Eight lessons on fostering learning in large research and development programmes

Learning-driven, adaptive approaches to designing research and implementing programmes are increasingly popular in fields such as international development. Among funding agencies there is also a growing trend towards “multi-project programmes”, the grouping together of many projects under a single umbrella programme, the aim being to enhance how projects, organisations and individuals exchange knowledge and learn from one another. Tiina Pasanen and Blane Harvey here outline eight emerging lessons on fostering learning in large research and development programmes; from a warning never to make assumptions about a collaborative mindset, through the importance of investing in facilitated face-to-face engagement, to the need to regularly review and adapt learning mechanisms

Behind the Scenes at a Climate Change Knowledge Sharing Network

Knowledge sharing networks are increasingly recognised as means of mobilising the knowledge and capacities needed to respond to complex and changing realities, such as the challenges posed by climate change. AfricaAdapt is one such network that describes its aim as 'facilitating the flow of climate change adaptation knowledge for sustainable livelihoods between researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations and communities who are vulnerable to climate variability and change across the [African] continent'. This paper takes a 'behind the scenes' look at the AfricaAdapt Network and the partnerships on which it is based and is thus intended to be useful for others seeking to collaboratively develop knowledge sharing networks. We focus on the dynamics of design and implementation of a knowledge sharing network in a distributed partnership, from the perspective of the former lead partner. Rather than looking at the delivery and outcomes of network activities, we explore the way in which the partners sought to develop sustainable relationships and ways of working to underpin the network, areas that are frequently under-examined, particularly among practitioners. Areas covered include: governance and management, staffing and planning, financial management, partnership dynamics, learning, capacity development, monitoring and evaluation. Although all knowledge sharing networks are different we have tried to identify insights and principles from this specific example that can be adapted and applied in other contexts. We hope that these insights will provide a useful contribution to the broader body of theory and experience around networks and knowledge sharingDfI

Negotiating openness across science, ICTs, and participatory development : lessons from the AfricaAdapt Network

This article reflects critically on forms of openness and participation emerging from a collaborative network (AfricaAdapt) that uses information technologies for knowledge sharing on topics of climate change and international development. It explores how multiple interpretations of concepts such as “openness” and “participation” coalesce within a North-South network such as AfricaAdapt. It examines how ways of working are established and interpreted, and how constructions of meaning and purpose are influenced. Attention is given to the powerful development paradigm, and how differently situated partners understand participation and openness, as well as the ways certain forms of engagement are privileged over others

Introduction: Action Research for Development and Social Change

This article examines the threads that run through the seven different accounts of action research that make up this IDS Bulletin . It links the practice of action research to the power and positionality of action research facilitators. It argues that action research must explore the flows and dynamics of power in order to ensure that any changes are not superficial. It is explicit that action research involves risks and it is important to be mindful of those risks as the action research unfolds. It grounds the articles in theories of change that emphasise systemic relationships and complexity. Finally it sees learning as an iterative process in which decisions constantly have to be made about what methods to use – matching the methods specifically to the knowledge that participants want to generate at any one time

Linking Community, Radio, and Action Research on Climate Change: Reflections on a Systemic Approach

This article reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of using Participatory Action Research (PAR) with community radio broadcasters in southern Ghana to investigate the impacts of climate change. Through a detailed outline of the methodological approach employed in this initiative as well as the findings that it produced, we consider how action research might serve to reveal the power relations, systemic drivers of vulnerability, and opportunities for sustainable action for social change related to climate impacts. As co?facilitators of this process based in a Northern research institution, we reflect upon the challenges, limitations and benefits of the approach used in order to identify potential areas for improvement and to understand how the dynamics of this partnership shaped collaboration. We also discuss how employing a systemic approach to action research helped to provide insights into the interactions between the physical and environmental impacts of climate change and related systems such as land tenure and agricultural production. A systemic approach to PAR, we argue, lends itself especially well to analysis of climate change adaptation and resilience, both of which are embedded within complex systems of institutions, assets, individuals and structures, and therefore not appropriate for narrow or one?dimensional analyses. Finally, we consider the specific contributions and challenges that engaging community radio as a research partner may offer to investigations on climate change

Behind the Scenes at a Climate Change Knowledge Sharing Network: IDS Insights from Phase One of AfricaAdapt

The paper explores how the AfricaAdapt Network and its partners develop sustainable relationships and ways of working that underpin the network, such as governance and management, staffing and planning, financial management, partnership dynamics, learning, capacity development, monitoring and evaluation. To address factors that can shape the success or failure of knowledge-sharing networks on climate change requires deepening the body of empirical evidence. AfricaAdapt’s four partner organisations are: Environment and Development in the Third World (ENDA-TM); the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA); Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC); and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

CARIAA RiU learning guide

Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) defines “Research-into-Use” (RiU) as the uptake of research which contributes to a change in policy or practice. Cyclical refection and action are crucial to ensuring that CARIAA research is relevant and used. This pocket guide includes “cue cards” intended to guide four kinds of reflection moments that should feed into each other: event, quarterly, six-monthly, and annual. RiU learning offers an evidence-base from which emerging stories of change can be sourced, as participants and researchers are prompted to reflect upon the successes or challenges of their engagements

