Thai Thi Minh

International Water Management Institute | IWMI · IWMI office in Accra Ghana

Global demand for sustainable agri-food products creates opportunities for smallholder farmers. But on-farm verification of sustainable practices is costly, making third-party certification inaccessible to many poor farmers. Digital technologies for tracing agri-food products from farm to fork could help: novel traceability systems, based on blockc...

This study examines the barriers faced by irrigation technology and service suppliers in Ethiopia, and their influence on business effectiveness. Data were collected from 42 firm owners and managers across 21 enterprises through online surveys, phone calls, and in-person interviews in August 2020. Additional insights were provided by 35 key informa...

This study examines the barriers faced by irrigation technology and service suppliers in Ethiopia, and their influence on business effectiveness. Data were collected from 42 firm owners and managers across 21 enterprises through online surveys, phone calls, and in-person interviews in August 2020. Additional insights were provided by 35 key informa...

Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) has been part of the farming system for hundreds of years, but has only recently attracted increased attention from government institutions, donors and development organizations. Yet, despite its vast potential, FLID has only been expanding slowly. Barriers to scaling include inadequate policy and legal fram...

Advancing food security requires multi-level and inclusive approaches. This article presents a novel framework to (E) evaluate the social inclusiveness of policies and interventions (PIs) towards (V) vulnerable social groups in (A) agricultural value chains. The EVA-framework is applicable to any value chain, geography and vulnerable group. We appl...

Unlock the potential of irrigation technology in Ethiopia! Our preprint, "Bridging the Gap: Analysis of Systemic Barriers to Irrigation Technology Supply Businesses in Ethiopia," dives deep into the challenges faced by suppliers. Through comprehensive data from 21 enterprises and insights from 42 firm owners/managers, we reveal critical barriers li...

Africa's agriculture sector is vital for food security, employment, and economic growth. Women and young people, who contribute to innovation, diversification, and income, face limited opportunities in the sector due to social and economic power imbalances. This disparity wastes resources and impedes agricultural value chain development (VCD). Incl...

Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have made youth inclusion a top priority in their development agendas. This is aimed at overcoming social, technical, and institutional obstacles and providing fair and significant opportunities for the growth of young people. Inclusive agricultural value chain development (VCD) is being used to address yo...

Agricultural innovation scaling approaches tend to be empirical but do not sufficiently take into account the complex realities of ‘softer elements’ such as people, supply chains, markets, financing mechanisms, policies and regulations, professional knowledge, power relations, incentives and history. As a consequence, scaling initiatives often do n...

Achieving gender equality in irrigation can result in greater production, income, and job opportunities for both men and women smallholder farmers from diverse social groups, while building climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. In Ethiopia, national irrigation agencies, donors, and researchers have been assisting project implementers to mainstr...

This article presents a cultural competence-based (CCB) framework to analyse contemporary science culture. Starting from the observation that two separate views of culture-as-context and culture-as-practice cannot address the ongoing transitions in the contemporary sciences towards esoteric–exoteric trans-sphere governance and multicultural science...

The positive impact of stakeholder engagement (SE) in smart city development initiatives has received notable scholarly attention over the past decade. Researchers of stakeholder engagement have investigated various aspects of the engagement process from different theoretical perspectives, yet the complexity and dynamism of inclusion, especially at...

Emissions reductions may not meet expectations, and groundwater use will likely increase

Irrigation expansion is critical for agricultural and rural development, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Lack of accessible energy for irrigation development due to limited off- and on-grid infrastructure and the resulting dependence on costly fuel-based irrigation have been key inhibiting fac...

Given the generally low adoption of early climate change response technologies among tree crop producers in sub-Saharan Africa, stakeholders interested in the commercialization or scaling of such technologies will require empirical evidence of their market prospects. Using a double-bounded contingent valuation approach, the study evaluated the will...

This technical report provides an overview of marketing margin of irrigation technologies in Ethiopia with an analysis from a supply chain perspective

Rainwater harvesting for irrigation can increase sustainable access to irrigation and improve farmer resilience to climate change, particularly in semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa. However, attempts to increase adoption of rainwater harvesting for irrigation in Kenya have rarely been successful, despite decades of efforts by governments, NGO...

