The Reality of Innovation and its Implications for Projects

The Reality of Innovation and its Implications for Projects

Andy Hall

LINK-United Nations University-MERIT

Learning INnovation KnowledgePolicy-relevant Resources for Rural Innovation

Development: A Knowledge-Intensive Process

• Using knowledge, information and ideas to add value to existing resources and skills to create social and economic outcomes in a sustainable way


Integrated Nature of Issues

• Fodder/ Seed Systems / Flexibility in Governance Systems

• Transport / Animal Health/ Water Resource Development/ Infrastructure/ Marketing / Policy

• Animal Traction/ Confinement / Fodder / Fodder Production / Seed Production


What is Innovation?

• Adoption of new technology• New ways of organising farmers to do things• New ways of marketing crops• New ways of implementing projects

– new groupings of partners, new methodologies, new strategies

• New policies


Partnership (Networking)

• What for?– Problem identification– Accessing resources/ funds/ skills/ technology– Joint problem-solving

• Who with?– Farmers/ individuals/ groups/ associations– Government– Research organisations– Private sector and NGOs– Etc.

• When?– Different partners at different times for different reasons


Second-Third (etc.) generation problems

• Sorghum — Yolk colour

• Organic production — Confinement and bulls — Fodder strategies

• Fodder — Seed systems

• A continuously-evolving set of problems


Skill Development

• New skills as part of a bigger set of activities


Reflection on how results were achieved (Redefining Objectives)

• Sorghum coalition continued to work because they found the approach useful

• Transport project


Implications for Projects and Organisations

• Defining problems much more holistically -- farming system but also much wider system of markets, government structures and policy

• Therefore need to tackle farm level, market level and policy level innovations all within the same project

• Therefore also need to think about who defines the problem, and follow opportunities rather that just constraints. Negotiating objectives rather than setting them.



• Multiple types of innovation require different and diverse partners.

• Village-level groupings for on-the-ground ownerships and outcomes, but also groups of stakeholders at operational and policy levels who can make change happen at their level

• Therefore, the need to have skills and time to identify partners and nurture partnerships that work. (Ritualistic partnerships don’t help)



• Need to recognise that making links is a specific activity and working out how to do it is a research task

• There is no one way of catalysing groupings/linkages and partnerships. This always has to be investigated in a particular context. It needs to be experimented with



• New problems need new partners• New problems cannot be predicted and need an

approach that recognises this – Action, Research, Flexibility

• Need mechanisms for identifying new problems and identifying the partners needed to help solve these



• Research, training, extension advocacy for policy change are all tasks that need to be part of a project

………..And not necessarily in that order



• Systematically reflecting on how success was achieved

• Need for mid-course correction and developing capacity for future projects (of self and others)

• Therefore, need specific mechanisms and skills to do this in projects/ organisations


LINK is a specialist network of regional innovation policy studies hubs established by the United Nations University-MERIT (UNU-MERIT)

and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to strengthen the interface between rural innovation studies,

policy and practice and to promote North-South and South-South learning on rural innovation.


The Reality of Innovation and its Implications for Projects

Education

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