Post-harvest innovations in innovation: reflections on partnership and learning

Abstract

A workshop was held on 6 May 2002 as part of a project funded by the Crop Post- Harvest Programme (CPHP) that arose from a growing recognition among researchers and policy-makers that attention needs to be given to the circumstances from which innovations emerge. The aim was to illustrate and explore the diversity of systems that have emerged to generate innovations. The focus of the workshop and this publication was predominantly post-harvest issues, but the underlying principles are generic to the agricultural research sector. At the workshop three cases of innovation were presented and discussed. All three have developed different modus operandi, each involves different patterns of partners and relationships that are shaped by the specific historical, organizational, institutional, political and technology-related contexts from which they have emerged. All three are relatively successful in the sense that systems have been established that can generate innovations relevant to poor people. The papers presented at the workshop have since benefited from the working group discussions and analyses. The opportunity was taken to collect together other relevant material that has been added as supplementary background papers that provide more information for interested readers, and also provide further insights to help in the overall analysis of the workshop debate. As a way of synthesizing the presentations, discussion and additional material, an Overview is presented that initially develops a conceptual framework for the presentations. It then attempts to answer some of the questions raised and suggests some of the general principles and policy recommendations emerging from this work