PRGA program publications list

List of PRGA publications

Mainstreaming gender in agricultural R&D

Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of teh design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated

CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation

This paper, prepared by the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis, analyzes the four constraining factors (listed below) in the context of their implications to agricultural research and development. 1. Limitations in the dominant approaches to poverty analysis2. Deficiencies in data on gender and poverty3. Stereotypes which narrow the perspective through which poverty is conceptualized and addressed4. The organization and management of innovation systemsThis paper was discussed at the Stakeholders meeting at AGM2004

Auditing gender in agricultural R&D organizations: gender mainstreaming in the CGIAR

The CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation (PRGA Program) conducted valuable work on gender mainstreaming in NARS in Africa, Asia and Latin American during its second phase (2003–2007), and developed key gender models and typologies during its first phase (1997–2002). Meanwhile, various efforts have been made to introduce gender analysis into the wider CGIAR System throughout the life of the Program

Rethinking Impact Workshop: key issues

Six key issues emerged from the Rethinking Impact Workshop (RIW): Understanding the complexity of poverty and change held in Cali, Colombia, March 26–28, 2008. The workshop discussed (1) how agricultural and natural-resources research can be more effective in contributing to solutions for poverty alleviation and improving gender, social inclusion and equity; (2) how its impact can be assessed; and (3) how such research and impact assessment can be brought into the mainstream

An institutional analysis of land markets

For many years, land markets have been analyzed as though parcels of land were being traded in a frictionless market subject to no rules. To the extent that there were rules which could not be ignored – such as land-use regulations – the effect of these was incorporated as ‘distortions’ to the market. An institutional analysis of land markets, on the contrary, starts by looking the the rules which structure the exchange of rights in land. These are the formal rules regulating such things as access to the market, which rights may be traded and which not, land-use and environmental rules, fiscal rules, inheritance rules. Then there are the informal rules, customary practices, taken-for-granted ways of doing things. All those rules create a structure which affects the availability of information, risk and uncertainty, transaction costs, organizations for buyers and sellers and brokers, etc. It is assumed that people act in a rational way within that structure. The results are the market outcomes: what is traded where, by whom, in what volume, at what price? This paper sets out the method for such an institutional analysis and applies it to two land markets in the Netherlands – for agricultural land and for land on industrial estates. The results of applying this analysis allow market outcomes to be explained better than by an analysis which ignores institutions. The paper is based on research carried out by the authors at the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (Ruimtelijk Planbureau).

The Growth Effects of Institutional Instability

Both institutional quality and institutional stability have been argued to stimulate economic growth. But to improve institutional quality, a country must endure a period of institutional change, which implies at least a little and possibly a lot of institutional instability. We investigate the growth effects of institutional quality and instability, using the political risk index from the ICRG in a cross-country study of 132 countries, measuring instability as the coefficient of variation. Using the aggregate index, we find evidence that institutional quality is positively linked to growth. While institutional instability is negatively related to growth in the baseline case, there are indications that the effect can be positive in rich countries, suggesting that institutional reform is not necessarily costly even during a transition period. Sensitivity analysis, e.g., decomposing the political risk index by using both its constituting components and the results of a principal components analysis, using other measures of institutional quality and excluding outliers, confirm the general results, with qualifications.Institutions; Instability; Growth; Transaction costs; Uncertainty

"Selection and Imitation in Institutional Evolution: Analysis of Institutional Change in Japan, 1960-1999"

This paper presents an empirical framework to analyze institutional changes, and applies it to the evolution of several economic institutions in Japan, specifically main banking system and long- term employment. Ideas of evolutionary biology and organizational ecology are applied to the empirical analysis on institutional evolution. The basic question is how selection and imitation work in the evolution of the economic institutions. I focus on four factors of fitness, namely (i)growth rate, (ii)exit (death) rates, (iii)entry (birth) rate, and (iv)rate of the change of attribute. (i), (ii) and (iii) represent selection, while (iv) represents imitation in the process of evolution. Constructing a data set on the population of the industrial firms in Japan, I examine how the composition of the firm population has changed over time with respect to institutional attributes, specifically main bank relationship, to what extent the fitness factors (i)-(iv) have contributed to that change, and whether main bank system has co-evolved with long-term employment.

New strategic platform

In an ever-changing world, each and every entity must continue to develop and adapt to its external environment and the demands placed upon it. The PRGA Program is no exception. In recent years, the CGIAR has encouraged a gradual approach of learning and change through rolling medium-term plans, but once in a while it is necessary to step back and take a look at the bigger picture—and adjust course appropriately. The fi rst full external review of the Program in 2006–2007 and the upcoming transition from Phase II of the Program to Phase III (2007/2008) afforded just that opportunity. The new strategy is a synthesis of discussions that have taken place within the Program’s Advisory Board over the past few years and the recommendations of the external review panel. (This new strategic platform was agreed in outline at the Advisory Board Meeting in February–March 2007.) The new strategy comprises three thematic areas, and fi ve supporting actions for mainstreaming gender research. Impact assessment research is built into the strategy as a cross-cutting activity