Using stakeholder platforms to enhance local innovations in the livestock sector in Ethiopia: Some Lessons

1. Using stakeholder platforms to enhance local innovations in the livestock sector in Ethiopia: Some Lessons Kebebe Ergano and Alan Duncan FAP Symposium on Feed in Smallholder Systems LuangPrabang, Laos, 18-19 November 2010

2. Key Issues Poor livestock productivity and feed scarcity as key constraint Protracted dilemma of shelving technologies vs impact Many leading aggie scientists believe agricultural development is a question of developing technologies and pushing them out to farmers However, there is huge gap b/n high potential of agricultural technology generated by research and farmers’ productivity and livelihood Forage/livestock development challenges are ‘complex’ that no single person or organization acting alone can tackle the issue effectively Forage/livestock development depends on many things working together across the agricultural system

4. Decreased farm risk

7. Dependable demand linkages

9. Financial intermediation

10. ICT

11. Power

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14. Use of Stakeholder Platforms shows promise Use of improved forages is expanding Forage expanding from 400 pilot farmers to 1000’s of farmers Links between private forage seeds enterprises and farmers improving Dairy cooperative established and strengthened Stakeholder platform facilitation institutionalised Partners in the innovation process aredealing with constraints along dairy value chain through innovation platforms

15. Successes are context specific Successful forage/livestock innovation at Ada’a Fertile land and good rainfall Good market access/market orientation Diverse stakeholders Limited innovation at Alamata Unreliable rainfall Few and less diverse actors Far away from major market centers Less market orientation

16. Essential elements for successful platforms process Joint situation analysis, problem diagnosis, needs and opportunities assessment Experimenting with technology options Convening agency to establish and facilitate innovation platforms Pragmatism to adapt to changing circumstances and uncertainty Institutionalization and scaling up M&E of the process

17. Gaps Self organizing v orchestrated Institutional vacuum to finance and convene stakeholder platforms What if there is no quick win technology to pilot? Balancing concrete action and social learning process Sequence of concrete action ->Platform or otherwise Sustaining platforms or the culture of working in partnerships? Difficulty in articulating outputs, outcomes and impacts Development is about behaviour and capacity-> improving behavioural processes and capacities as outcomes

18. Key messages Success in innovation research is attributed to BOTHconcerted action process and social learning process Stakeholder platforms can foster innovation where market access is good and the range of actors is reasonably broad External resource needed at initial stage More success innovation stories needed to showcase and bring policy change Innovation processes takes longer than regular tech transfer