Strategies for setting up innovation platforms in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site (Chapter 2)

The emergence of integrated agricultural research for development (IAR4D) presents an opportunity to address development problems. IAR4D involves innovative principles and an integrated research agenda, while recognising the need for greater organisational capacities among stakeholders in agriculture. Actualising IAR4D revolves around the successful establishment of innovation platforms (IPs), as mentioned in chapter 1. These are being implemented in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site (LKPLS) of the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) to address agricultural development challenges. This chapter presents the stages and experiences of establishing IPs in the LKPLS. IPs can serve as multi-level and multi-stakeholder forums, allowing participants to identify, understand and address complex challenges and concomitant emerging issues. This mutual learning process can mobilise members to achieve an agreed vision. IP formation is a dynamic and highly context-specific process that incorporates all of the essential ingredients for successful innovation. It recognises the value of indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) and capitalises on prevailing policies and institutional settings, while involving local leadership. The evolution and timing of IP formation depends on the particular conceptual and local context, specifically the quality of facilitation and the socio-economic, cultural, biophysical, and political environments in which common challenges and/or opportunities are identified, as well as on the capacity of stakeholders to grasp the innovation systems approach, described below. Creating win–win situations with market-led interventions accelerates the process of IP formation. Strong leadership, strategic and operational partnerships, two-way information flows, and dealing with recurrent challenges are all critical to fostering innovation. Some of the major challenges experienced during the IP formation processes included the daunting task of building capacity among stakeholders and dealing with the persistent ‘handout syndrome’ – a phenomenon where communities (especially those coming out of conflict, which have been receiving food aid) expect to subsist on what is received as aid instead of working to produce food and generate income.

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