Decentralised innovation systems and poverty reduction: experimental evidence from central Africa

pamuk, haki...[at all];

We use experimental data to investigate whether a decentralised approach to promoting innovation in central African agriculture outperforms conventional extension approaches. Our main result is that this decentralised approach, based on so-called innovation platforms, is effective in reducing poverty � more effective than conventional extension approaches. However, we also document considerable heterogeneity in terms of platform performance.