Innovation Africa Symposium
20-23 November 2006
Kampala , Uganda

An international symposium on agricultural innovation systems in Africa will be held on 20-23 November 2006 in Kampala, Uganda. It is jointly organised by CIAT (International Centre for Tropical Agriculture), IFPRI-ISNAR (International Service for National Agricultural Research division of the International Food Policy Research Institute), ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), IIRR-Africa (International Institute of Rural Reconstruction) and Prolinnova (Promoting Local Innovation). The Innovation Africa Symposium will bring together researchers and practitioners involved in innovation systems to share current thinking and experiences and to draw lessons for research, development, policy and practice of innovation in agriculture and natural resource management in Africa.

It will include a field visit on 20 Nov 2006 to sites of farmer innovation and participatory research and development. The field visit will be organised by Prolinnova-Uganda and the Ugandan office of IIRR-Africa.

The Symposium will focus on the following themes:

• Conceptual and methodological developments in agricultural innovation systems.
• Partnerships and other forms of social capital in agricultural innovation systems.
• Institutional, policy and knowledge-sharing mechanisms to support agricultural innovation systems.
• Enhancing local innovation processes.
• Market-led innovation in agriculture.
• Building innovation capacity.

Contributions are invited in two forms:

1. Symposium papers that draw on diverse fields and disciplines of the social, agricultural and natural resource sciences, and present good practice in studying and enhancing the process of innovation for effective agricultural research, development and education.
2. Marketplace exhibits that can be in the form of posters, videos, slides, photographs, websites, maps, group interactions (e.g. participatory theatre) and other lively ways of showing how work on innovation systems is being conducted in Africa and elsewhere. The marketplace will feature the creativity and experience of farmers, farmer organisations and other local entrepreneurs and institutions.

Abstracts for papers and proposals for marketplace exhibits should be submitted by 15 August 2006 to the Innovation Africa Symposium Secretariat (innovationafrica@cgiar.org) with copies to p.sanginga@cgiar.org and ann.waters-bayer@etcnl.nl.

More details about guidelines for abstracts, deadlines for papers, symposium costs and registration can be found in the Symposium Brochure and the Call for Contributions on the Symposium website: www.innovationafrica.net and are also available below.

Symposium Brochure (PDF file; size : 196 KB)
Call for Contributions (PDF file; size : 59 KB)