Agroecological TRANSITIONS: Private Sector Incentives and Investments (PSii) for Climate Change, Resilience and Environmental Sustainability. Key messages: - Growing consumer demand for agri-food commodities grown under responsible social and environmental conditions creates financial incentives for the private sector transition towards sustainable...

Scaling small-scale irrigation (SSI) is critical in alleviating poverty and achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Ethiopia. There are several pathways to scaling SSI. Among these, the adaptive scaling approach has proven suitable for facilitating the private-led pathway and partnerships for scaling irrigation technologies and services, includi...

This study presents processes and success stories that emerged from Africa RISING's Research for Development project in the Ethiopian Highlands. The project has tested a combination of participatory tools at multiple levels, with systems thinking and concern for sustainable and diversified livelihoods. Bottom-up approaches guided the selection of t...

Irrigation expansion remains a critical development goal for poverty alleviation and climate adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Lack of affordable energy for irrigation due to limited grid infrastructure and high dependence on fuel-based irrigation have been key inhibiting factors for irrigation expansion in the region despite abundant untappe...

In rainfed agricultural systems, sustainable and efficient water management practices are key to improved agricultural productivity and natural resource management. The agricultural system in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relies heavily on the availability of rainfall. With the erratic and unreliable rainfall pattern associated with poor and fragile soi...

IntroductionIn rainfed agricultural systems, sustainable and efficient water management practices are key to improved agricultural productivity and natural resource management. The agricultural system in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relies heavily on the availability of rainfall. With the erratic and unreliable rainfall pattern associated with poor and...

Explores policy, implementation and informal institutions to provide an overview of the environment for scaling water and irrigation solutions in Ethiopia

The report is about how to improve crop and water productivity using the different agricultural water management technic and technologies

CGIAR has considerable experience with private sector engagement in the context of its mission to create sustainable and resilient food, land and water systems, and there is continuing interest and dialogue on this theme within CGIAR and the international development community more generally. The on-going CGIAR reform provides an opportunity to ca...

Existing studies on socio-economic differentiation in Vietnam focus on the inequality between the ethnic majority and minorities while neglecting the disparities among ethnic minorities. Using a framework to analyse marginalisation at different scales, we identified through an extensive literature review the diverse ways in which ethnic groups deve...

The overall objective of this research is to assess opportunities for and systemic barriers to sustainable and inclusive irrigation development that can increase resilience and generate income for smallholder farmers in districts in the FtF ZoI in Nepal affected by Covid-19.

Recently, increasing attention has been paid to entrepreneurial ecosystems and the process of their formation and function. Researchers have noted the important role that intermediary organizations such as incubators play in connecting various actors within ecosystems. Yet our understanding of this role is limited to a few empirical insights. Using...

Value chain for development (VCD) has increasingly been promoted for poverty reduction; yet, there is inadequate evidence on its effectiveness. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this article offers reasons why evidence on VCD impacts on poverty reduction is uncertain. It also suggests a conceptual framework for the poor-centred value chai...

Private-led scaling pathway for irrigation technologies

Agricultural innovation scaling approaches tend to be empirical but do not sufficiently take into account the complex realities of ‘softer elements’ such as people, supply chains, markets, financing mechanisms, policies and regulations, professional knowledge, power relations, incentives and history. As a consequence, scaling initiatives often do n...

Proper on-farm water management increases farm water and crop productivity whilst enhancing a fair distribution of water and avoid conflict among the water users in the scheme. Improving crop and water productivity can be achieved through improved water management, improved crop type and varieties. However, in developing countries like Ethiopia, av...

Nepal has abundant water resources, but over 60% of irrigable lands owned by smallholder farmers don’t have irrigation access. Many smallholder farmers and women farmers lack water for agriculture, drinking, sanitation, and other domestic uses. Nepal’s Tarai region is considered an area with huge potential for surface and groundwater-based irrigati...

Purpose There is little known about investigating the importance of all proximity dimensions simultaneously as a result of geographical proximity on university-industry collaborative innovation. This paper aims to answer the question of how geographically proximate university and industry influence cognitive, social, organizational, institutional a...

