This document summarizes findings from case studies of agricultural innovation support services in Cameroon and Madagascar. 173 service situations across 8 innovations were identified and characterized. The innovations included socio-technical innovations like chicken vaccination and 24-hour cassava retting, as well as socio-organizational innovations like organic pineapple production and multi-stakeholder platforms. A diversity of service providers was found to be involved, with different providers specializing in certain services. Support was concentrated in the development phases of innovations and less common in dissemination. Socio-organizational innovations attracted more support services overall. Recommendations include boosting support for dissemination and soft skill services, as well as encouraging service diversification.

1. 1
Diversity of service situations for agri-food
innovations in the global South - selected
findings from cases in
Cameroon and Madagascar
Hycenth Tim Ndah, Sarah Audouin, Sarah Crestin-Billet, Narilala
Randrianarisona, Harilala Andriamaniraka, Guillaume Fongang,
Syndhia Mathé, Andrea Knierim
Institute of Social Sciences in Agriculture,
Department of Communication and Advisory Services in Rural Areas
SERVinnov side event, 5th Africa-wide Agricultural Extension Week (AAEW2021), 16th Nov. 2021

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Background and knowledge gaps
 Pluralism of agricultural advisory services
(AAS) for supporting innovations has led to
the challenge of “how to align service
demand (from innovators), with supply
(from providers)”
 Calls for more insights on diversity of
support service interactions for innovations
 especially, need for re-conceptualising
AAS as a broad range of innovation
support services (ISS) for promoting
innovations in agriculture
(Kilelu et al., 2014; Toillier et al., 2018; Koutsouris and Zarokosta, 2020; Faure et al., 2019; Mathé et al., 2016; Ndah et al., 2017)
 So, far:
 limited insights at case study levels about
service situations (i.e. interactions between
providers and beneficiaries of services at
specific moments in the innovation
process)
 recent studies in this regards, dominated by
experiences from case studies in the EU, only
a few examples from the global South
 Assumption: there exist a relationship between
ISS activities with types and phases of the
innovation processes with need for exploration
 Objective: contribution, analyses the diversity of
service situations within selected innovation cases
in Cameroon and Madagascar”

3. Conceptual basis  Three phase aggregated model of innovation
process
 Grouping of innovation types
 Service situation concept
A schematic illustration of Service situations in an innovation process
Service situation: “interactions between a provider and beneficiary of services to co-produce a service ” (Ndah
et al. 2020), after:
 triangle of service relationship” (Labarthe et al. 2013; Gadrey 1994)
 “situation-dependent services” concepts, (Amberg and Wehrmann 2002)
 targeted differentiation of beneficiaries of advisory services (Hoffmann et al. 2009; Albrecht et al. , 1989)

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Methodology
Country Title and type of innovation
Madagascar
• Potatoes Post-harvest storage (SO),
• Chicken vaccination (ST),
• Cooperative for organic pink berries production (SO),
• Organic pineapples production,
• Organic papaw production (ST)
• Multi-stakeholder platform for bean production (SO)
Cameroon
• 24-hour cassava retting(ST),
• Participatory guarantee system (SO)
SO = Socio-Organisational innovations, ST=Socio-Technical innovations
 innovation cases were selected using a
predefined grid through:
 a participatory process
 characterised by bilateral talks and
discussions
 between the practitioners, research
teams and case owners.
(Ndah et al., 2020).
 Steps for ex-post data analysis included:
1. Identification of service situations by country research
teams,
2. detail characterisation of service situations using
service situation matrix
3. Codding of data in excel-spreadsheet
4. Feedback/validation by country teams
5. Cross-analysis using excel pivot tables.
 Data was collected, using:
 focus group discussions,
 individual interviews,
 review of grey and published
literature resulting in detailed
innovation chronologies

