This document summarizes the introduction of the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS CRP). It outlines the objectives of focusing on reducing rural poverty, improving food security and nutrition, and sustainably managing natural resources. The AAS CRP will work on aquatic agricultural systems in major regions like Asia's mega deltas and Africa's inland waters. It will pursue a gender transformative approach and focus on participatory action research. Key areas of work include engaging communities, monitoring and evaluation, and establishing theories of change. The document reviews initial startups in sites in Zambia, Solomon Islands, and Bangladesh and outlines plans for further implementation in 2013.
3. System Level Objectives CRPs â primary focus
Reduced rural poverty Agricultural Systems: (Drylands;
Humid Tropics; Aquatic) (1s)
Improved food security Commodities (Wheat; Maize;
Rice; Roots and Tubers; Pulses;
Dryland cereals; Grain legumes;
Milk, meat & fish) (3s)
Improved nutrition and health Nutrition and Health (4)
Sustainably managed natural
resources
Water Land and Ecosystems (5)
Forests and Trees (6)
Policies and Institutions (2); Climate Change (7)
Strategy and Results Framework
4.
5.
6. Aquatic Agriculture Systems
â˘âthose farming, fishing and herding systems where the annual production dynamics of
natural freshwater and/or coastal ecosystems contribute significantly to household
livelihood, including income and food security.â
â˘âThese include major wetlands, floodplains and deltas, and most coastal systems.â
7. Aquatic Agriculture Systems
The Coral Triangle
Asia mega deltas
African Inland
⢠High numbers of poor
High % of total population dependent on AAS
⢠High vulnerability to change (climate/sea level/water)
⢠Potential to scale out
8. CRP 1s and rural
poverty
⢠Reaching those
left behind by the
Green Revolution
11. Impact Pathways of AAS CRP
#1 Scaling up and scaling
out
#2 Societal learning and
change
#3 Shifts in the practice of
research in development
12. Engage communities through Research in Development (RinD)
⢠Meaningful participation by local
women and men in research
⢠Research that empowers
⢠Shift focus from understanding to
learning how to achieve practical
outcomes and local change
⢠Get M&E and IA right â pursue
change through cycles of action
and reflection â flexibility to adjust
as we learn
⢠Recognize the need for long-term
site-based fieldwork and
engagement
13. RinD in CRP AAS
⢠emphasis on Participatory
Action Research at core of
major CGIAR program
⢠Applying it in â and learning
across â a coherent set of
agricultural systems
⢠If we show it works â make it
central to what the CGIAR
does in agricultural systems
⢠Explicit intent to learn from
this and scale out by working
with partners
14. âCRP 1.3 is a clear example of best
practiceâ CGIAR Gender Scoping Study
Gender transformative
approach
âŚâŚ not just âgender accommodatingâ
Actively examine, question and seek
to change rigid gender norms and
imbalance of power
Encourage critical awareness among
men and women of gender roles and
norms
Address the distribution of resources
and power relationships between
women and others in the community
âŚâŚ not just âgender accommodatingâ
Actively examine, question and seek
to change rigid gender norms and
imbalance of power
Encourage critical awareness among
men and women of gender roles and
norms
Address the distribution of resources
and power relationships between
women and others in the community
15. Gender transformative
approach
Invest in gender analysis
Build gender capacity
Make gender part of normal CRP AAS
practice â not an add on
Experiment systematically on how to
overcome gender constraints
Evaluate to learn what works and scale
out successes
Invest in gender analysis
Build gender capacity
Make gender part of normal CRP AAS
practice â not an add on
Experiment systematically on how to
overcome gender constraints
Evaluate to learn what works and scale
out successes
16. How change happens
Orlikowski and Hofman, 1997
Improvements in poverty alleviation, food security and
the state of natural resources result from dynamic,
interactive, non-linear, and generally uncertain processes
of innovation.â
EIARD, 2003
18. Visualizing the innovation required
M&E
Impact
Assessment
Social
research
Business-as-usual AAS concept of an ME&IA system for
learning and accountability
19. Visualizing the innovation required
M&E
Impact
Assessment
Social
research
Business-as-usual AAS concept of an ME&IA system for
learning and accountability
Culture of Knowledge Sharing and Learning
20. Visualizing the innovation required
M&E
Impact
Assessment
Social
research
Business-as-usual
Evaluation
AAS concept of an ME&IA system for
