Innovation systems, agricultural growth and rural livelihoods in East Africa

Smallholder farming is widely seen as a potential engine for economic growth and for poverty alleviation in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Farmers have, for centuries, demonstrated their innovativeness in taking advantage of new market opportunities and adapting new technology to their local physical and social environments. Yet the arrangements put in place by governments and others to encourage the uptake of new technology, and to improve the management of resources by smallholders, have not been particularly effective. The region's agricultural production still lags behind population growth - in contrast to all other regions of the world.

This project will explore how different institutional arrangements, within and between countries, affect the innovation activity of female and male farmers. It will then assess the impact of their innovation activity on their incomes and livelihoods, and on the local economy.
The project has four objectives.

First, it will build up a detailed picture of the institutions that support and constrain farmer innovation in Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Each of these countries has a different history of government and non-government efforts to promote technological change and innovation among farmers; there are also differences in institutional support between regions of each country.

Second, research teams in each country will use participatory research tools to explore what this institutional landscape looks like from male and female farmers' points of view, by detailed investigation of recent innovation activity in four sites in each country and of the factors that have constrained and those that have supported innovation. From this analysis, hypotheses will be specified which link institutional arrangements, innovation activity, and changes in farm output, livelihoods, and incomes.

The third objective is to test these hypotheses using data from participatory research and a sample survey in each of the research sites. This analysis will inform the fourth objective, which is to develop evidence-based conclusions on the potential and limitations for enhancing support for smallholder farmers' innovation through new institutional arrangements and different ways of implementing support programmes at local level..

The research will have a positive impact, both through the process of conducting the research and the outputs, on six sets of beneficiaries. This will be through an improved understanding of how smallholder farmer (SHF) innovation works, the impact this has on livelihoods and the local economy, and how it can be supported; and through the consequent design of policies and interventions that are likely to stimulate SHF innovation.

Government: central government in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan will have an evidence base for their ongoing efforts to improve policy support for smallholder farmers; in particular, they will have evidence of (a) how innovation processes work and what can be done, at the point of farmers' access to services, to enhance and accelerate those processes; and (b) the impact of innovation on the local economy and on livelihoods which will enable them to build a case for financial support from Treasury and donors. Local / sub-national governments in all three countries now have devolved responsibilities for provision of support services and so will also benefit from an improved evidence base to design interventions.

International and bilateral development partners will benefit from robust quantitative and qualitative evidence to inform their programmes of support to national innovation support systems (including advisory services, SME promotion, regulatory frameworks). USAID and several European countries, plus World Bank, IFAD, BMGF and others are active in this area.

Civil Society organisations (CSOs), including community based organisations and national / sub-national farmer organisations, in the three countries will benefit from evidence to support their lobbying for improved services for smallholder farmers. Some farmer organisations also provide innovation support services of their own (e.g. Uganda National Farmers Federation - UNFFE) and will be able to use the project findings to enhance their service provision. They will also benefit, along with academic stakeholders, from exposure to research and analytical methods that will inform their future investigation and commissioning of research in this area.

Non-government organisations NGOs) active in supporting smallholder farmers will have an improved evidence base to inform their own interventions and modes of working with farmer groups.

National and international research institutes in the region will have access to a richer understanding of how innovation works in practice in the smallholder sector, which will inform their future interactions with other actors in the innovation system.
Private sector: smallholder farmers will indirectly benefit from improved innovation support policies and interventions (from government, development partners, CSOs, NGOs) that are evidence based and more attuned to the ways in which they seek support in their innovation and farm / livelihood decision making.