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Results
Overall, 173 “service situations” have been identified, characterised and cross analysed across 08
innovation cases in Cameroon and Madagascar grouped under SO and ST innovations.
Service situations
Innovation cases
AC AK DA IA IS NF TT CB Grand Total
24-hour cassava retting(ST) 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 1 12
Chicken vaccination (ST) 12 0 0 11 0 0 0 2 25
Multi-stakeholder platform for bean production (SO) 0 3 1 8 2 4 5 0 23
Organic papaya production (ST) 2 0 1 3 4 2 1 1 14
Organic pineapples production (ST) 1 0 2 2 3 4 7 0 19
Cooperative for organic pink berries production (SO) 1 4 1 17 4 5 9 3 44
Potatoes Post-harvest storage (SO) 14 0 0 8 3 4 3 1 33
Participatory guarantee system (SO) 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 3
Grand Total 30 7 6 50 16 19 37 8 173
Advisory, consultancy and backstopping (AC), Awareness raising and knowledge exchange (AK), Demand articulation (DA), Improving
access to resource (IA), Institutional support for scaling up (IS), Networking, facilitation and intermediation (NF), Technical training on
crop and animal production (TT), Capacity building on collective action and group management (CB)

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Results
service providers and corresponding services offered (1)
 High diversity of ISP for MG (7/8), compared with
Cameroon (04 /08).
 For MG, FBOs, private, and hybrid orgs. Observed
as dominant ISP types, while intern. public
organisations and NGOs are less visible.
 For CAM, NGOs observed as dominant
ISP type, while informal providers,
FBOs and public organisations are less
visible

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Results
service providers and corresponding services offered (2)
Results
 Dominant service provider org. towards service
specialisation
 e.g. FBOs (for MG) specialises towards “improved access to
resources and, advisory, consultancy and backstopping service
activities
 NGOs (for CAM) specialises towards “technical training
services, especially linked with crop and animal production
Less visible service providers towards service diversification.
 e.g. national public org., and informal providers (esp. for MG)
with portfolio of services spanning across a wide spectrum

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types of innovations, phases of innovations and corresponding services mobilised
Results
 Intensity of ISS along innovation phases:  a unique
pattern is observed:
 a high concentration of services at the development
phases,
 followed by initiation phase
 while dissemination phases received much less ISS
 Density of ISS across innovation types SO
innovations have attracted more ISS compared with
ST innovations:
 technical training” linked with crop and animal
production are the most offered ISS activities in
ST innovations,
 improving access to resources observed as
most mobilised ISS for SO innovations
Results 3

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types of innovations, phases of innovations and corresponding service providers involved
 High diversity of ISP for SO innovations
compared with ST innovations.
 Diversity along innovation phases show a unique
pattern with:
 development phases recording the highest
ISP involvement,
 followed by Initiation and
 lastly dissemination phases.
Results 4
 FBOs and private organisations observed as main
contributors to development phases in both
innovation (SO and ST).
 stronger presence of hybrid organisations for SO
compared with ST innovations.
 national public organisations are observed to be
more visible at initiation phases for both innovations
types.

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Discussion and conclusion
 Dominance of “Technical training services” on crop and animal production for ST innovation,
and “improving access to resources services” for SO innovations is not surprising as:
 Corresponds with propositions of past studies (e.g. Faure et al. (2017); […“ST innovations
attract training related ISS for meeting technical needs, and SO innovations are expected
attract, e.g. networking facilitation, improving access to resources ISS etc., for facilitating the
coordination and linkage with markets and inputs related stakeholders…]
 While service providers specialisation on certain ISS, allows for quality services as a result of
greater emphasis:
 this may lead to omission of some services instrumental for the effective realization of
innovations
 While service provider diversification might mean less emphasis on quality, half-hearted and
fragmented services offered, where well managed, service diversification may positively impact
the innovation process.
 esp. when practised by informal actors (closer to innovators), as well as, national public
support actors (responsible for ensuring basic solutions to all)

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 Though the dominance of services on development phases of innovations corresponds with
findings from past studies:
 the weak attraction of support activities for the dissemination phases of innovations is rather
surprising, especially given the much emphasis on promoting and scaling innovations in
agriculture
Discussion and conclusion
Recommendations
 There is a strong need for:
 boosting ISS support for dissemination phases of innovations to corresponding with national
and international emphasis on adoption and scaling of innovations in agri-food systems
 revitalizing soft skills related ISS activities beyond the observed emphasis on access to
resources and technical training
 To ensure a fair chance for most innovators’ needs, it’s importance to encourage service
diversification (besides specialisation), especially:
 in context of dense support providers concentration, and amongst informal service providers
and national public actors.

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Thank you for your attention
Contact: h.ndah@uni-hohenheim.de
https://servinnov.cirad.fr/