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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 technological interventions that could address the priority farming system challenges of the communities, leading to higher uptake levels and increased impact. Joint learning, appropriate technology selection, and the creation of an enabling environment such as the formation of farmer research groups, the establishment of innovation platforms, and capacity development for institutional and technical innovations were key to this study. The study concludes by identifying key lessons that focus more on matching innovations to community needs and geographies, systems orientation/integration of innovations, stepwise approaches to enhance the adoption of innovations, documenting farmers' capacity to modify innovations, building successful partnerships, and facilitating wider scaling of innovations for future implementation of agricultural research for development projects.

Smallholder maize and wheat production systems are characterized by high drudgery. On-farm trials were run for three seasons in Ethiopia. The study assessed the effect of 2 WT direct seeding and growing season on (1) soil quality, and (2) maize and wheat productivity, energy and protein gains, and gross margins, on smallholder farms in Ethiopia. For the wheat crop, the effect of different soil types and agroecological conditions on productivity was assessed. The treatments in paired plots were (i) conventional ploughing practice and (ii) no-till (NT). Soil properties, crop yield, nutrition gains and gross margins were determined. No-till improved soil properties in the short term. No-till produced 1210–1559 kg ha−1 grain, 18–29 GJ ha−1 energy and 121–194 kg ha−1 proteins, and generated 358–385 US$ ha−1 more than the conventional practice in the maize system. In the wheat system, no-till treatment had 341–1107 kg ha−1 grain, 5–16 GJ ha−1 energy and 43–137 kg ha−1 proteins, and generated 230–453 US$ ha−1 more than conventional practice. No-till can be more productive and profitable in the Ethiopian maize and wheat-based cropping systems.

Objectives: Determination of the procedure-specific, risk-adjusted probability of nausea., Design: Cross-sectional analysis of clinical and patient-reported outcome data. We used a logistic regression model with type of operation, age, sex, preoperative opioids, antiemetic prophylaxis, regional anaesthesia, and perioperative opioids as predictors of postoperative nausea., Setting: Data from 152 German and Austrian hospitals collected in the Quality Improvement in Postoperative Pain Treatment (QUIPS) registry from 2013 to 2022. Participants completed a validated outcome questionnaire on the first postoperative day. Operations were categorised into groups of at least 100 cases., Participants: We included 78 231 of the 293 947 participants from the QUIPS registry. They were 18 years or older, willing and able to participate and could be assigned to exactly one operation group., Main Outcome Measures: Adjusted absolute risk of nausea on the first postoperative day for 72 types of operation., Results: The adjusted absolute risk of nausea ranged from 6.2% to 36.2% depending on the type of operation. The highest risks were found for laparoscopic bariatric operations (36.2%), open hysterectomy (30.4%), enterostoma relocation (29.8%), open radical prostatectomy (28.8%), laparoscopic colon resection (28.6%) and open sigmoidectomy (28%). In a logistic regression model, male sex (OR: 0.39, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.41, p<0.0001), perioperative nausea and vomiting prophylaxis (0.73, 0.7 to 0.76, p<0.0001), intraoperative regional anaesthesia (0.88, 0.83 to 0.93, p<0.0001) and preoperative opioids for chronic pain (0.74, 0.68 to 0.81, p<0.0001) reduced the risk of nausea. Perioperative opioid use increased the OR up to 2.38 (2.17 to 2.61, p<0.0001)., Conclusions: The risk of postoperative nausea varies considerably between surgical procedures. Patients undergoing certain types of operation should receive special attention and targeted prevention strategies. Adding these findings to known predictive tools may raise awareness of the still unacceptably high incidence of nausea in certain patient groups. This may help to further reduce the prevalence of nausea., Trial Registration Number: DRKS00006153; German Clinical Trials Register; https://drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS00006153., Competing Interests: Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years: PK received consulting fees and payment for lectures from TEVA Ratiopharm, Sintetica, Amicus Ltd., Fresenius Kabi, CSL Bering, Vifor and Pajunk; WM received consultation fees and payment for lectures from Mundipharma Int., Ethypharm, Grünenthal, Kyowa, Spectrum Therapeutics. His institution has received research funding from Pfizer, Grünenthal, Mundipharma Int. other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work: PK had leading roles in ESAIC Chairman of the Guideline Committee and PONV Consensus Conference Member (ASER, SAMBA)., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)