Outcomes of CCAFS Work in Vietnam

The study explored how CCAFS SEA outputs have helped the country achieve its development outcomes in the agricultural sector. The assessment showed that CCAFS SEA, although still on-going, has contributed to specific outcomes in Vietnam, which include changes in knowledge, approaches, practices, and strategies related to climate change, particularly in the agricultural sector. These outcomes were observed among decision makers, policymakers, technical staff, and farmers

Knowledge Management As an Economic Development Strategy

The United States is shifting to an information economy. Productive capability is no longer completely dependent on capital and equipment; information and knowledge assets are increasingly important. The result is a new challenge to the practice of local economic development. In this information economy, success comes from harnessing the information and knowledge assets of a community and from helping local businesses succeed in the new environment. Knowledge Management (KM) can provide the tools to help economic development practitioners accomplish that task. KM is a set of techniques and tools to uncover and utilize information and knowledge assets -- especially tacit knowledge. Economic development organizations can use KM tools to enhance external communications of local companies including marketing and to promote internal communications within local businesses and help companies capture tacit knowledge. More importantly, they can use those tools to uncover and develop local intellectual assets, including helping develop information products, and helping identify entrepreneurial and business opportunities. KM tools are also useful in developing local economic clusters. Finally, these tools can be used to enhance external knowledge sharing among the economic development community and to capture and share tacit knowledge within an economic development organization

Design smart city apps using activity theory.

In this paper we describe an innovative approach to the design process of Smart City interventions. We tested it with participants enrolled in the Master\u2019s Degree program in \u201cInnovators in enterprise and public administration\u201d: the objective of the Master was to stimulate the acquisition of technical and methodological skills useful in designing and implementing specific Smart City actions. During the "project work" phase, participants learned about a design method named SAM \u2013 Smart City Model - based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). We present an overview of design criteria for Smart City projects, the description of the theoretical framework of Activity Theory, and our proposal of the SAM design model. We also present some examples of student\u2019s \u201cprojects\u201d and a more extensive description of one case study about the full design process of an App planned using SAM, for \u201csmart health\u201d vaccine management and monitoring services. The App was later published and made available to the citizens and was successful in attracting thousands of users. All the participants considered the model very useful in particular because it made possible to understand the interaction and solve contradictions between different stakeholders and systems involved

9 steps to scale climate-smart agriculture: Lessons and experiences from the climate-smart villages in My Loi, Vietnam and Guinayangan, Philippines

The Climate-Smart Village approach is a CCAFS agricultural research for development (AR4D) strategy for stimulating the scaling of climate-smart agriculture. CSVs are established in Southeast Asia through the CCAFS program to serve as sites for “testing, through participatory methods, technological and institutional options for generating evidence of CSA effectiveness as well as drawing out scaling lessons for policy makers from local to global levels (CCAFS, 2016). The CSVs in My Loi in Vietnam and Guinayangan in the Philippines were established following this strategy starting 2014 by the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) Vietnam and the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, respectively. This guidebook showcases the common experiences of the IIRR and ICRAF in the Philippine and Vietnam CSVs, which are outlined in 5 major stages and broken into 9 steps

Sparking Social Innovations

{Excerpt} Necessity is the mother of invention. The demand for good ideas, put into practice, that meet pressing unmet needs and improve people’s lives is growing on a par with the agenda of the 21st century. In a shrinking world, social innovation at requisite institutional levels can do much to foster smart, sustainable globalization. In consequence of successive scientific revolutions, mankind has changed its conditions and capacities with increasing speed. Globalization is a given: today, mankind’s activities are affecting the entire planet—and thereby mankind itself—for good and ill. A select list of the worldwide challenges we face includes alleviating poverty; mitigating and adapting to climate change; ending abuse of natural resources and the environment; cleaning up environmental pollution; dealing with natural disasters; countering medical challenges, e.g., pandemics; encouraging disarmament; coping with security threats; accommodating nonstate power; handling failed states; tapping capacity for social action; allaying frustration among minorities; confronting violence; identifying global rights; building a global rule of law; evolving regulatory and institutional frameworks to contain global financial and economic crises; optimizing international trade; managing mass migrations; employing human resources better; and optimizing knowledge