learn and co-develop knowledge with their partners and AIS actors while developing innovations;
• The need to accelerate knowledge sharing on multistakeholder innovation experiences in order to make national and international communities move together at the same pace for boosting agricultural innovation;
• The need to develop innovation policies as capacity development policies, targeting three levels of the AIS (innovation niche partnerships, innovation support service providers, and policy actors), creating more enabling environments for innovators and enabling new accredited job profiles to facilitate multi-actor collaboration and innovation processes.