Multiple stakeholder platform : a process of innovation system learning - Experience of sustainable and integrated exploitation of Inland Valleys in Benin and Mali

Inland valleys have enormous potentials for agriculture. Their exploitation constitutes a huge source of revenue for the stakeholders. Various agricultural products, environmental and cultural services make the inland valleys, complex ecosystems to operate. It's still in that complexity that they provide wealth for operators. However, in West Africa, approaches to develop these inland valleys, for decades, have not allowed actors to converge their interests towards some shared economic and social welfare (Windmejer, and Andiresse, 1993). An approach for a sustainable and integrated use of these inland valleys implies all activities involving both direct and indirect production of goods and services. It requires the introduction of technological, organizational and institutional innovations. In this regards, the Multiple-Stakeholder Platform (MSP) is initiated as a learning process of local agricultural innovation system (Hall et al., 2004). It is experienced in four inland valleys of which two in the circle of Sikasso in Mali and two in the departments of Mono-Couffo in Benin through a project entitled "Realizing Agricultural Potential of inland inland valleys in sub-Saharan Africa while maintaining their environmental services. The fundamental objective of this project is to improve productivity and competitiveness of products from inland valleys through intensification and diversification of production. Its purpose is to contribute to the effective improvement of the living conditions of rural populations. This project funded by the EU (2009-2010) was led by a consortium of organizations: AfricaRice, IITA, CIRAD, CDI, ICRA, and the IER in Mali, INRAB and the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at Benin.