Technology

Scientific education, knowledge and research are crucial to solving development challenges. Science as a tool for providing evidence and discovering solutions has been neglected recently by many key decision makers, Science and Innovation for Development aims to play a part in changing that.

The scope of Science and Innovation for Development, co-authored by Professor Sir Gordon Conway and Professor Jeff Waage, international development experts, considers:

• Why science is important, how it works and how technologies can be sourced and partnerships formed;
• Three of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – reducing hunger, improving health and protecting the  environment;
• The impact of climate change and other future threats and how science can contribute to building sustainability and resilience;
• How to get advances in research and development to where they are most needed.

The agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa badly needs to find new ways of doing things if agricultural development is to contribute to food security and poverty alleviation. This is not only about introducing new technologies to farmers. It is also, even more importantly, about changes in the way old and new technologies, ideas and initiatives are put into practice – as well as how different actors work (together) to stimulate innovation. This book takes a look at platforms that have been set up in order to trigger such change. 

However, little is known about how innovation platforms actually operate. This book brings together twelve stories from the field about creating and working with innovation platforms in Africa. It is the result of practitioners putting their heads together to analyse their experiences, and to draw lessons from them. This joint analysis provides insights into how innovation platforms (can) work and different options available to them, and also offers suggestions on how to deal with their main common challenges. 

This publication is written from the perspective of practitioners for practitioners. It provides new information on the performance of innovation platforms in developing countries, offers options to policy makers, and gives inspiration to all actors involved in one way or another in stimulating innovation in the agricultural sector.

This webinar provided participants with an overview of some of the ways that low-cost video is currently being used with farmers to enhance the impact of agricultural development projects. It included experiences from two organizations already effectively using video with farmers, as well as information on how practitioners can begin using low-cost video on their own.

Presenters:

• Gareth Benest, Director of Programmes at InsightShare, who spoke about InsightShare's experience using participatory video with farmers in Ethiopia and elsewhere. 
• Rikin Gandhi, CEO of Digital Green, who spoke about Digital Green's experience enabling local NGOs in India and Ethiopia to effectively use low-cost video to enhance their agricultural extension services.
• Josh Woodard , Program Officer at FHI 360, who spoke about the newly released USAID toolkit that he authored as part of the FACET project, "Integrating Low-cost Video into Agricultural Development Projects", along with other work that FACET is doing to support projects using low-cost video.

For thousands of years, farmers have had extremely limited access to information sources, which has consistently reduced agricultural productivity. Agriculture is fundamentally important to human existence, not only so the population can eat, but also because the majority of the world's poor engage in agriculture.

To maximize their productivity and earnings, farmers need a complicated mix of information resources for accurate and actionable information on topics such as planting methods, inputs (such as seeds or fertilizers), weather, disease, and markets to improve their yields and profit.

Information can lead to synergies and cooperation between farmers, resulting in strengthened farmer organizations, such as cooperatives, associations, and self-help groups. It is important to remember, though, that information alone may be insufficient. Farmers also need linkages to other players in the value chain, including savings and credit providers, input dealers, aggregators, and individuals involved in markets, storage, and transportation. Without these linkages, information alone may have limited impact in boosting the earning and productivity of farmers.

USAID projects and other implementing organizations provide training to farmers and other parties along the agricultural value chain on a wide range of topics. This toolkit is designed to help these projects and organizations use low-cost video to augment the traditional agricultural development activities and extension services they are providing.

It is important to stress that this toolkit does not assume that video media is the most appropriate solution for disseminating agricultural information. Rather, given its growing accessibility due to the increasing availability of low-cost digital video cameras and editing software — and the increasing use of video media in donor-funded agricultural development projects — this toolkit aims to enable practitioners to develop a more systematic approach to using low-cost video as one of the mediums through which they share information with farmers.