Hot Off the Press: LINK IV Uganda Context Analysis

Boosting Incomes through Improved Access to Banana and Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato Plant Materials

GKI is proud to announce the release of the LINK (Learning and Innovation Network for Knowledge and Solutions) Uganda Context Analysis, which fits into a larger initiative to forge, optimize, and sustain an international network aimed at solving challenges in propagating and distributing plant materials in rural Uganda.  The goals of this Context Analysis are twofold: (1) to help the LINK Winner better understand the socio-economic and business context surrounding this challenge, and (2) to help newcomers to the budding LINK Uganda network quickly understand the features of the prevailing innovation system that bear on their collective efforts toward a solution.  The rationale for this analysis is to establish a shared understanding of the contextual features—national, sectoral, institutional, and systemic—that affect solutions to the LINK Uganda challenge.

To understand the challenges and opportunities that exist in developing and distributing improved plant material for banana and orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), it is essential to investigate the innovation system of Uganda—as noted above—but also to buttress this innovation systems analysis with analyses of the value chains for banana and OFSP in Uganda.  Accordingly, this document combines a condensed treatment of the enabling environment for innovation on this challenge, the actors important to agriculture (and specifically tissue culture) development, as well as detail on how they interact, and what possible outcomes to this challenge might look like.  These value chain analyses specifically are designed to provide a coherent picture of the strengths and weaknesses of banana and OFSP production.  Check out the full Context Analysis here!