About

RIU Malawi priorities until 2011 centre on a series of commodity-based innovation platforms which focus on fish farming, legumes and cotton, respectively. There are also some activities supporting a livestock platform, but these activities will be handed over to others shortly.

The programme has set up commodity-based innovation platforms, or networks, which work along value chains from farmers to merchants and processors. Too often in the past, research projects have been designed or implemented without due consultation with the people who will be most affected. In particular the voice of farmers is often missing. So, RIU Malawi is helping to empower farmers to have a voice. This way of bringing people together to agree the way ahead embraces innovation systems thinking.

The work of the team at RIU Malawi could be described as innovation brokerage to get research into use. In practice this means they find ways to overcome bottlenecks and improve collaborative working. They do this by raising awareness of the issues or potential solutions and creating and supporting relationships between people and organisations through partnerships and networking.

Brokerage can include financial and /or technical support and, where necessary, also lobbying for policy change at local or national level. To support policy advocacy and encourage change RIU Malawi have established a National Innovation Coalition (NIC). This high-level group uses the information and data generated by the project to encourage debate and suggest new ways or working and new priorities. This may include the use of innovation brokers and innovations systems to deal with other challenges in Malawi. But it may also be very practical changes based on experience from the innovation platforms.

Following the recommendations from the various reviews undertaken during 2009, RIU Malawi's has refocused its activities.

These are now to:

• reposition the National Innovation Coalition as a policy lobbying body rather than simply RIU Malawi's governance body
• develop and implement strategies for achieving impact at scale in fish farming, legumes, cotton and livestock
• target farmer empowerment and capacity building work with farmer organisations in relation to fish farming, legumes, cotton and livestock
• increase awareness of RIU Malawi's contribution to the uptake of agricultural innovations and widening understanding of innovation for development
• make links with policy makers to mainstream RIU lessons into national policies and processes
• encourage appropriate private sector involvement in our work.