learning and accountability
Culture of Knowledge Sharing and Learning
Impact
Assessment
Establishing
worth
21. Visualizing the innovation required
M&E
Impact
Assessment
Social
research
Social research
Business-as-usual
Evaluation
AAS concept of an ME&IA system for
learning and accountability
Culture of Knowledge Sharing and Learning
Building and
testing ToC
Impact
Assessment
Establishing
worth
22. Visualizing the innovation required
M&E
Impact
Assessment
Social
research
Social research
Business-as-usual
Monitoring
Evaluation
Real-Time
Evaluation
AAS concept of an ME&IA system for
learning and accountability
Culture of Knowledge Sharing and Learning
Building and
testing ToC
Impact
Assessment
Establishing
worth
23. M&E fundamentals: Build and test nested
theories of change
⢠With stakeholders
⢠From the beginning
24. M&E fundamentals: Staged / iterative
approach
⢠Pathways unclear to
begin with
⢠Staged approach
⢠Ex-ante
⢠Mid-term
⢠Ex-post
⢠In support of
learning and
accountability
25. Handbook
Roll out goals
â Set the tone
â Start team building/training
â Achieve coordination with
existing activities
â Start or consolidate
partnerships
â Produce the plans
27. Top Line Messages from site start up
⢠First year start ups managed
huge learning curve
⢠Second year start ups are better
planned and will be better
managed thanks to the first year
⢠A program learning culture is well
underway
⢠Roll out as designed is robust
across different settings
⢠Partners are enthusiastic and
communities are engaged
28. ⢠Local teams recruited and working
⢠Agreement with stakeholders on development
challenge
⢠Agreement with stakeholders on strategic priorities to
guide a proposed program of work
⢠Communities selected
and engaged
⢠2013 work plan for
implementation
Outputs
29. Barotse FloodPlain - Zambia
To make more effective use
of the seasonal flooding and
natural resources of the
Barotse Flood Plain System
through more productive
and diversified aquatic
agricultural management
practices and technologies
that improve lives and
livelihoods of the poor.
30. Mailata â Solomon Islands
rising population and declining
quality and availability of marine
and land resources.
challenge is to improve their
lives through more productive,
diversified livelihoods that
empower communities to be
better able to adapt to change
and more effective use of their
resources.
to develop and test alternative
approaches to livelihood
diversification and resource
stewardship that will accelerate
development and restore the
productivity of their resources.
31. Southern Bangladesh Polder Zone
The AAS development challenge is to achieve sustainable and continual
improvements in agricultural productivity, livelihoods and nutrition of poor
communities in the Southern Bangladesh Polder Zone in the face of increasing
salinity, changing hydrology and climate change
32. Outcomes
⢠Explorations by program
teams of what business not-
as-usual means for AAS
⢠Awareness of the program
among stakeholders
⢠Hub-level partners willing to
participate
⢠Communities engaged and
willing to participate
33. Learning â community engagement
Front line human resources strategy
â˘Community facilitators
â˘Program community engagement staff
Engagement process and outputs
â˘Strength based approach excellent for empowerment objectives
â˘Good community visions but incomplete action plans
â˘Major concern with expectations management
34. Coming up for roll out in 2013
Implement work plans in first year sites
â˘Complete detailed planning on initiatives
â˘Continued engagement in communities
â˘Capacity building of teams and stakeholders
Roll out in second year sites
Continued development of cross cutting themes
Hinweis der Redaktion
But to do so, for our research processes to be catalytic, we need to learn how to work better in these systems. AAS and the other CRP 1s are âsystemsâ programs because we share, together with the other so-called NRM CRPs, the same view of the change progress that EIARD has helped embed in the CGIAR. The quotation comes from an epilogue article in a special issue of Agricultural System published in 2003 on impact assessment and evaluation in R4D. With respect to the model - our view is that while change processes may be uncertain, there is value in anticipating change (e.g., by making explicit our assumed theories of change) using our best available knowledge. We then start âdoingâ â it is a mistake to over characterize and not get started (we learned that from the EcoRegional Approach in the 1990s). Once we intervene things start to happen. We seek to amplify positive emergence and dampen what is less positive, learning as we do. We revisit our theories of change and change our plans accordingly. And so the cycle continues.
