Leveraging the DeSIRA initiative for agri-food systems transformation - LIFT

Issues

Global food systems are facing major challenges, despite progress made in terms of agricultural productivity. Hunger and malnutrition persist, while productivity often entails negative social and environmental impacts, especially biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. Food and agriculture play a crucial role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, but require more sustainable, equitable and climate-smart systems. In this context, DeSIRA-LIFT is a service facility to support the DeSIRA initiative funded by the European Commission. DeSIRA supports research and innovation projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America by strengthening research and governance capacities with the participation of key actors at the national, regional, and global levels. DeSIRA is implemented  through three pillars:

• Pillar 1: research and innovation (R&I) projects in agricultural and food systems;
• Pillar 2: projects to strengthen research infrastructure conducive to innovation;
• Pillar 3: the production of knowledge and evidence to feed public policy design.

Description

DeSIRA-LIFT provides services to actors involved in the DeSIRA initiative under three service areas, aligned with the three DeSIRA pillars:

• Service area 1: supporting national DeSIRA projects to enhance their impacts by promoting approaches to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS), approaches to strengthen open innovation capacities, as well as the use of monitoring, evaluation and learning systems and developmental evaluation approaches.
• Service area 2: supporting African apex organisations for research on agricultural development (West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development - CORAF/WECARD, Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa - ASARECA, Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa - CCARDESA, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa - FARA), extension (African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services - AFAAS), and higher education (Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture - RUFORUM), building on the global initiatives of the Tropical Agriculture Platform - TAP and the Global Forum on Agricultural Research - GFAR.
• Service area 3: supporting the co-creation of knowledge and evidence to feed policy dialogues and programming on agri-food systems in the global South.

Expected results 

Five managerial capacities considered as essential for high-impact R&I projects will be strengthened:

• the capacity to manage open and responsible innovation processes;
• the capacity to adapt and respond to innovation requirements in a given context;
• the capacity to influence the project environment and to strengthen the national agricultural innovation system;
• the capacity to implement monitoring, evaluation and learning activities to combine learning and accountability in real time;
• the capacity to collaborate, which is a catalyst for the four other capacities.