Analyse d'une plate-forme d'innovation dans la filière karité au Mali

Causal explanations of change after an Innovation Platform intervention in a given domain tend to attribute outcomes mainly to what the Innovation Platform did. This paper uses the case study of an Innovation Platform in the value chain of shea nut in Mali, to explore the actual processes that explain why and how innovation platforms lead to desired development outcomes. The articulation of innovation platform activities with the performance of a women's cooperative involved in sourcing shea kernels, and processing and trading shea butter, contributed to enlarging the space for women to navigate opportunities in the shea value chain. The paper emphasizes the underlying processes activated by the articulation between the Innovation Platform's activities and the already existing performance practices in a changing context. It confronts the explanatory power of these processes with assumptions that tend to attribute development outcomes only to what the Innovation Platform did, to unravel the potential and the limitation of Innovation Platforms in the innovation process.