Engaging, collaborating, and driving change within a multi-stakeholder platform through a step-by-step approach of innovation design applied to African dairy value chains

In Sub-Saharan Africa, dairy value chains' stakeholders face many challenges and have expectations for change. Step-by-step innovation design methodologies and multi-stakeholder innovation platforms are implemented to drive changes desired by stakeholders. We assumed that combining these two approaches would reinforce the potentiality of achieving the changes. To the best of our knowledge, the specific mechanisms and actions involved in such a combination are poorly documented. This study contributes to fill this gap by reporting on modalities of engagement, collaboration, and change generation with stakeholders of dairy innovation platforms deriving from a step-by-step innovation design approach that is embedded within an overall loop-structure dynamic and accounting for three levels of stakeholders' engagement. We applied this step-by-step approach as part of the “Africa-Milk project” on ten dairy innovation platforms located in four African countries (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Madagascar). The approach was led by a core team and applied adaptively across the various innovation platforms, according to both their organizational context and objectives. In this paper, we captured the lessons learned along the key implementation stages of the approach (i.e., engagement, action, and assessment) and regarding the type of stakeholders involved. Our results show that the initiation of the engagement highly depends on the pre-existence of an innovation platform. The action stage proceeds then through either cascading actions or parallel actions. Finally, the outcome assessment stage enables to identify different types of changes induced by the approach (i.e., changes in practices, interactions, capacities, and opinions). Owing to its adaptability, the overall loop-structure of the approach enables practical adjustments and reflexivity to best meet the needs of innovation platform stakeholders. This study paves the way to implement co-design of innovation approaches to broader multi-stakeholder platforms involved in agri-food system transformations.