The Effectiveness of Multi-stakeholder Platforms Towards Building of a Knowledge Delivery Infrastructure: Lessons from TAAT Implementation Framework

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The Effectiveness of Multi-stakeholder Platforms Towards Building of a Knowledge Delivery Infrastructure: Lessons from TAAT Implementation Framework

3 min.

The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is a unique initiative funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to overcome critical challenges in delivering agricultural technologies and innovative solutions. 

The premise of TAAT is that agricultural solutions developed by leading CGIAR institutions over the past five decades were not reaching farmers quickly enough and that, when deployed, they would often fail to achieve similar productivity levels as in the research centres, thereby failing to result in the anticipated developmental outcomes. TAAT brings together a collaborative network of research institutions and centres of excellence involving CGIAR and other partners engaged with relevant scaling and development organizations. This collaboration ensures that proven technologies are disseminated through market-driven channels to maximise their impact to build resilient agri-food systems. This approach is facilitated through the project's Regional Technology Delivery Infrastructure (RTDI) platform. The RTDI is the heart of TAAT, deploying a partnership mechanism to deliver bundled technologies and cutting-edge solutions to end-users with a view to enhancing sustainable agri-food systems. The RTDI drives agriculture solutions forward and facilitates the transfer of knowledge of these solutions from research communities to agricultural ecosystems, promoting the sharing of experiences that boost food production and productivity. One important mechanism of the RTDI is the operationalisation of Multistakeholder Innovation Platforms (MSPs). MSPs create business opportunities for both the public and private sectors to come together to scale agriculture and innovative solutions, ultimately resulting in the sustainable transformation of Africa’s food systems. 

This blog intends to explore the use of Multistakeholder Innovation Platforms (MSPs) as a vital tool for constructing the necessary knowledge infrastructure tailored to give farmers a platform for knowledge and information sharing on best practices and establish a comprehensive knowledge delivery system tailored for rural community development.   

Over the last four years, we assessed the effectiveness of MSPs in facilitating the deployment and dissemination of bundled technologies and innovations across 34 countries. Between 2019 and 2022, we documented the formation of 202 MSPs that were established to address intricate agricultural development challenges. A streamlined data collection tool was developed to monitor the creation and effectiveness of MSPs. Our findings indicate that MSPs operate more efficiently when more users engage in networking and information sharing beyond the confines of group membership. This supports the conclusions of Sartas et al. (2018), who noted that innovation platforms achieve greater outreach when they are part of more extensive networks. Through these networks, the RTDI has been strengthened across Africa. 

Lessons learned:

  • Functioning MSPs demand participation by an array of value chain actors, including policymakers, the private sector, donor communities, research organizations, civil society organizations, development partners, and, most importantly, rural communities, for co-creation and sharing agriculture solutions to common challenges along the value chains. 
  • MSPs help communities to build sustainable knowledge infrastructures, as evidenced through TAAT’s Training of Trainers, which has resulted in the training of 1,490,592, of which 238,427 (16%) people were trained through TAAT’s direct funding from AfDB for MSPs. 
  • Evidence shows that MSPs provide a more consistent avenue for knowledge transfer and capacity building that, in turn, influences farmer uptake of bundled technologies and innovations to enhance the production of food crops. Therefore, the effectiveness of MSPs backs up several other studies that have fronted MSPs as solution centres for most agricultural research problems. 
  • However, promoting MSPs as a cure-all for all agricultural challenges carries risks, as they are not the sole solution. The complexities of how MSPs operate significantly impact their effectiveness in scaling agricultural technologies. To this end, field stories and data suggest that knowledge sharing and capacity development through MSPs may be a crucial first step in scaling agriculture innovations, ultimately contributing to transformation.