Accelerating innovation dynamics in agriculture by strengthening innovation support services - ACCESS

Issues

As a Sahel country, Burkina Faso faces numerous challenges which, to be resolved, will require investment in professional training, technological innovation and skills, along with the development of entrepreneurial spirit to foster autonomous development dynamics (United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel, May 2018).

The CDAIS project (2015-2019) has helped to build capacities to innovate at two levels of the national agricultural innovation system: at the policy level and at the level of innovative project leaders in three key areas (digital agriculture, agroecology and agri-food processing).

Building on this pilot experiment, the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation (MESRSI), through the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (CNRST - National scientific and technological research centre), decided to pursue efforts during a second phase. This phase focuses on building the capacity of organisations that provide support services to innovators and on promoting open and responsible innovation within research institutions, in connection with incubation and professional training stakeholders.

At the policy level, the goal is to support the operationalisation of the National strategy for innovation in the agricultural sector and to contribute to the national roadmap to support Agenda 2030 for the transformation of food systems.

Description

The AcceSS project contributes to the creation of localised ecosystems of innovation support services (ISS) in three priority areas (agri-food processing, agroecology and digital agriculture), as well as the creation of alignment mechanisms between research, incubation, farm advice and professional training, through a platform of service providers and new policy instruments on financing for innovation.

The AcceSS project activities focus on:

• the production of knowledge on the functioning of the national innovation system, on the state of existing support services and their requirements in terms of capacity building, and on innovators’ support requirements;
• the use of this knowledge in workshops to design actions and methodologies to support innovators and service providers;
• the organisation of training courses for innovation support professionals and the production of training manuals;
• the organisation of support activities at the request of innovators and providers of support services;
• the organisation of networking and exchange events between innovation support stakeholders;
• the creation of mechanisms for coordination between support service providers in specific innovation areas;
• tools for policy dialogue on support instruments and financing for agricultural innovation.

Expected results

AcceSS aims to make the national agricultural innovation system more efficient by deploying and sustaining agricultural innovation support services, including support for creativity, for inter-organisational collaboration, for incubation of innovative entrepreneurs, for experimentation and evaluation, and access to appropriate financing for the different phases of an innovation process.

The goal is to introduce new innovation support modalities that promote open and responsible innovation. This implies helping to identify promising initiatives that facilitate multi-stakeholder innovation partnerships involving the public and private sectors and civil society. The idea is to ensure the needs of end users are put back at the heart of innovation design processes, while addressing issues of ethics, inclusion and anticipation of the innovations developed, in clear connection with pathways of change in agri-food systems.