United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
1987-10-05
Published:
Africa: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 130 Document Number: C19525
Notes:
Burton Swanson Collection, pp. 121-132; from "Workshop on improving the effectiveness of agricultural extension services in reaching rural women in Africa" Harare, Zimbabwe, 5-9 October 1987
13 pages, via online journal, Purpose: This study examined knowledge sharing mechanisms in coffee IPs and their effect on actor linkages in four districts of Uganda.
Design/methodology/approach: Thirty one respondents from the public and private sector were interviewed using a qualitative approach. Data were analyzed using the Atlas ti qualitative software version 7.5.18 to generate themes for information sources, types and channels. Social network analysis was used to measure the actor centrality positions and influence in the IP network.
Findings: Results revealed seven main categories of actors in the Coffee IPs who shared information on coffee inputs, agronomic practices, processing and markets through three main channels. Level of cohesion was less than 10% which had negative implications on the knowledge flow, trust and collaboration among the actors. Influential positions were occupied by the processors and farmer leaders in IPs in the southern districts of Luwero and Rakai, while nursery operators were most influential in IPs of the western districts of Ntungamo and Bushenyi. Weak linkages within the social networks indicated that initiatives of the actors were fragmented, as each actor acted as an individual detached from the platform activities limiting inter-actor knowledge sharing.
Practical implications: Innovation intermediaries should focus on integrated systemic and innovative approaches to strengthen actor social linkages for knowledge sharing and better platform performance.
Theoretical implications: Actor positions and relationships in innovation networks are critical tenets for fostering knowledge exchange and performance. In an innovation platform, diverse actors are multiple sources for accessing information within a given social and institutional context.
Originality/value: The study contributes to existing debate and knowledge on institutional change in agricultural innovation systems.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 107 Document Number: C10126
Notes:
search from AgEcon., American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, August 2-5, 1998, Salt Lake City, Utah. 5 pages; Adobe Acrobat PDF 18K bytes, Selected Paper Session SP - 6R Adoption of Technology in Developing Countries Abstract/Description: These
papers move beyond the questions of who adopts technologies to ask how preferences for characteristics (of maize in Mexico or cattle in Burkina Faso) affect adoption and how technical change differentially affects semi-subsistence farmers and how it affects productivity and yield variability. Modeling the Impacts of Soil Conservation on Productivity and Yield Variability: Evidence From a Heteroskedastic Switching Regression Gerald Shively, Purdue University Selecting Genetic Traits for Cattle Improvement: Preservation of Disease Resistant Cattle in Africa Kouadio Tano, University of Abidjan; Merle Faminow, University of Manitoba Variety Characteristics and the Land Allocation Decisions of Farmers in a Center of Maize Diversity Melinda Smale, Maricio Bellon, and Alfonso Aguirre The Distributional Impacts of Farm Policy in Semi-subsistence Agriculture Garth Holloway and Nermin Akyil, AERI
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C22087
Notes:
Pages 131-139 in Charles Okigbo and Festus Eribo (eds.), Development and communication in Africa. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham, Maryland. 249 pages.
