Upcoming Webinar: A Discussion with IITA and the Gates Foundation on Scaling Agricultural Innovations

Ahead of the Food Systems Summit later this year, the question of how to enable vulnerable populations to access agricultural technologies has never been more crucial. From March 2-4, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are co-organizing “Scaling Agricultural Innovations through Commercialization for Sustainable Food System Transformation,” a series of webinars that will explore how research institutions and private companies should collaborate to scale agricultural technologies. On Day 2, AgResults shares how it accounts for the influence of the enabling environment while designing prize competitions that drive long-term changes in behaviors—in other words, embedding sustainability from the start of the intervention.

The webinars will systematically examine how to commercialize agricultural technologies going from companies’ perspectives and motivations to the enabling environment to the future of food systems transformation. On Day 1, discussions will focus on how partnerships between research institutions and private companies can foster sustainable market models.

Day 2 shifts the focus to enabling environments, underlining the need for deliberate and consistent interventions within the targeted value chain and the larger ecosystem. The session will begin with a keynote address from Dr. Jonas Chianu, Chief Agricultural Economist from the African Development Bank. Then the conversation will move to the role of policies and other incentives – including AgResults’ Pay-for-Results prize competition model – to create an enabling environment that drives the delivery of technologies, particularly to smallholder farmers.

The panel on Day 2 will feature:

• Ndidi Nwuneli, Managing Partner, Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Ltd.
• Rodrigo Ortiz, Secretariat Lead, AgResults
• Peter Kaigwara, Director of Market Surveillance, Kenya Bureau of Standards
• Dr. Alex Dodoo, CEO, Ghana Standards Authority
• Dr. Rodwell Mzonde, Director of Planning, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security
• Yosuke Kotsuji, Senior Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation
• Garron Hansen, Agriculture and Food Security Practice Director, Chemonics International (Moderator)

During his remarks, Rodrigo Ortiz will illustrate how AgResults’ prize competitions actively anticipate and address enabling environment influences through strategic design. By structuring the competition to account for factors like access to finance, government policies, and time to build trust, AgResults embeds sustainability into its design to drive scaling of agricultural technologies.

Day 3 looks to the future of food systems, asking how to learn from the first two days to effectively design new interventions to commercialize agricultural technologies. By considering the implications of these past experiences, IITA and the Gates Foundation hope that research institutions and private sector actors will be better positioned to accelerate the scaleup of these key innovations to improve food safety and nutrition.

Register now for the event!