Another way of looking at this is by realizing that the CGIAR has always worked in both ordered and complex systems. Much of our genetic improvement work appears ordered because it happens in well established vertically integrated networks that link scientists to farmers. Our relational work with networks is complex. But whether ordered or complex, âtheory-made-explicitâ in project proposals, program design, reward structures and evaluation assume we operate in ordered systems To reach the billion left behind we need to trigger social potentialities. This means building partnerships and coalitions as well as doing cutting edge research biophysical research. We need to become more comfortable and effective engaging in complex systems. Our mental models, both individually and collectively, need to change to better match this need. Part of this requires us to see ourselves as part of the system, not apart from it. For this reason, CRP AAS has coined the term âresearch in developmentâ to capture the embeddedness idea. Putting it another way, the complex issues that hold rural people in poverty wonât fall to single interventions. It requires systemic change, and we in the CGIAR need to become much more comfortable and able to work in this arena. AND mirroring this, the approaches that we need to use will not be recipes or instruction manuals. They will be principles underpinned by networked learning and reflection.
I now want to give you some more detail on the evaluation and learning system we are building in AAS based on these foundation stones. Forgive me a straw-man for contrast. Generally speaking impact assessment, social research and M&E happen in isolation in most research organizations. M&E is usually understood to be about financial and milestone compliance to donors. Support to knowledge sharing and learning has been more rhetorical than real.
In AAS we begin with a commitment to KS&L led from the top, and legitimized in a research program that I lead (Research Theme 6 on Knowledge Sharing, Learning and Innovation). I depict this culture box as open to indicate that this cultural shift cuts across all aspects of program activity, not least research, open access to information, etc.
An expanded role for evaluation has a critical part to play in building the KS&L culture, not least because a big part of the required culture shift is learning to be critically self-evaluative and making time for standing back and reflecting. We see impact assessment as a subset of evaluation as do most evaluation theorists and practitioners, contributing to learning.
We see a much expanded role for social research, in particular to build and test theories of change. We want to know how our projects and programs act on, and change, patterns of interactions between people and their capacities. We want to know how better to use research as a lever for change both as adaptive managers and to influence policy.
And finally we seek to be clear about the roles monitoring has to play, in its contribution to testing theories of change, as part of real-time evaluation to guide adaptive management and, last but not least, in its traditional role to monitor milestones and financial compliance.
Impact evaluation has a leadership role to play in working to build project and program theories of change from the start. Our experience is that little builds common commitment to agreed priorities like a shared vision and creatively thinking through the pathways to achieve that vision. These pathways, made explicit as theories of change, can provide the basis of ex-ante impact assessment and formative mid-term evaluations, as well as providing the evaluation questions and causal explanations for ex-post impact assessment. In practice theories of change need to explain overall program logic and one level as well explaining how specific project interventions trigger change. In practice we need to work with ânestedâ or âscaledâ theories of change.
Pathways to impact are through networks â through people working together. In most NRM projects, unlike many genetic improvement ones, relationships need to be built. To deal with uncertainty, NRM R4D impact evaluation must be staged and contribute to building and testing theories of change, as just discussed. Staging provides opportunity for reflection and theory testing. Indeed self-reflective learning is the hallmark of an evaluative culture needed to underpin our intent to work more effectively in systems.