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N° 20 - July 2004 Agricultural innovation: defining
IFAD’s role In providing technical assistance grants (TAGs) for agricultural research to national and international research institutes, IFAD plays an important policy and advocacy role in promoting pro-poor agricultural research. Between 1979 and 2001, IFAD allocated USD 171.541 million for 199 TAGs to 32 international agricultural research centres. Of these, 16 were affiliated to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), set up in 1971 with donor funding to develop a global agricultural research system. Key aims of the TAG programme include: developing appropriate and sustainable technologies for poor farmers; promoting partnerships with agricultural research centres worldwide, strengthening their research capacity and encouraging pro-poor research; and generating knowledge concerning appropriate agricultural technologies and practices. IFAD’s approach to the TAG-funded agricultural research programme has changed over the years which has led to a wide-ranging interpretation of the programme’s role within IFAD and by IFAD’s partners. The programme now finances research in a wider range of sectors than it did initially involving a much greater diversity of research topics and institutions. In addition, the research is more short-term, more multidisciplinary, more participatory and more localised. This evaluation, undertaken in 2002, found most grant-funded projects to be well-designed;
Setting a research strategy There are many positive trends in the TAG programme’s approach to agricultural research such as an increasing concern for poverty and gender, a greater attention to appropriate technology and a higher awareness that poor farmers should be involved in the research process. The TAG programme needs, however, to carve out a niche for itself by setting a more focused research agenda and adopting a more selective approach. A research strategy would help guide IFAD’s contribution to agricultural research, thereby increasing its effectiveness. It would stipulate what kind of research IFAD needs to finance and the types of organisations it should support. A new strategy would also cover the extent to which TAG-funded research would be expected to contribute to IFAD’s loan programme, prioritise research areas (thematically and regionally) for funding, identify technology gaps and concentrate on innovative research that can be adapted and replicated. Putting research into practice Linking IFAD’s agricultural research grant portfolio to its loan portfolio is central to the agricultural research TAG programme. IFAD loan projects are expected to use relevant technology and new ideas developed by agricultural research TAGs to increase their impact on poverty alleviation. Difficult to achieve, the evaluation found that such linkages are more likely to occur when farmers are active in setting research priorities, carrying out research and implementing new ideas. Longer-term research will usually have a time-lagged, indirect input. Seventy-eight percent of the reviewed Executive Board proposals for agricultural research TAGs named the loan projects that would benefit from the TAG; 46 percent showed evidence of linkages; while 36 percent were successful in achieving linkages. However, there is evidence that the relevance of the TAG programme to poverty and to IFAD’s loan portfolio is growing. Establishing a joint grant-loan planning system is essential to increase the likelihood of successful linkages. Grant-loan interaction would also benefit from better information-sharing between IFAD Country Programme Managers, grant managers, project staff and research centres regarding technology needs and research outputs. IFAD’s networks, such as FidAmerica, would help: active information networks can capture and communicate technical innovations and non-technical insights regarding institutional partnerships, research methodologies, the sustainability of technology adoption and so on.
Strengthening impact Impact should have two main dimensions: poverty reduction and institutional capacity-building. The impact of TAG-funded agricultural research on poverty was hard to assess and attribute to IFAD alone given the many factors involved, the limited number of impact assessments undertaken by the research institutes and until recently, the poor quality of data. The evaluation was able to ascertain, however, that only a fraction of the reviewed TAGs had completed the development of pro-poor products or prepared the way for their dissemination and adoption. The impact on institutional capacity was clearer especially among national-level research organisations and to a lesser extent NGOs and Community Based Organisations (CBOs). The need for further national capacity building is urgent given that international institutions often play a larger role in field research than do national institutions whose capacity is uneven. IFAD has, however, played an important leadership role in the development of methodologies for assessing the poverty impact of agricultural research, including contributions at international conferences and support to the CGIAR standing panel on impact assessment. It will be important to assess national research capacities and encourage further participatory research. Increasing TAG duration to up to five years would allow adequate time for situational assessment (of socio-economic conditions in particular) and for impact assessment once research has ended. Systematically including farmers, NGOs and CBOs as partners in setting research priorities and implementing research programmes is critical to achieving effective impact and sustainability. Global innovation role for IFAD CGIAR (see www.cgiar.org ) is an informal association of 63 members
that supports agricultural research and related activities carried out
by 16 autonomous research centres. CGIAR is financed by members' contributions:
members include industrial and developing countries, foundations, and
international and regional organisations. IFAD plays an important global
policy and advocacy role through agricultural research activities and
the CGIAR mechanism. In collaboration with its partners IFAD has helped
promote the poverty focus of GGIAR research organisations; it is a founding
member of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, is taking a lead
role in CGIAR’s Special Programme for Impact Assessment and is a
formal co-sponsor of the CGIAR system. IFAD should build on this experience
and continue to influence donor efforts in identifying new and innovative
research areas that will enhance poverty impact such as introducing conservation
methods of tilling soil prone to erosion, harvesting water and designing
better tools for women farmers, older people and children (in particular
where demographic patterns have changed due the spread of AIDS, for example).
Further information Evaluation of IFAD’s Technical Assistance Grants Programme for Agricultural Research, Report #1377, July 2003. The full report is online or available from the Office of Evaluation, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Via Paolo Di Dono, 44, 00142 Rome, Italy. |
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