Abstract only

This paper is concerned with developing a balanced approach to impact assessment (IA), and one that distinguishes between the need for accountability on the one hand and learning on the other. Drawing upon both programmatic and strategic experience gained from working with the UK's Department for lntemational Development's Renewable Natural Resources Strategy, it addresses the need for learning about institutional impacts of this program on Research and Development (R&D) systems in Southern partner countries. A central thesis is that the International Development Targets and the subsequent adoption of more holistic, poverty- focused approaches are beginning to enhance organizational capacity in these countries to develop a variety of approaches and methods to IA. The paper argues that these are driven by a perceived need for accountability to better document success as a response to external pressure for clear evidence of impact. This concern for accountability tends to support historic decisions. The paper highlights four interrelated areas of concern with regard to the management of IA by donors and the international and strategic agricultural research agencies: (1) agencies are driven to manage IA to justify continuing what they do, as opposed to informing future strategies; (2) the emerging concern with frameworks and approaches to poverty reduction, including those that espouse embracing error, have failed to build on past lessons about the use of IA; (3) the absence of a systematic and rigorous framework to assess institutional capacity and prospects for sustainability has marginalized the role of national R&D systems and reduced them to "risks and assumptions;" and consequently (4) the capacity and sustainability of local R&D systems is largely overlooked during collaborative research between international and national research systems. The current preoccupation with assessing beneficiary impact, as gauged by movements in the relative values of household assets, tends to mask the relative lack of information and concern about the capacity and capabilities of local R&D systems before, during, and after investment periods. This makes it difficult to link any sustainable impact among beneficiaries with information on institutional capacity at the time that research products were being developed. This could be one reason why there remains a lack of confidence in the results of impact studies showing high or low rates of return- a coherent and believable story linking impacts to research capacity and process is not presented, especially given that policy makers are well aware of such capacity constraints. There is need for guidance on what research processes worked and did not work in order to identify the strategic implications for future investments in R&D. The paper concludes by proposing a more balanced approach to IA, one informed by two main considerations. First, that it is not sufficient to simply undertake an assessment of institutional impacts, rather that, it is a question of understanding how such changes complement socio-economic studies. Second, that there is a need to develop sustainability indicators that relate to capacity and development. These considerations will help to guide the development of a more balanced IA strategy, one that reflects changes within R&D systems and which provides information to policy makers about the sustainability of impacts among end-user / beneficiary environments.

English

0310|R01CIMPU|AGRIS 0301|AL-Economics Program

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection