An innovative model in this regard is the Rajasthan Ekta Nari Sangsthan, with a membership of 16,000 low-income single women who help each other to reclaim land rights and stop domestic and social violence (Planning Commis­sion, 2005).

5.6      Institutions and Policies
Agricultural development is dependent upon the perfor­mance of a large number of actors/organizations. It includes not only those involved in Research, Development, Training and Extension (RDTE), but also those involved in a range of other activities, such as input generation and distribution, credit supply, value addition and marketing and policy de­velopment and implementation. It also depends on the over­all institutional context shaping the interaction among these different actors/organizations. Though many of these actors are present in all ESAP countries, there is a wide diversity in the number, capability and performance. This diversity stems from the historical pattern of governance (coloniza­tion and independence), ideologies (role of the state and other actors), stage of development, distribution of holdings and share of population involved in farming.
     This diversity has several important implications for planning  agricultural  development interventions,  includ­ing agricultural science and technology. Firstly, importing models of technological change, which might have been successful elsewhere, is not the way to address agricultural development in this region. In other words, country and region-specific   approaches   for   agricultural   development need to be designed. Secondly, development or application of new technology need not necessarily be the starting point for agricultural development. While technologies do play an important role, there could be other areas for intervention (institutional innovations) that may better address agricul­tural development and sustainability and these need to be explored.

5.6.1      Institutions
There has been an increasing realization that institutions— the rules, norms, habits, practices and routines that deter­mine how different actors interact with each other and re­spond to new challenges and opportunities—influence the performance of the agricultural innovation system. An in­novation system could be defined as a network of organiza­tions, enterprises and individuals focused on bringing new products, new processes and new forms of organization into social and economic use, together with the institutions and policies that affect their behavior and performance. The innovation system concept embraces not only the science suppliers but also the totality and interaction of actors in­volved (World Bank, 2006). However, the different actors in this system often do not sufficiently interact, collaborate, or share knowledge in most ESAP nations unless policy and practice address the institutional and related issues under­pinning this situation. Several policies dealing with agri­culture and allied sectors potentially affect agriculture and how AKST is deployed for agricultural and socioeconomic development. Policies influence or shape how programs are designed and operated. Exploring institutions and poli­cies therefore assumes critical importance in strengthening AKST arrangements in the ESAP region.

     Finding new ways of working and collaborating among large numbers of organizations is absolutely essential if sus­tainability and development challenges in the region are to be effectively addressed. Development of appropriate insti­tutions will therefore assume great importance as these will facilitate the ability of the various actors to link with other sources of expertise and knowledge and enable timely and successful responses to new challenges and opportunities in the region. Many of the previous efforts in improving the functioning of AKST arrangements focused only on im­proving the links between research and extension. Though the research-extension linkage will continue to be impor­tant, organizations involved in RDTE will need to develop partnerships with a large number of other actors including farmers, NGOs, producer organizations, input agencies, agroprocessors, agribusiness houses, traders, retailers and even consumers (van Mele et al., 2005; Hall, 2006). Devel­oping wider links will be essential not only to improve the performance of organizations involved in RDTE, but also to facilitate rural innovation—where new knowledge, infor­mation and technologies may be made available and put to socially and economically productive use.
     Several institutional barriers currently constrain the de­velopment of appropriate working arrangements. There is an increasing realization that the research-extension-farmer paradigm of agricultural development is insufficient to ad­dress the new and rapidly evolving challenges to agricultural development in the ESAP region. Attempts to refine this lin­ear paradigm started with ensuring farmer participation at different stages of technology development and promotion. Though it brought farmer perspectives into the process of agricultural technology development, several other impor­tant actors whose decisions also influence technology de­mand, promotion and uptake were left out. Moreover, most of the decisions on technologies were made by researchers and there has not been any change in the way science is organized, funded, managed or evaluated. Organizational reforms within public sector research and extension orga­nizations—such as decentralization and interface meetings with a wide range of stakeholders—will need to go further if underlying paradigms governing the way research or exten­sion is implemented in the region are to change.
     Many organizations have narrow mandates that prevent them from working with others. For instance, the agenda, constituency and training opportunities available to those in the extension sector need to expand if it is to support the producers who need more diverse support. Public sector extension in ESAP countries is focused only on the dissemi­nation of technologies to farmers. It will need to move be­yond its restricted mandate of technology dissemination to helping producers cope with new challenges, including the provision of organizational, managerial and entrepreneurial support (Sulaiman and Hall, 2003). Its client base will also need to expand to include NGOs, producer associations, rural entrepreneurs, agricultural labor and women. If exten­sion is to play these roles, it must develop new partnerships and capacities, including technological (new knowledge and skills) and institutional (new patterns of collaboration, new habits and practices) capacities.
     Agricultural science and technology arrangements in the ESAP region need to be assessed not only in terms of the