The second National Innovation Platform (IPs) took place in February in Tanzania and this month, Nigeria and Ethiopia will host theirs. But what exactly is an IP and how will it help ACGG reach its goals?

What is an IP?

An innovation platform is the process of bringing together diverse of stakeholders with the objective of achieving common goals. The IP allows these stakeholders to identify and address common concerns in a structured way, which can be highly useful when dealing with complex programs, such as ACGG. Some innovation platforms focus on single issues; others deal with multiple topics. Innovation platforms can be used to explore strategies that can boost productivity, manage natural resources and improve value chains.

Main objectives of ACGG’s IPs

• To familiarize stakeholders with the ACGG project
• To analyse the smallholder chicken value chain in the 3 respective countries – to understand challenges, opportunities and priority interventions.
• To agree on stakeholder roles and responsibilities in transforming the smallholder chicken value chain
• To agree on a plan of action for the next 6-12 months.

The infrastructure of the IPs in ACGG

Country-level IP meetings

Country-level/national IP meetings target and facilitate the development of public and private sector partnerships for the hatching, pre-vaccination, brooding, and sale of preferred chicken strains, with significant focus on smallholder farmers. The aim is to catalyze the development of new, and expansion of local chicken germplasm improvement, multiplication and delivery businesses and capacities, including supportive policies, knowledge systems, and identification of financing mechanisms as well as other support systems required for scaling up and impacting the whole value chain.

The innovation platform meetings will also be used to raise awareness of results and test implications for the widespread dissemination of messages and implementation of interventions related to the selected lines.

Community-level IP meetings

Community level/regional innovation platforms are established in each of the five ‘regions’ (per country) that ACGG works in. The community-level innovation platform meetings will be held in specific villages by the regional and district-level project teams throughout the year. These meetings will be open to entire communities, in order to stimulate broader interest in the program throughout the community. The innovation platforms will also aim to support this vision of women empowerment by encouraging women facilitators to lead the IPs.

Similar to the approach with the national platform, the first step for these community level IPs will be to scope out relevant local stakeholders involved in the chicken value chain. The overarching goal of these sub-national platforms will be to facilitate the optimization of production and marketing of chicken. We hope that the local IPs will facilitate quality conversations between the relevant stakeholders, so that they can share experiences on an on-going basis and to progressively improve business practices.

Watch this space for more information about the upcoming IPs.

Read more about innovation platforms in this series of practice briefs.