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Revitalising African agriculture through innovative business models and organisational arrangements: promising developments in the traditional crops sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2007

Cosmas Milton Obote Ochieng
Affiliation:
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Within the last four years, a number of high profile reports outlining new strategies for pulling African agriculture out of its current impasse have emerged. These include the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme of NEPAD, and the InterAcademy Council Report commissioned by UN Secretary General Koffi Annan. Whilst these strategies are a welcome improvement on those that have characterised African agriculture in the past, it is argued here that like their predecessors, they fail to focus on business-competitive approaches as an integral part of the reform package needed to stimulate African agricultural productivity and development. This paper draws on innovation, business and organisation literature to highlight some of these approaches. It focuses on three concepts: value innovation, lead user focus and organisational value logic.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I thank Judith Heyer, Heike Hoeffler, this editor, and two anonymous referees for their comments on an early draft of this paper. I am grateful to Hanna Wossenyeleh for her excellent research assistance.