Many of us know the importance of innovation in agriculture, this is seen as a means of establishing viable solutions that are tailored to a country’s economic, environmental, and social challenges. To limit the risks that are part of the nature of innovation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture, animal and fishery resources in Burkina Faso as part of the TAP-AIS project and has carried out an assessment of the national agricultural innovation system (NAIS) assessment. This assessment aimed at understanding the policy action needed in the short term, while proposing a comprehensive strategic framework for the long term to strengthen the capacities of actors in the national agricultural innovation system. The main results of this assessment consist of quantitative and qualitative assessments of the functions, structures and capacities of the SNIA, accompanied by graphic visualizations that facilitate a collective discussion on the reinforcement actions to be carried out. These have been recently published and are available here.

Currently in Burkina Faso, agricultural innovation is supported in an uncoordinated way by various initiatives from the ministries in charge of research, agriculture, entrepreneurship or even the economy and digital technology but also by a multitude of organizations from the private sector, civil society and international cooperation. As a result, there is no harmonized understanding of the obstacles encountered by innovators, and the offer of support services is not complete, creating discontinuities and delays in promising innovation processes.

Using the data collected between 2020 and 2021 and published in the above-mentioned Assessment, FAO HQ with FAO Burkina Faso propose a strategic and policy framework for strengthening capacities to innovate at the national level in this policy brief titled ‘How to create a more favourable environment for Agricultural Innovation in Burkina Faso?’ (In French : ‘Comment créer un environnement plus favorable à l’innovation agricole au Burkina Faso ?’.

The recommendations made are mainly aimed at strengthening the offer of support services to initiators of innovative projects in priority technological fields, at strengthening the capacities of organizations that play a key role in the governance of the national AIS, and in particular at creating an inter-ministerial body for orientation of government action in support of agricultural innovation, by making available to it, with the help of research, a set of methodologies and tools for monitoring and evaluating agricultural innovation support actions.

The article promoting the two publications on CIRAD webpage (French only).