Building agricultural innovation capacity in developing countries: requirements and lessons

1. Building agricultural innovation capacity in developing countries: requirements and lessons Andy Hall, United Nations University, MERIT

2. Main messages • Developing agricultural innovation capacity needs to go beyond strengthening research. • Priorities are building linkages and new ways of working that promote interaction between research, enterprise and developmental players • Interventions need to have a long term perspective and give sufficient emphasis to facilitating institutional learning.

3. Innovation capacity, what does it mean • Scientific and other skills and information in research, enterprises, training organisations, developmental organisation. • The practices and routines (institutions), patterns of interaction within an economy and policies needed to create and put knowledge into productive use • The skills and IIP needed to respond to an evolving set of challenges and opportunities. • Learning-by-doing whereby organisations engaging in the innovation process continuously adapt ways of working and routines – institutional learning --, incrementally improving their ability to utilise knowledge and information

4. Agricultural innovation capacity: recent evidence • Recent study with the World Bank: Enabling agricultural innovation: how to go beyond strengthening research systems. • Applied the innovation systems concept to explore innovation capacity • 8 sectors, 4 countries

5. Case studies

6. What drives innovation? • Two distinctive scenarios emerged • Usually. Sectors emerge because entrepreneurs identify new market opportunities and innovate to gain market access. Subsequently falter as can’t continuously innovate in dynamic markets • Occasionally. Research interventions promote innovation when organised in ways that promote interaction.

7. Innovation capacity development needs • Investing in agricultural research alone is not enough • Linkages and patterns of interaction needed for innovation are often missing and need to be strengthened • Lack of interaction is a reflection of deep rooted habits and practices (i.e. institutions) in both public and private sector organisations and civil society. • Institutional change – new ways of working -- are needed that can support stronger patterns of interaction. between research, enterprise and developmental organisations

8. National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), India • NAIP is 6 year programme of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) supported by the World Bank. • Builds on earlier NATP that provided resources for conducting research and skill up-grading in frontier areas of science. • Novel feature of NAIP is its use of competitive funds to establish consortia of research, enterprise and developmental organisations on selected themes. • Responds explicitly to an identified need to invest in building partnerships to improve the relevance and uptake of research in India.

9. Early lessons • Design reflects Indian research system and innovation capacity context -- earlier reforms and long debate on public private partnerships • Allowed diversity of consortium composition and leadership to match themes (not just PPP) • Used themes on improving value chains to attract private sector. Used Theme on sustainable rural livelihoods to attract novel consortia on development • Importance of complimentary investments in (i) skill development on partnering and (ii) on consortium formation – used a helpdesk and sensitization workshops • Explicit efforts to derive institutional lessons and distil principles for wider diffusion and use could add further value

10. Andhra Pradesh Netherlands Biotech Programme • Long term donor support to focus agricultural biotech on the needs of poor farmers -- 10 plus years – recognised need to socialise scientists to a new way of working. • Explicit focus on building alliances between scientific and NGO communities using research support provided through a competitive fund • A novel feature was the integrated bottom up approach (IBU) -- involved undertaking detailed needs assessment exercises with farmers to set overall guiding priorities for the programme • Programme coordination outside the agricultural research system to avoid capture by research driven interests.

11. Lessons • NGO’s rather than scientists undertook the needs assessment exercise to set priorities. This strengthened the developmental relevance of priorities • Early wins with simple biotech demonstrated to reluctant scientists the value of working with NGOs in the field. • The programme recognised that institutional change was a long term goal, but could have invested in facilitating institutional learning to speed this process and diffuse to others. • Programme was reluctant to partner with the private sector and so an opportunity to build interaction with potentially important players was lost. • The coordinating unit started to evolve into a consortium broker when donor money was reduced

12. Policy considerations • Institutional change is at the heart of innovation capacity development and requires a long term commitment • Competitive research funds can be used to provide incentives to build linkages – Only suitable in some cases and might be starting point for other initiatives, industry associations etc. • Incentives for building links and interaction needs to be coupled with substantial investments in skill development to help adjust to new ways of working

13. Policy considerations • Coordinating organisations from outside the research system might be useful, but not always possible. • Facilitating institutional learning could add significant value to capacity development initiatives. • Shift from prescriptions to principles to be interpreted locally. Requires strengthening of innovation policy capacity