TAP and its partners carried out regional surveys in Asia, Africa and Central America to assess priorities, capacities and needs in national agricultural innovation systems. This document provides a Regional synthesis report on capacity needs assessment for agricultural innovation in Africa. FARA was selected as Recipient Organization by FAO to facilitate TAP implementation in Africa. This is mainly due to its position as the umbrella organization bringing together and forming coalitions of major regional stakeholders in agricultural research and development.
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
Ce document présente la position de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO) et du Forum mondial pour le conseil rural (GFRAS) sur la place actuelle des services de vulgarisation et de conseil agricole et sur les chemins qu’elle devra suivre à l’avenir. Les résultats présentés dans le document sont destinés à mieux situer la vulgarisation compte tenu de l’avenir de la recherche agricole en faveur du développement.
This brief provides an overview of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system of the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) and describes how the M&E system is designed to support the program to achieve its goals. The AAS program aims to improve the lives of 22 million people dependent upon aquatic agricultural systems by 2024 through research in development.
This report describes the concepts and methods used to evaluate a regional capacity development project in Latin America. The project under study aims to strengthen planning, monitoring, and evaluation in agricultural research organizations in the region. The report outlines the procedures employed in five evaluation studies and summarizes the results of each study. It then presents consolidated findings in response to three evaluation questions: What were the main contributions of the project to agricultural research management?
This paper shares the first results of an ongoing collaborative action research in which ten development organisations explored different Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) approaches with the aim of dealing more effectively with complex processes of social change. There are four reasons why we think this paper may be of interest: 1) The paper illustrates a practical example of action research whereby the organisations themselves are becoming the researchers.
This document provides guidelines for Innovation Platform (IP) facilitation and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of IP processes and outcomes. Although it has been written for PROGEBE (project on ‘Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock of West Africa) staff at the site, national and regional levels, it is believed to have wider relevance beyond this specific project and specifically applies to projects which have a similar structure.
This paper captures lessons from recent experiences on using ‘theories of change’ amongst organisations involved in the research–policy interface. The literature in this area highlights much of the complexity inherent in the policymaking process, as well as the challenges around finding meaningful ways to measure research uptake. As a tool, ‘theories of change’ offers much, but the paper argues that the very complexity and dynamism of the research-to-policy process means that any theory of change will be inadequate in this context.
This Guide to Evaluating Rural Extension has been developed by the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). The purpose is to support those involved in extension evaluation to choose how to conduct more comprehensive, rigorous, credible and useful evaluations. The Guide supports readers to understand different types of evaluation, to make decisions on what is most appropriate for their circumstances, and to access further sources of theoretical and practical information.
LenCD has prepared a joint statement on results and capacity development (presented in this publication), which stresses that meaningful, sustainable results are premised on proper investments in capacity development and that these results materialize at different levels and at different times, along countries’ development trajectory. To provide evidence in support of this statement, LenCD launched a call for submission of stories.