Mounting evidence points to the fact that climate change is already affecting agriculture and food security, which will therefore make the challenge of ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture even more difficult (FAO 2016). Through Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, the 2030 Agenda calls for strengthened resilience and adaptive capacity in response to natural hazards and climate-related disasters globally.

During the last six years (2013-2019), the Agricultural Extension in South Asia (AESA) Network has served as a platform for collating the voices, insights, concerns, and experiences of people in the extension sphere of South Asia. Diverse professionals shared their concerns on the present and future of Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) in the form of blog conversations for AESA.

The purpose of this report is to provide some of the groundwork in answering the question of how the CGIAR system and other public agricultural research organisations should adapt and respond to an era of transformation framed by the SDGs. It does this by exploring the way in which this transformation agenda reframes agricultural research and innovation.

Drawn from numerous sources, including papers in this journal, this concluding paper synthesizes evidence on the relationship between agricultural research for development and poverty reduction, with particular emphasis on agri-food systems perspectives in shaping programs aimed at rural prosperity. Following the introduction in section 1, we revisit the ex ante set of 18 pathways in section 2 (which were laid out in our introductory paper for this SI), posing some critical questions: Can a manageable set of impact pathways be identified? How are they inter-related?