Empowering actors with innovation capacities and novel services

Strengthening innovation capacities—including facilitation and functional capacities—is essential to addressing global agrifood systems challenges at both local and global levels.

Building on experience from the EU-funded CDAIS and TAP-AIS projects and the global Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP), FAO promotes the so-called functional capacities, or “soft skills”, for innovation. Through the IPL project, FAO strengthens capacities of partners and stakeholders affected by the policy processes to engage effectively in participatory, multi-stakeholder policy making processes and to anticipate and address complex or uncertain issues by harnessing UN2.0 capabilities and other functional capacities for innovation.

The emergence of innovation capacities of system level drives the necessity of novel services across the agrifood systems, in addition to training and advisory. Innovation Support Services (ISS) provide guidance, brokerage, management and coordination, access, resources and infrastructure to help individuals or organizations develop and implement innovations. Integrated Services for Innovation (ISI) is the strategic, multistakeholder, and co-creative integration of social, advisory, and ecosystem services that efficiently empowers all agrifood system actors to jointly develop and scale sustainable solutions.