Enabling rural innovation in Africa: an approach for empowering smallholder farmers to access market opportunities for improved livelihoods

This paper presents lessons from applying an innovative approach for linking smallholder farmers to markets. This approach entitled, Enabling Rural Innovation (ERI) focuses on strengthening the capacity of smallholder, resource-poor farmers to access market opportunities and actively engaging in them with the aim of creating an entrepreneurial culture in rural communities, where farmers “produce what they can market rather than trying to market what they produce”. The approach focuses on fostering inclusion of rural women and the poor in analyzing and accessing market opportunities (domestic, regional and international), using a territorial approach to agro-enterprise development. The paper provides a general overview of the approach, the guiding principles, conceptual framework and steps in the ERI process. The paper also gives detailed examples of the five key components: participatory market research, farmer participatory research and its links to natural resource management, social and human capital, gender equity and participatory monitoring and evaluation. Lessons, experiences and challenges from testing this novel approach with a range of research and development partners in eastern and southern Africa are presented. The paper also summarizes some key research findings from a series of impact studies. This paper is a critical selfreflection of our intellectual journey testing and applying the ERI approach.