Catalysing Change Agents through Research for Development

Billions of dollars are channelled into interventions every year aiming to lift people out of poverty. While there has been much progress towards this goal new challenges are emerging, and old issues are becoming more complex due to the accelerated rate of change associated with globalisation, climate and environmental degradation and technological advances. Positive systemic change requires rethinking interventions and the roles that actors play in these interventions. Some people, or groups of people, are better able to enact change than others, with growing evidence that the success of interventions is often due to particular individuals or groups involved. These change agents occur across all cultures and domains, and have varying roles, resources, networks and world views. The literature identifies key change agent characteristics associated with values, purpose and concepts associated with mastery and entrepreneurism. However, there is little mentioned about the role change agents play in research for development interventions, particularly interventions focused on helping people and communities adapt to global change. Or how research for development projects can best support and enable these individuals and groups, such as what are the types of competencies, resources and knowledge needed to enact lasting change in adaptation projects. This research sought to illuminate the necessary and sufficient set of change agent characteristics and competencies using four project case studies, two in Vietnam and two in Indonesia, which allowed for comparisons within and across countries. If agents were critical for systemic change, evidence of change needs to established first. Projects were evaluated at three time intervals, using a mixed methods approach. Potential change agents were identified through the evaluation, then interviewed to gain a better understanding of their personal change drivers, as well as establishing what, if anything, the project did to help them. Three types of change agents were identified, pre-existing or strong change agents, as well as emerging and prospective change agents. The strong and emerging change agents felt that project activities and outputs including knowledge, networks and capacity building had helped them to enact change. The stronger change agents had values that were already aligned to the project goals and a deep seated sense of purpose including self-mastery traits, and they had developed networks, which were strengthened and broadened by the projects. For those identified as prospective change agents, the projects had lit a spark, but further development and opportunity was needed to enable these people to emerge as change agents. This research suggests that there are cultural differences about how agents perceive the future and their role in shaping it, although some characteristics were shared across agents regardless of context. These characteristics included a sense of personal responsibility and purpose and the importance of learning in their lives. R4D adaptation projects help grow all change agent capacities and competencies. Although, like the characteristics, stronger change agents already had many of the competencies, particularly good interpersonal skills and a focus on learning. The R4D projects helped expand change agent knowledge and competencies through building systems thinking, integration, and critical thinking skills. This research suggests that knowledge and resources are important, however, capacity building is more than technical, it is the development of a set of core competencies that are more important for creating change. Implications are that people matter, and that genuine relationships are needed between researchers, partners and practitioners. Catalytic change requires capacities, a shared normative purpose, reflexivity, cross-scale networks, and windows of opportunity

Australia-Indonesia Megatrends Foresighting Report: Energy

<div>The Energy Cluster joint Indonesian-Australian researcher workshop was held in Bandung, Indonesia in late November 2014. A horizon scanning activity was undertaken on 24th November with 35 members of the Cluster, including representatives from the AIC and CSIRO. Five of </div><div>the representatives were from Australia, with two from The Australian National University, two from Monash University and one from the University of Melbourne. The remaining participants were from Indonesian institutions including: UNHAS, IPB, ITSN, ITB, UI and </div><div>UGM. The horizon scan workshop exercise aggregated participants’ views into common issues, drivers and megashocks</div

Australia-Indonesia Megatrends Foresighting Report: Infrastructure

<div>A joint Indonesian-Australian researcher meeting for the Infrastructure Cluster was held in Surabaya, Indonesia in January 2015. During this meeting a horizon scanning activity was undertaken with 20 members of the Cluster and two AIC representatives. The horizon scanning exercise aggregated participant concerns into common issues, drivers and megashocks. </div

Report: 'Evaluating the impacts of participatory planning for urban water infrastructure and rural livelihoods adaptation in Indonesia'

