Well planned research strategies have the best chance of producing positive results on the ground, a meeting to define future CGIAR research portfolios has heard.
Taking an integrated approach is central to the new CGIAR strategy, which is now implementing its research through 16 cross-cutting CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs). Careful planning is essential, together with constant monitoring and evaluation as work progresses, to ensure that research is addressing targets in the most effective way, with fine tuning and adjustments as needed.
Presenting their plans and outlining targets, three CRPs that are linked to natural resource management explored common challenges and objectives, and some joint strategies for moving ahead.
Outlining their plans during the second of four sessions in a two-week meeting to define CRP research agendas, the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) programs said that though their specific targets differ, they have many common overall goals and a shared idea of how to move from research to action.
With agriculture a major contributor to climate change – it accounts for an estimated 19 to 29 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions – there is massive scope for this sector to offer solutions to problems of rural poverty, food and nutrition insecurity and environmental degradation. As well as working in different areas, such as index-based weather insurance, agroforestry development and sustainable irrigation, the three CRPs are cooperating on policies, including climate change mitigation and natural resource regeneration, and on specific sites in several parts of the developing world.
“The whole is more than the sum of the parts,” Robert Nasi, Director of FTA told the meeting, which is being held at the CGIAR Consortium headquarters in Montpellier, France.
Gender is an over-arching concern for all CGIAR Research Programs, and each of the three natural resource management CRPs is investing at least 10 percent of its regional budget in the issue. Empowerment for women has also been identified as a key IDO for the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, (A4NH), which outlined its research goals at the meeting. Limited access to decision-making for women is a major obstacle to improving nutrition in households, said A4NH Director John McDermott.
Areas where efforts are being scaled up in the A4NH program include developing micronutrient crops, producing evidence of nutritional outcomes and work on value chains and food safety. One initiative involves A4NH working with partners on aflatoxin — a serious problem for a number of African countries – investigating how to reduce contamination of crops and its implications for trade.
Indicators for impacts
Donors at the meeting have praised the integrated approach taken by CRPs and the opportunities for coordination offered by the strategy for drawing up Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs). But they have stressed the need to measure impacts, and to take a common approach to monitoring and evaluation. Indicators and metrics are emerging as increasingly important for donors, so they can see returns on their investments.
The involvement of donors — and partners – has been an important feature of the meeting, with both groups playing an active role in helping to define and shape the CRP research agenda.
Development partners have urged strong support in developing proposals and capacity building, underscoring the new multi-faceted skill sets required of modern research organizations. CRPs will need to play a decisive role in making partnerships work, so as to produce outcomes. Some CRPs already have huge numbers of partners. the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) alone has more than 900.
Both partnerships and results-based research are core features of the CGIAR reform process. All CRP research activities are starting to embed impact pathways into their work plans, which link research outputs to outcomes and, ultimately, impacts.
Each CRP is presenting its IDOs during the meeting, with increasing focus on defining common targets to harness synergies and avoid fragmentation and duplication. The next step will be to draw up costing estimates, said CGIAR Consortium CEO Frank Rijsberman, so that it will be easier to assess the ratio between investments and returns. Collaboration already exists between a number of CRPs in producing indicators and measuring impacts.
Successes and failures
Although relatively new, all the CRPs can draw on a large body of work done by the 15 CGIAR Research Centers and partners. A number of CRPs have outlined progress made by initiatives already under way. An ambitious project based in Colombia, headed by CCAFS and implemented with a wide range of partners, is developing the country’s first agroclimatic forecasts, linking them to crop modeling and helping farmers to use the information in the field. The program, launched six months ago, is already producing some valuable results, including an innovative South-South feature, with knowledge transfer from Senegal to Colombia on climate forecasting techniques.
A research project led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), focusing on the potential of smallholder irrigation to increase food security and incomes, has led to greater access to small pumps for farmers in West Bengal, India, and water-lifting devices in Zambia, with opportunities for outscaling the approach to other parts of the developing world where irrigation could produce significant benefits for small-scale producers.
Improved tree germplasm of high-value tree species generated by the FTA program has improved income prospects for small-scale producers in Africa and India, linking with partners for delivery on the ground, marketing and upscaling. The development of new tools to customize tree species and management options is promoting tree diversity and more resilient livelihoods and landscapes.
However, in drawing up effective research strategies, it will be important to learn from failures, as well as from successes, speakers have told the meeting. One case in point is the lack of previous research into the link between agriculture and nutrition. The A4NH program, launched in January 2012, is seeking to redress this imbalance, leveraging agriculture to achieve health and nutrition goals. The CGIAR Research Program aims to fill the existing gap between agricultural development and its unfulfilled health and nutritional benefits by addressing problems of low diet quality — the main cause of undernutrition worldwide — and vulnerability to agriculture-associated diseases.
“Until recently, the agriculture sector has completely failed to address its contribution to nutrition,” said A4NH Director John McDermott. “Hopefully, that is a failure that we can now turn to success.”
More information:
CGIAR Research Program Engagement with Donors and External Stakeholders for resources related to this event. #LELP2013 #Ag4Dev (Listening Engaging Learning Progressing – LELP2013)
Photo: K. Trautmann/CCAFS