To assess and learn jointly from recent experiences across Africa about how innovation processes involving multiple stakeholders and types of knowledge operate, in order to identify concrete priorities for research, practice and policy for addressing the needs and demands of smallholders and other rural actors.
Specific objectives
JOLISAA aimed to achieve six specific objectives:
Incorporate the concepts and approaches related to IS and L/TK into a framework and an operational approach well-suited to assessing systematically and collectively experiences about agricultural innovation across Africa (WP1);
Assess in a comparative and collaborative manner a series of carefully selected past and ongoing cases of agricultural innovation involving multiple stakeholder and knowledge sources (WP2);
Identify, synthesise and validate collectively the corresponding results, lessons and challenges (WP5);
Strengthen the capacities of members of existing innovation platforms in three African countries to assess, learn collectively from and facilitate multistakeholder innovation approaches building on diverse knowledge sources (WP3);
Improve local, national and international exchange, learning and networking among diverse stakeholders and constituencies about innovation experiences and approaches (WP4);
Propose to the EC, the Forum on Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and other interested national and international bodies an itemised, collectively validated agenda for future research, practice and policy related to multistakeholder innovation approaches and L/TK in Africa (WP5).
The related outcomes
were targeted:
A comprehensive assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches to, and experiences with, multistakeholder innovation at various scales;
Better understanding of the dynamics of knowledge creation, transfer and use processes in innovation systems, with emphasis on the use of local/traditional knowledge;
Shared insights into the actual and potential roles of local and external stakeholders (both public and private) in knowledge management strategies to trigger and sustain innovation;
Joint learning and improved capacity by key stakeholders of innovation processes in selected countries and internationally to assess, design and facilitate multistakeholder innovation processes;
Improved networking among major institutions of research, development and education concerned with approaches to IS and L/TK at both local and national levels in three African countries, as well as across Africa and between Africa and Europe.
