188体育

Abstract

Commissioned by the Central Research Team (CRT) of RIU, this study develops an institutional history of the Research Into Use Malawi Country Programme. It has sought to focus on the specific mechanisms associated with 鈥榠nnovation platforms鈥� and the function of the country programme as a brokering or intermediary within wider innovation and development landscapes. What emerges is an account of a programme that was willing to break away from the usual 鈥榮ilo thinking鈥� and 鈥榯urf wars鈥� that had characterised past development interventions in the agricultural sector. At the same time, however, conveying its intentions to an audience accustomed to working through a triad of actors (researchers-extension agents-farmers) would prove to be far from straightforward. The situation was made more complicated by the restructuring and redefinition that happened within the programme itself. The country programme would negotiate a series of tensions between the expectations of local stakeholders (鈥榓 pot of money鈥�, 鈥榓n input dissemination project鈥�), overall RIU programme management (鈥榞etting research outputs off the shelves鈥�, 鈥榖uilding networks to enable innovation鈥� and 鈥榞enerating lessons on innovation processes鈥�) and its donors (鈥榪uantifiable numbers of beneficiaries鈥�). Nonetheless, RIU-Malawi appears to have located niches within which to begin transforming interactions, working routines, policies, as well as the production and use of knowledge. By all accounts, however, it is too soon to tell to what extent these niche-level changes can reverberate at broader scales.

Citation

RIU 2011 Discussion Paper 19, 88 pp.

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