Institutional Learning and Change in the CGIAR: Summary Record of the Workshop Held at IFPRI, Washington, DC, February 4-6, 2003

This report summarizes the papers presented and the discussions that took place at the workshop on Institutional Learning and Change in the CGIAR held at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C. from February 4–6, 2003. The workshop brought to together researchers, donors, and practitioners to develop a strategy for promoting a culture and set of practices conducive to institutional learning and change (ILAC) within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system.CGIAR, ILAC, institutional, learning, change, IFPRI, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Institutional Learning and Change: An initiative to promote greater impact through agricultural research for poverty alleviation

The ILAC Initiative consists of an evolving community of individuals committed to increasing the contributions of agricultural research to sustainable poverty reduction around the world. ILAC promotes research, methodology development and capacity development to increase understanding of agricultural change processes and increase the effectiveness of interventions to stimulate pro-poor innovation. This paper presents a broad overview of ILAC, including its background, origins and evolution, objectives and activities. It also presents the initiative’s central hypothesis and a set of guiding questions. Theoretical frameworks that show promise for increasing understanding of issues related to capacities to learn, facilitate innovation, and contribute to poverty reduction are introduced.agricultural, research, ILAC, pro-poor, innovation, farmers, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Evaluation, Learning and Change in Research and Development Organizations: Concepts, Experiences, and Implications for the CGIAR

learning, Evaluation, Change, ISNAR, research, CGIAR, development, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Institutional learning and change in the CGIAR

This report summarizes papers presented and the discussions that took place at the workshop on Institutional Learning and Change in the CGIAR. It addresses evaluation of agricultural research on poverty in developing countries. Some of the implications emerging from this workshop include: (1) designing evaluation that focus on the target audience's questions (as opposed to those that interest the evaluator). (2)selecting methods that best answer these questions and that optimize the relevance of the inquiry to organizational members (3) employing procedures that maximising the involvement and learning of organizational members and stakeholders (4) being proactive about communicating, as opposed to assuming that recipients will read & understand reports (5) for senior managers: ensuring that internal evaluators have a clear and formal mandate to support organizational learning (6) using evaluations to develop leadership.Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research ,Impact assessment ,

The Chief Qualification for Living

Address to the graduating class of 1934 by Douglas Horton, pastor of the United Church of Hyde Park, Chicago

You Call This Exemplary? Lessons from an Unsung International Evaluation

This paper reflects on the role of academic discipline and epistemic community in judging what is an exemplary evaluation. It examines the case of an evaluation that was considered ‘exemplary’ by a panel of program evaluators, but methodologically flawed by evaluators from a different evaluation tradition. The evaluation in question was carried out within an international agricultural research network (known as the CGIAR), with a rich tradition of economic impact assessment. The evaluation was carried out by a team of experienced program evaluators, who attempted to apply accepted good practices in the program evaluation community. The evaluation employed mixed methods and multiple data sources with heavy reliance on triangulated perceptual data. A meta-evaluation led by an experienced program evaluator considered the evaluation to be exemplary. However, within the CGIAR, both the evaluation and the meta-evaluation study were rejected, as methodologically flawed. The paper closes with four propositions related to what is considered an “exemplary evaluation.”

Student Mathematics Performance in Year One Implementation of Teach to One: Math

This report examines mathematics test data from the first year of implementation (2012-13) of the Teach to One: Math (TtO) approach in seven urban middle schools in Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C. Researchers addressed the question: How did Tto students' growth on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) mathematics assessment compare with national norms?To answer this question, the researchers analyzed student performance on the MAP test, an established instrument developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). The researchers then compared these results to the national norms published by NWEA (2011). Please note that these analyses cannot attribute Tto student results to the TtO model: the data available did not permit the use of an experimental design, which would be necessary to establish a link between the implementation of the program and the student test results. While the TtO results are promising, its performance beyond one year should be analyzed using an experimental design, in order to remove unmeasured differences between TtO students and schools with an appropriate comparison sample

The role of culture and diversity in the prevention of falls among older Chinese people

Original article can be found at : http://journals.cambridge.org/ Copyright Canadian Association on GerontologyThis grounded-theory study explored the perceptions of Chinese older people, living in England, on falls and fear of falling, and identified facilitators and barriers to fall prevention interventions. With a sample of 30 Chinese older people, we conducted two focus groups and 10 in-depth interviews in Mandarin or Cantonese. Interview transcripts, back translated, were analyzed using N6. Constant comparative analysis highlighted a range of health-seeking behaviors after a fall: Chinese older people were reluctant to use formal health services; talking about falls was avoided; older people hid falls from their adult children to avoid worrying them; and fatalistic views about falls and poor knowledge about availability and content of interventions were prevalent. Cost of interventions was important. Chinese older adults valued their independence, and cultural intergenerational relations had an impact on taking action to prevent falls. Cultural diversity affects older adults’ acceptance of fall prevention interventions.Peer reviewe

Científicos sociales en la investigación agrícola : lecciones del Proyecto del Valle del Mantaro, Perú

Versión en inglés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Social scientists in agricultural research : lessons from the Mantaro Valley Project, PeruVersión en francés disponible en la Biblioteca Digital del IDRC: Spécialistes des sciences sociales et recherche agricole : enseignements du projet de la vallée du Mantaro, Péro

Collective action for innovation and small farmer market access: The Papa Andina experience

"The Andean highlands are home to some of the poorest rural households in South America. Native potato varieties and local knowledge for their cultivation and use are unique resources possessed by farmers in these areas. As the forces of globalization and market integration penetrate the Andes, they present both challenges and opportunities for farmers there. This paper reports on how the Papa Andina Regional Initiative is promoting the use of collective action to reduce poverty in the Andes, by developing market niches and adding value to potatoes, particularly the native potatoes grown by poor farmers. Since 1998, Papa Andina has worked with partners in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to stimulate pro-poor innovation within market chains for potato-based products. Market chain actors (including small-scale potato producers, traders, and processors), researchers, and other service providers have engaged in innovation processes via two principal tools for facilitating collective action: the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) and Stakeholder Platforms. The PMCA fosters commercial, technological, and institutional innovation through a structured process that builds interest, trust, and collaboration among participants. Stakeholder Platforms provide a space for potato producers, other market chain actors, and service providers to come together to identify their common interests, share knowledge, and develop joint activities. The PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms have empowered Andean potato farmers by expanding their knowledge of markets, market agents, and business opportunities. Social networks built up among producers, market agents, and service providers have stimulated commercial innovation, which in turn has stimulated technical and institutional innovation. These innovations have allowed small farmers to market their potatoes on more favorable terms and other market chain actors to increase their incomes. This paper describes experiences with collective action in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, via the PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms. Based on these experiences, a number of lessons are formulated for using collective action to stimulate innovation, market access, and poverty reduction in other settings." authors' abstractCollective action, Small farmers, Potato, Participatory methods, Innovation, stakeholders, Markets,