TY - JOUR
T1 - Technology adoption at scale
T2 - the success of USAID’s agriculture diversification project in Malawi
AU - Said, Jonathan
AU - Goldsmith, Peter
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© (2024), (Wageningen Academic Publishers). All rights reserved.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Dr. Fenton Sands, USAID’s new contract representative, faced some challenges. His office, USAID-Malawi over many years showed great commitment to the country, yet there seemed to be insufficient progress in poverty reduction, agricultural yield improvement, and smallholder farmer incomes. Now in 2017, the mission managed 25 different multimillion-dollar projects that touched on agriculture, the economy, resilience, gender, and nutrition, with little sustainability evident. Dr. Sands’ task was twofold, specifically, how to depart from past practice and actually achieve sustainable impact at scale here in Malawi, as he launched the new $60m Ag Div activity and more generally, if successful, how should USAID scale the success across the region. This case study provides unique insights into how Dr. Sands and his team jettisoned traditional development approaches and builds sustainable economic impact at scale through a novel private sector platform. USAID Malawi’s brave new venture successfully leveraged university research via the Soybean Innovation Lab to assure sound science and evidenced based decision making. Dr. Sand’s novel approach, presented here as a teaching case study, provides an explicit pathway for development officers, university researchers, program implementers, and leaders in the donor community to build sustainable impact in partnership with the private sector.
AB - Dr. Fenton Sands, USAID’s new contract representative, faced some challenges. His office, USAID-Malawi over many years showed great commitment to the country, yet there seemed to be insufficient progress in poverty reduction, agricultural yield improvement, and smallholder farmer incomes. Now in 2017, the mission managed 25 different multimillion-dollar projects that touched on agriculture, the economy, resilience, gender, and nutrition, with little sustainability evident. Dr. Sands’ task was twofold, specifically, how to depart from past practice and actually achieve sustainable impact at scale here in Malawi, as he launched the new $60m Ag Div activity and more generally, if successful, how should USAID scale the success across the region. This case study provides unique insights into how Dr. Sands and his team jettisoned traditional development approaches and builds sustainable economic impact at scale through a novel private sector platform. USAID Malawi’s brave new venture successfully leveraged university research via the Soybean Innovation Lab to assure sound science and evidenced based decision making. Dr. Sand’s novel approach, presented here as a teaching case study, provides an explicit pathway for development officers, university researchers, program implementers, and leaders in the donor community to build sustainable impact in partnership with the private sector.
KW - Africa
KW - development
KW - poverty reduction
KW - private sector
KW - sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85214682066&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85214682066&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.22434/IFAMR1015
DO - 10.22434/IFAMR1015
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85214682066
SN - 1096-7508
VL - 27
SP - 987
EP - 1001
JO - International Food and Agribusiness Management Review
JF - International Food and Agribusiness Management Review
IS - 5
ER -