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Abstract
Traditional approaches to innovation systems policymaking and governance often focus exclusively on
the central provision of services, regulations, fiscal measures, and subsidies. This study, however,
considers that innovation systems policymaking and governance also has to do with the structures and
procedures decision makers set up to provide incentives for innovating agents and the interaction and
collaboration among them, thus enabling innovation. Based on the concepts of agent-centered
institutionalism and innovation systems, governance can be understood to refer to integrating multiple
government and non-government actors in different actor constellations depending on roles, mandates,
and strategic visions. Any effort to govern the system composed of those agents needs to take into
account the limitations that any policymaking body has in dictating how agents behave and interact. In
consequence governance in innovation systems has less to do with executing research and administering
extension services and more to do with guiding diverse actors involved in complex innovation processes
through the rules and incentives that foster the creation, application, and diffusion of knowledge and
technologies.
The report presents results from a study that analyzed to what extent the Bolivian Agricultural
Technology System (SIBTA), as part of the country’s agricultural innovation system, has complied with a
set of governance principles—including participation of stakeholders (especially small farmers) in
decision making, transparency and openness, responsiveness and accountability, consensus orientation
and coherence, and strategic vision—and compares those principles with benchmarks of innovation
systems governance in five other developing countries. Data in Bolivia were collected by means of an
expert consultation and interviews with a wide range of key actors and stakeholders from various
organizations involved in agricultural innovation in the system. The empirical findings of the study
suggest the following:
• A research and technology transfer program such as SIBTA constitutes only part of an innovation
system and there are other important complementary functions with which the government has to
comply to foster innovation. Rather than aiming to carry out research and extension, governments
should focus on overall planning on the macro level and bringing the above functions together so
they reach the innovating agents. To do this they need to involve themselves in planning and
policy analysis, the setting of consultation platforms, supporting the building of innovation
networks, and setting up specific funding mechanisms.
• Setting up decentralized semiautonomous agencies that administer funds and design innovation
projects does not automatically lead to sufficient participation of local producer organizations and
technology providers. More participation requires special rules and incentives to collaborate and
the special efforts of all involved, and eventually further decentralization on the regional level.
• Weak leadership and limited commitment, rather than a decentralized structure or the delegation
of too much power, have prevented governments from taking a more active role in governing
their innovation systems. Decentralization, however, should not stand in the way of a national
strategic vision, and mechanisms need to be put in place to discuss and harmonize national- and
local-level priorities.
• Simply being responsive to the demands of farmers does not necessarily imply that one is
generating the best technical solutions. Generating adequate innovations requires the participation
of many: leading and other producers, knowledge and technology providers, buyers, input sellers,
funding agencies, advisory services, and others. It also requires analysis and identification of
technological and market opportunities. Policymakers should foster in-depth analysis of farmers’
demands on the local level through decentralized organizations, which simultaneously help to
orient these demands to where technological and market opportunities lie. This requires improved
analytical and planning capacities as well as intensive communication with the farmers and
agents who benefit from new and promising technologies.