A guide on processes and partnerships for co-designing, scaling, and institutionalising gender-transformative socio-technical innovation bundles for agri-food transformation in Kenya

Gender-transformative socio-technical innovations (GT-STIBs) combine technological, technical, social policy and institutional innovation components selected through diagnosis and co-design with a gender-transformative component that considers gender transformative nutrition, gender action learning systems (GALS), household dialogues, men’s engagement and decision-making for climate resilience, empowerment, nutrition, and food security. The bundling process links farmer experimentation and technology adoption processes with extension, finance, markets, nutrition, household and community dialogue, and institutional delivery. Co-design influences the bundle’s relevance and sustainability. It also defines the roles assigned to implementing partners and the prospects for continuation through local institutions after the project ends. The work was implemented across Embu, Makueni, and Nakuru, although activities and institutional progress differed by county. Demonstrations and farm-level testing provided the entry point for co-design and learning. Through co-design with all relevant stakeholders from KALRO, farmer groups, and County officials, additional constraints related to agency, joint decision-making, control over benefits, finance and services, labour, nutrition, and social norms were identified. These findings informed the addition of transformative social components, including gender training, household dialogue, GALS, and gender transformative nutrition training. The guide is intended for research and programme teams, extension systems, local governments, development partners, private-sector actors, farmer organisations, universities, CGIAR and non CGIAR teams, and communities of practice. It can support project design, learning-lab implementation, institutional planning, and adaptation of GT-STIBs to other production systems. A complementary guide will be developed to extend this framework to water and youth-related components, linking water technologies and management practices with gender-transformative approaches and institutional arrangements for equitable access, decision-making and benefit. This guide aims to situate water as a primary component of agricultural production that enables or constrains Brief system transformation. The guide will provide a framework to capture how water availability, reliability, quality, access rights, allocation mechanisms, and governance shape innovation outcomes.