The Global Innovation Index provides detailed metrics about the innovation performance of 127 countries and economies around the world. Its 81 indicators explore a broad vision of innovation, including political environment, education, infrastructure and business sophistication. This year’s report reviews the state of innovation in agriculture and food systems across sectors and geographies. Chapters of the report provide more details on this year’s theme from academic, business, and particular country perspectives from leading experts and decision makers.

Since 2017, in line with COAG’s recommendation, the Research and Extension Unit engaged in the development of a participatory AIS assessment framework including a customizable toolbox for countries with a totally new capacity development perspective. The assessment framework is meant for actors of the national agricultural innovation systems, i.e. research, extension and advisory services, innovation support service providers and universities, policy and decision makers, or development organizations, with a mandate or willingness to catalyze system innovation processes and to identify entry points for developing capacities to innovate in a a sector, a value chain, a territory or at country level. The expected outputs and outcomes of the assessment are: a) to inform and provide evidence-based practical guidance to policy and decision makers to identify concrete actions and investments geared towards strengthening of the AIS, and simultaneously b) to enhance capacities of relevant actors to effectively engage in these actions. Considering high level of complexity and diversity of agricultural innovation systems and CD needs, the assessment implementers need to be guided to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data and information to generate evidence for assisting decision-making and advocacy in their specific context. To meet these objectives, a preliminary assessment framework was developed to be tested and enriched by pilot countries. This document provides the key concepts, the foundations of analytical and operational assessment frameworks and guiding principles for country assessment teams in piloting countries. It contributes to FAO’s Strategic Objective 2 - Increase and improve provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner.

This book—prepared by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI), which is led by IFPRI—offers a comprehensive perspective on the evolution, current status, and future goals of agricultural research and development in Africa, including analyses of the complex underlying issues and challenges involved, as well as insights into how they might be overcome. Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara is at a prospective tipping point. Growth has accelerated in the past decade, but is unsustainable given increasing use of finite resources. The yield gap in African agriculture is significant, and scenarios on feeding the world’s population into the future highlight the need for Africa to expand its agricultural production. Agricultural Research in Africa: Investing in Future Harvests discusses the need to shift to a growth path based on increased productivity—as in the rest of the developing world— which is essential if Africa is to increase rural incomes and compete in both domestic and international markets. Such a shift ultimately requires building on evolving improvements that collectively translate to deepening rural innovation capacity.

Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Investments in public Research and Development, extension, education, and their links with one another have elicited high returns and pro-poor growth, but these investments alone will not elicit innovation at the pace or on the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in Research and Development, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action, coordination, the exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, the incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop businesses, and conditions that make it possible for farmers or entrepreneurs to use the innovations. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system', no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. The AIS approach that looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture, has however moved from a concept to a sub-discipline with principles of analysis and action. AIS investments must be specific to the context, responding to the stage of development in a particular country and agricultural sector, especially the AIS. This sourcebook contributes to identifying, designing, and implementing the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions that appear most likely to strengthen AIS and to promote agricultural innovation and equitable growth. It emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices. The information in this sourcebook derives from approaches that have been tested at different scales in different contexts. It reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. This information is targeted to the key operational staff in international and regional development agencies and national governments who design and implement lending projects and to the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

This book looks at agricultural systems and rural economies in Asia through the prism of alternative innovation systems, alternative public policy and institutional changes. The massive shifts within the agricultural economy in Asia, geared towards increasing production, has had a direct effect on the livelihood of a large mass of people in rural societies, causing financial and social distress. This book explores a wide range of solutions, such as the role of education, improving technical skills and human capital, along with interactive learning in R&D, harnessing ICTs and institutional innovations, to see how these problems can be alleviated. The volume looks at how these methods can help formulate alternative ways to build sustainable and inclusive agricultural societies, ensure food security, sustainable growth and agricultural productivity. This book, rich in theoretical and empirical matter, will be useful for academics and researchers interested in agricultural innovation, development studies and agricultural economics. It will also be of interest to policymakers and thinktanks working towards inclusive social development and sustainability in Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has undertaken research programs on agricultural STI policy since 1995. This study assesses the impact of this body of research outputs and support services in terms of three complementary analyses: (1) an evaluation of the potential impact of the complete body of research using implicit or explicit impact pathways, (2) two case studies that assess the actual impact of particular research outputs, and (3) a more traditional bibliometric analysis. Movement along the impact pathway, in turn, requires different types of research products—evolving from problem framing to methodology development, then to case studies, and finally to context-specific policy recommendations—all within the logical stages of the impact pathway. How far IFPRI operates along this impact pathway produces a basic tension between the CGIAR’s mandate to produce international public goods (IPGs) and the increasing focus on accountability through impact in the use of international public funds.

These papers address roles and issues related to social and institutional innovations and approaches in food security in Southern and Eastern Africa. They include implementation of food security policy, rural livelihood and agricultural innovation, land consolidation for food security, interdisciplinary school-based health for food security, harnessing indigenous and modern knowledge for food security, household food resource handling for food security, institutions for technological innovation, the role of land tax in food security, trade protectionism and food security, and gender-power relations in food security.

"Using survey data from the Upper East region of Ghana collected in 2005, the paper evaluates the household- and community-level factors influencing women's and men's decisions to participate in off-farm activities, either in the off-farm labor market or in local community groups, and the relationship with on-farm crop returns. Results indicate that crop returns are not affected by increased labor availability over a certain labor-land ratio. Female participation in off-farm labor markets increases at higher levels of labor availability, but participation in women's groups' only increases as labor scarcity is relaxed at lower levels. Alternatively, male participation in off-farm work increases over all levels of labor availability. Results also indicate that male labor is relatively more productive on-farm versus off-farm than female labor, and, though education increases the likelihood that both women and men will work off-farm (with no impact on crop revenues), the impact is greater for women. Finally, participation in off-farm work does not appear to be driven by the need to reduce exposure to risk or to manage risk ex post; wealthier households located in wealthier communities are more likely to participate in off-farm work. Evidence for participation in groups and risk is more complicated; wealthier households in wealthier communities are also more likely to participate, but so too are female-headed households with higher dependency ratios."--Authors' abstract.

This book, consisting of 17 chapters, focuses on clarifying the challenges, issues, and priorities of Agricultural Education and Training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa, and provides suggestions for practical solutions that can help guide organisations interested in furthering AET for agricultural development on the continent. It discusses the African context within which a transformed AET system needs to be located; analyses African and international experiences that are relevant to identified AET needs and challenges; dissects AET models that may hold important lessons; and addresses the main critical issues that will impact upon AET in sub-Saharan Africa. The concluding chapter synthesises the ideas, experiences, and evidence from the preceding chapters in order to highlight critical issues for success as well as possible solutions. The book is uniquely positioned to add to a call to action on AET, to pull together state-of-the-art knowledge from within and outside sub-Saharan Africa, and to advance “out of the box” thinking about the principles, values and character of AET for development, with an emphasis on the models that can help to cultivate leaders and change-makers at all levels of the agricultural sector.