West African countries are expecting major contributions from science and technology in the agricultural sector in order to meet the significant challenges of economic growth, food security, and overall poverty reduction. Although Research-Development in West Africa has experienced instability with regard to financing, much effort has been made over the last three decades. However, with the exception of cash crops, the majority of producers which are family farms have little access to and therefore cannot benefit from agricultural innovations. How come this is the situation despite the hopes for an agricultural innovation system in these countries? In addition to the frequent recriminations that research and agricultural extension institutions perform poorly – or complaints that producers are too passive and refuse to change, this regional analysis addresses the key issue of the role played by the institutional and political environment in the access and use of agricultural innovations.

The methodological approach was based on the analysis of case studies, which also contributed to deepen strategic thinking with all of the actors involved in order to learn lessons and their implications. The analysis reveals that in addition to the performance of agricultural innovation and producers’ level of knowledge, the political and institutional environment also has a determining role in the access and use of the research results. In most cases, it has a vital role in up-stream and down-stream production support services and notably opportunities providing a better connection of family farms to the market whether it is local, national, regional or international. But the real challenge is to know how to create a political and institutional environment favourable to such support services in a context of liberalisation and globalisation where most of the States withdrew from the agricultural production support sectors such as marketing inputs, extension services, etc. and where private initiatives often take a long time to materialise on the ground. This constitutes at the same time calling upon research-development (R&D) institutions to give priority to the analyses presented as simple messages facilitating decision-making and action by policy decision-makers. These analyses should demonstrate the interest of setting up an enabling environment to invest in agricultural innovation.