As the world look to agriculture for urgent solutions in food insecurity and climate change, the role of extension and advisory services in assisting farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and networks is needed now more than ever. This paper explores the current state of agricultural extension and advisory services using a structural and functional analysis of the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) in Senegal and Kenya through a comparison of policies and case studies on donor and private sector involvement. The paper found that while both countries have benefitted from increased investment in agriculture, weaknesses remain in research-extension linkages and coordination mechanism for pluralistic extension. It recommends donor projects to emphasize advancing the capacity of actors in the AIS to take charge of the function themselves, and to encourage the private sector in playing a complementary role to the public sector, especially in transferring excludable agrarian information.