Agribusiness and Innovation Systems in Africa

By FSG On June 11, 2010 · In Agriculture, Innovation

Introduction

In May 2008, the World Bank Institute (WBI), in collaboration with the Danish Government, Global Development Network, Economic and Social Research Foundation in Tanzania, and other World Bank units, organized a conference in Tanzania. The conference was designed to facilitate learning and discuss concrete achievements on key policies, practices, and actors that help enable innovation in agriculture, with a special focus on agribusiness and an eye toward replicating and scaling up success in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

One of the outcomes of the conference is the publication on “Agribusiness and Innovation Systems in Africa”. This publication discusses major findings of the commissioned country reports for the conference on policies and incentives for fostering innovation within the agricultural sector of four African countries Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The publication links common themes, and distills lessons learned to inform governments, farmers’ organizations, agribusiness leaders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), research institutes, and donors.

Main Messages:

Following are the volume’s main messages on policies, institutions and strategies that nurture innovation in the agriculture sector: 1) agribusiness innovation is in many cases driven by the need to maintain grades and standards within the value chain, not only in the case of export markets, but also in evolving domestic and urban markets and value chains; 2) that staple food sector has potential to be a source of growth, innovation and poverty reduction; 3) successes in value chain innovation and agribusiness production depend critically on the structure of the whole agricultural innovation system and are highly context specific; 4) especially successful innovation were dependent on creating synergies between market-based and knowledge-based interactions and strong linkages within and beyond the value chain; and 5) the public sector’s innovation support has to extend to interactions, collective action and broader public-private partnership programs.

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Source: World Bank