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ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the role played by innovation in the context of coffee co‐operatives. It shows how interconnected forms of innovation contribute to co‐operative resilience. Data was collected from the largest coffee co‐operative Union in Malawi and illustrates how coffee co‐operatives have innovated in order to cope with organizational and market constrains. We identify four areas of innovation: sustainable technologies, development of market niches, women's inclusion and business diversification. The combination of these forms of innovation contributes to co‐operative resilience in different degrees, the article also analyzes how innovation is influenced and driven by co‐operative's values and principles and by partnerships with national and international actors.

SUMMARYConsultants are an integral component of development aid. Their involvement is based on an assumption of the transferability of knowledge to clients and beneficiaries. However, this role, its efficacy and the concept of knowledge transfer have all been questioned. Although research has shown interest in northern development consultants in recent years, detailed processes and practices of southern consultants' engagement with knowledge production are less analysed. Drawing on debates about knowledge, power and managing development interventions and on extensive fieldwork exploring a Bolivian consultancy company's assignments for northern development agencies, we analyse the 'knowledge engagements' between clients, consultants and beneficiaries. The results suggest a novel theorisation: knowledge engagements are shaped by power relations exercised through discourses and financial aid on one hand and shared and unshared lifeworlds and backgrounds of actors on the other. They are also characterised by collusive behaviour with the discourses and practices of aid on the part of consultants and beneficiaries, which in turn influences outcomes. Southern consultants, although aware of these issues, are in a difficult position to challenge these relationships. A greater recognition of the tensions could lead to a new role for consultants if collective action were to renegotiate their terms of engagement and aim for a new mutuality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractIt has been argued that current interest in co‐operatives is because they can reduce poverty and are resilient organisations. However, histories of co‐operatives' successes and failures suggest that co‐operative organisational resilience needs better understanding. This article reviews the literature, particularly with respect to sub‐Saharan Africa. It argues that co‐operative organisational resilience centres on co‐operatives' multidimensionality and the development of collective capability in five mutually reinforcing areas of activity. These are membership, networks, collective skills in governance, innovation and engagement with governments. Together, they strengthen co‐operatives' resilience, but where lacking, they undermine it. The article adds to thinking about 'co‐operative advantage'. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Interest in genomics research in African populations is experiencing exponential growth. This enthusiasm stems in part from the recognition that the genomic diversity of African populations is a window of opportunity for innovations in postgenomics medicine, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The recently launched H3Africa initiative, for example, captures the energy and momentum of this interest. This interdisciplinary socio-technical analysis highlights the challenges that have beset previous genomics research activities in Africa, and looking ahead, suggests constructive ways H3Africa and similar large scale science efforts could usefully chart a new era of genomics and life sciences research in Africa that is locally productive and globally competitive. As independent African scholars and social scientists, we propose that any serious global omics science effort, including H3Africa, aiming to build genomics research capacity and capability in Africa, needs to fund the establishment of biobanks and the genomic analyses platforms within Africa. Equally they need to prioritize community engagement and bioinformatics capability and the training of African scientists on these platforms. Historically, the financial, technological, and skills imbalance between Africa and developed countries has created exploitative frameworks of collaboration where African researchers have become merely facilitators of Western funded and conceived research agendas involving offshore expatriation of samples. Not surprisingly, very little funding was allocated to infrastructure and human capital development in the past. Moving forward, capacity building should materialize throughout the entire knowledge co-production trajectory: idea generation (e.g., brainstorming workshops for innovative hypotheses development by African scientists), data generation (e.g., genome sequencing), and high-throughput data analysis and contextualization. Additionally, building skills for political science scholarship that questions the unchecked ...