Private sector actors bring expertise, resources, and new perspectives to agricultural development, but the tendency to short-term approaches and market-based orientation has been unable to drive a systemic change in the development agenda. We explore how multi-stakeholder dialogues can capitalize on and trickle systemic change through private sect...

Purpose: Over the last decade, value chain for development has shown its bias towards global value chain approaches. This article proposes a holistic framework to carry out feasibility analysis for the establishment of a value chain. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative research approach was used to collect and analyse data from a wide range...

Although agricultural innovation systems (AIS) have recently received considerable attention in academic and development circles, links between an AIS's regional specifications and structural-functional analysis have been neglected. This paper aims to understand how regional and structural dimensions determine systemic problems and blocking mechani...

The Northern Mountainous Region (NMR) of Vietnam is characterised by great physical, social and cultural diversity. It covers a large geographical area, is home to many ethnic minority populations, has an under-developed infrastructure with low levels of urbanisa-tion, and agricultural production plays a highly important role. Since the 1950s, Vi-e...

This is the literature synthesis developed as lecture notes (not for citation) synthesized from around 50 scientific papers, working papers, guidelines, and reports. The synthesis aims to provide the students a comprehensive overview of different value chain approaches, different theoretical streams used for constructing the approaches, and the app...

This document is designed to help researchers who want to engage with ethnic groups to ensure agricultural R4D stops contributing to their further marginalization. It can be used by those wanting to design new projects that engage with ethnic minorities from the start or those already implementing projects and wanting to improve their current pract...

This paper addresses impacts of the institutional framework on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) innovation and networking practices. Through an explorative study of a domestic SME-dominated sector in Vietnam, we find that the institutional framework limits incentives for long-term investments, resulting in exploitative cost-control strategie...

Drawing on the triple helix model and organizational institutionalism, this article applies a qualitative research approach to analyze structures, institutional logics, power relations that shape inter-organizational relations and the structuration of a knowledge production system in an emerging economy. Findings highlight the emergence of a fifth-...

Since the 90s value chain (VC) approaches have received considerable attention by governments and development agencies for poverty reduction and strengthening the private sector. VC analysis has been used for developing intervention strategies to upgrade existing or to establish new VCs. Despite a massive number of frameworks and guidelines for VC...

Competing models of innovation informing agricultural extension, such as transfer of technology, participatory extension and technology development, and innovation systems have been proposed over the last decades. These approaches are often presented as antagonistic or even mutually exclusive. This article shows how practitioners in a rural innovat...

The Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS) in Vietnam has undergone massive changes over the last decades. Initially triggered by an economic reform process (Doi Moi) initiated in 1986, the system was formalized by the first decree on agricultural extension in 1993 (GSRV (Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) (1993) Nghị Đị...

In this article we investigate if qualitative soil fertility datasets derived during participatory processes can be combined with a corresponding land use change model (i) to improve the understanding of the social-ecological complexity of land use change and (ii) to allow testing of alternative scenarios even in data-poor environments. To test thi...

This paper assesses processes of adoption of agricultural innovations introduced to the northwestern uplands of Vietnam since the late 1950s as a result of external driving forces and the motivation of adopting farmers. We found that innovations which meet the immediate needs of food security and income genera-tion in the uplands are adopted by a h...

Purpose: The objective of this article is to analyze the introduction of participatory extension approaches (PEA) in the predominantly supply-driven, hierarchical Vietnamese extension system. Drawing on the case of the so-called Farmer Livestock School (FLS) concept, the authors investigate the potential and challenges of scaling up and out the FLS...

Statement of problem: The Northern Mountainous Region (NMR) of Vietnam is characterised by great physical, social and cultural diversity. It covers a large geographical area, is home to many ethnic minority populations, has an under-developed infrastructure with low levels of urbanisa-tion, and agricultural production plays a highly important role...

Farmers' livelihood in the midlands of the northern part of Vietnam relies mainly on crop production and livestock rearing. Green manure and animal dung are commonly used for crops, particularly in rice culture - a staple food crop, and sugarcane - a cash crop. Due to the small-scale livestock systems, the animal dung is limited, which results farm...