The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Catalyzing agricultural innovation
No hay miniatura disponible
Fecha
Autores
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
International Food Policy Research Institute
Resumen
Descripción
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has emerged as a major donor and advocate for smallholder agricultural development, investing close to US$2 billion between 2006 and 2011 to promote sustainable agricultural productivity growth, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Its approach is guided by the concept of catalytic philanthropy, which seeks to identify market and government failures and address those gaps through support for international public goods, agricultural research and development, innovative technologies, market access, and effective policies. Recognizing that upstream investments alone are insufficient to achieve transformative results, the Foundation supports activities across the agricultural value chain, including access to farm technologies, market infrastructure, processing facilities, policy analysis, and advocacy.
Drawing on lessons from its first four years of grant-making, the Foundation revised its strategy to address the limitations of diffuse investments, weak links between global innovation and smallholder poverty reduction, and insufficient coordination with governments and development partners. The revised strategy emphasizes three design principles: focus, integration, and partnership. Resources are concentrated on priority commodities and countries selected according to the number of rural poor, productivity potential, and probability of success. An integrated value chain approach links research and development, technology dissemination, input access, production, postharvest management, and markets. The Foundation also emphasizes partnerships with public and private organizations to facilitate the transition from global innovation to local adoption, while supporting coordination, capacity development, and monitoring systems to achieve sustainable productivity growth and poverty reduction.
Palabras clave
scaling up, agriculture, rural development, nutrition, smallholders, agricultural research, value chains