<div>In 2009-2014 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)-CSIRO Research for Development (R4D) Alliance (‘the Alliance’) brought together the research skills of CSIRO and its international research partners with the development knowledge and networks of the Australian aid program to enhance poverty reduction in the Southeast Asian region. The partnership provided an opportunity to develop innovative approaches to international aid delivery by better understanding the relationship between poverty and the environment. Six major collaborative projects were implemented, covering Vietnam (two projects), Bangladesh (one), Indonesia (two) and the Greater Mekong Region (one). The research investigated complex development challenges in the domains of climate, water resources, sustainable cities, and food security. </div><div><br></div><div>This Australia Indonesia Centre (AIC) Small Grants project enabled us to refine an evaluation methodology developed as part of the Alliance. In this case, the two Indonesian projects and partners were the focus: Makassar Sustainable Urban Development (with Hasanuddin University), and Climate Adaptation Strategies for Rural Livelihoods in Nusa Tenggara Barat Province (with the University of Mataram). The Small Grants project involved repeating evaluation workshops and stakeholder interviews in April-June 2015 that had first been undertaken at the end of the Alliance projects in April-June 2014, thus enabling the tracking of progress along each project’s Impact Pathway 1 year after project completion. </div><div><br></div><div>A significant limitation amongst many current impact evaluation methodologies is that a narrow set of approaches is often used to evaluate complex development issues. This means that impacts may be only partially described, and this is compounded by a lack of clarity around the validation and attribution of impacts to particular interventions. The Alliance approach applied mixed methods to overcome many of these challenges, allowing us to evaluate and quantify the impact of the individual projects, and to provide an opportunity for reflection by the project teams and hence further build capacity through learning.  </div><div><br></div><div>Our approach was based on three facets: </div><div><div>1. A Theory of Change and Impact Pathway exercise and diagram which created a ‘roadmap’ for each project’s assumed progress and related outputs, outcomes, impacts and goals.</div><div>2. A self-reflection workshop amongst the Indonesian research partners which mapped key achievements against the project’s Impact Pathway, and discussed reasons for lack of progress and necessary remedial actions.</div><div>3. An impact evaluation survey of the research team and boundary partners, which asked interviewees to score 18 indicators linked to phases of the Theory of Change and Impact Pathway, providing additional perspectives and triangulation of results from the self-reflection workshops.</div></div><div><br></div><div>The results of the exercises demonstrated that with a small additional investment, project impacts can be effectively estimated and attributed. In addition, the process of self-reflection was shown to rekindle project teams’ efforts to maintain momentum, and to tackle barriers to impact that they had identified. We suggest that the Alliance methodology demonstrated by this Small Grants project could be usefully applied to other projects in the AIC portfolio. <br></div

Australia-Indonesia Megatrends Foresighting Report: Health

<div>For the Health Cluster a planning meeting with Australian Health Cluster Leads was held by teleconference </div><div>on the 24th November 2014. In early December 2014 a series of stakeholder engagement meetings were undertaken in Jakarta, Indonesia with both Australian and Indonesian Cluster Leads. Following this consultation a joint Indonesian-Australian Cluster planning meeting was held on 11th December to undertake a horizon scanning exercise for the Cluster. The meeting was attended by members from the University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, </div><div>UI, and UNAIR, CSIRO and the AIC. The results of these consultations were aggregated into shared issues, drivers and megashocks</div

Australia-Indonesia Megatrends Foresighting Report: Agriculture and Food

<div>For the Agriculture and Food Cluster a joint Indonesian-Australian researcher meeting, as had been convened for other Clusters, was not possible. Instead, the project team engaged researchers separately in Australia and Indonesia. Following a Cluster planning meeting at the University of Sydney on 27th November 2014, individual telephone interviews were carried out with five members from the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and the Department of Agriculture. In Indonesia, a workshop was held on 23rd December 2014 with six members from IPB, ITB, ITS and UNAIR. The results of these consultations were aggregated into shared issues, drivers and megashocks. </div

AIC Foresighting Final Report Lessons.pdf

<p>The Australia-Indonesia Centre is collaboratively researching solutions to shared national challenges in four Clusters: </p> <p>* Energy<br>* Infrastructure<br>* Agriculture and Food<br>* Health</p> <p>In 2015 a Cluster Investment Plan (CLIP) was developed for each Cluster. This was undertaken through planning workshops held in Australia and Indonesia. In November 2014, CSIRO was contracted by the AIC to assist with the Cluster planning process by applying its ‘foresighting’ method, which analysed key trends in each theme towards 2030 and beyond. The over-arching goal was ‘to support the development of CLIPs which focus on priority research areas of shared interest between Australia and Indonesia, and to promote integration, synergy and learning amongst the Cluster teams’.</p> <p>The objectives of the Foresighting Project were:</p> <p>1. For each Cluster, analyse megatrends and megashocks with shared relevance for Australia and Indonesia to support the development of each CLIP;<br>2. Develop exploratory scenarios with AIC partners of Australian and Indonesian regional development to identify and integrate research priorities within and between Clusters;<br>3. Test and apply the DFAT-CSIRO Research for Development Alliance method to assess the learning and integration achieved amongst AIC researchers as a result of the foresighting.</p><p></p