Can we evaluate network brokerage initiatives using data that are byproducts of the network broking process?

Increasingly, development projects list social capital development and network brokerage among their objectives. How do we quantitatively evaluate such initiatives? Best practice, diff-in-diff methods may be impossible or too costly. Here, we try using data that are byproducts of the network broking process to evealuate the Challenge Program for Water and Food along this dimension. We find that, in accordance with its objectives, the program is associated with bridging linkages between organizations in the water and food sectors and between CGIAR members and their counterparts in government and that, in the case of the former, the association may be causal.Food production; water; Project evaluation; organizational networks; network brokerage; dyadic analysis

LINKING NETWORK STRUCTURE WITH PROJECT PERFORMANCE

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceInnovation processes are the processes by which people and organizations interact with each other to put new knowledge to use. These interactions can be represented by networks, showing agents as nodes, and interactions as the links between them. Research-for-development projects attempt to foster and support innovation through research. It follows that project network structure, in terms of the types of organizations that work together to implement projects, and their patterns of interaction, should correlate with measures of project success. This paper finds evidence to support this premise through correlating the structure of networks drawn by staff of 29 projects of the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) and project performance, measured through a rating carried out by the program's research and development leadership. The analysis found that the more successful projects had comparatively larger networks – they had more network capital. Specifically the more successful projects tended to disperse funding to more partners, and those partners had more links to other organizations, than less successful ones, in particular more research links to Advanced Research Organizations and CGIAR Centres