Global Futures

Describes experience of: IFPRIGlobal Futures aims to improve the capacity of the CGIAR centres to evaluate and prioritise research investments, and to support the decision-making of international development partners and national policymakers by giving those who work in agricultural development the kinds of information they need to make the best decisions to support small farmers so they can boost their yields, increase their income, and develop a better understanding of how to adapt to climate change. Lead institution: IFPRI IFPRI’s mission focuses on identifying and analysing alternative international, national, and local policies in support of improved food security and nutrition, emphasizing low-income countries, poor people and the sound management of the natural resource base. Key areas of priority that support agriculture are; contributing to capacity strengthening of people and institutions in developing countries that conduct research on food, agriculture, and nutrition policies; and actively engaging in policy communications, making research results available to all those in a position to apply or use them, and carrying out dialogues with those users to link research and policy action. Climate communication aims: The communication aims of this project are to help policy makers better understand climate impacts through visual modelling and scenarios. Feedback from policy makers is shared with the modellers for new iterations. IFRI have a specific focus on modelling climate change impacts on agricultural crops and shape their scenarios around this. Different variables are introduced to the model like trade and openness. Communications/social learning characteristics: Global Futures is an amalgamation of a number of different tools and projects that has ambitions to reach out beyond researchers to policy makers and eventually to farmers. The initiative takes a number of climate modelling tools that have been developed by IFPRI and others and is experimenting how these tools can be combined to better engage with policy and practice. Tool 1 – IMPACT (International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade) a software based economic model that projects the future production, consumption, and trade of key agricultural commodities, and can assess the effects of climate change, water availability and other major trends. Started in the 1990’s looking at a few commodities across a few regions, it evolved to the current version which has 40 commodities across 115 national areas and 281 food production units. It is also being ported to a lighter web-based version. Tool 2 – D-SAT A tool developed by the University of Florida that models crop yields with respect to changed environmental conditions. This has been integrated/combined with the IMPACT tool to produce a wider set of available variables for modelling. Tool 3 – Food security CASE maps are interactive web based Climate, Agriculture, and Socio-Economic Maps that present IFPRI’s latest research on the future of food security, farming, and climate change to 2050. The principle idea behind Global Futures is to provide all the rights kinds of information to support small farmers so that they can boost their yields, increase incomes and build better lives. This is essentially a top down, information supply mechanism on a global scale which can be tailored (using the ICT tools) to regional areas. It is an example of a “push” project which has elements of “pull” by holding workshops and dialogues with policy makers, where data is presented and discussed in a regional context using visually appealing formats. While there have been good attempts at bringing findings and dialogue to farmer communities it is not clear that the datasets or research agenda has been built through an assessment of farmer’s needs and their adaptation to difficult environments. Although this project is engaging at national policy level and has aspirations to reach community level, it does not demonstrate what we are calling “triple loop learning”. Audience: Global Futures states that that it aims to benefit small farmers, providing them with information so that they can make better decisions to boost yields and improve livelihoods (the assumption here is that increased yields automatically assume improved livelihoods). There is also a research and policy audience as part of the chain of support for farmers and it appears that policy makers, rather than farmers, are currently the main target. The theory of change assumes there will be spill-down from the national level to farmers. IFPRI have aspirations to target farmers more directly but it is not clear how the farmers will receive this information as much of it is presented through an online platform and would need some interpretation for context and use of local language. Getting research into use (how this case study does or does not contribute to that): Global Futures represents a good example of one of the key challenges faced by CGIAR centres and CCAFS. It is a challenge faced by similarly large, sophisticated, and well- resourced scientific/technical institutions. Researching, gathering and collating sophisticated & comparative datasets that can stand up to rigorous comparison the world over can end up by providing “lowest common denominator” information at the local level because it lacks context, and no easily accessible means of interpreting the data. The scenarios workshops however are an encouraging way to bring this information, more visually, in to a dialogue setting. The challenge is how to bring this to the local level (at scale) and create learning loops that impact the model itself by building in local learning and context. Evolution of the project (how has the project evolved or developed if known): IFPRI has evolved these tools from focusing more on climate change researchers (IMPACT) to also engage more with policy makers (CASE maps). The Global Futures initiative has held a number of workshops in East Africa testing out a participatory “scenarios building” exercise which maps out different futures scenarios based on different start conditions e.g. good transport/bad transport, open markets/protected markets to allow more nuanced discussion based on numbers that can be made visual for easier interpretation e.g. what would a 10% increase in trade barriers due to farmer costs and hence consumer prices? What would be resultant impacts on demand taking in to account modelled climate change impacts

Africa Adapt

Describes experience of: ENDA, FARA, ICPAC, IDSAfrica Adapt is an online/offline knowledge sharing platform that was designed to share local African knowledge and experience on climate change. It was set up after a scoping of partners, through a number of regional forums in Africa, to discuss the idea of a knowledge hub and to identify what was needed and who best could develop and run it. Phase 1 was launched in 2008 by IDS with partners ENDA, FARA and ICPAC. In 2011 there was an evaluation of what has worked and not worked and re-launch with IDS stepping back to a capacity support role and the partnership being devolved to lead partner ENDA to ensure implementation. Lead institution: ENDA, FARA, ICPAC and IDS Climate communications aims The communication aims of the project are fourfold: • To increase inclusion and raise visibility of African knowledge on climate change • To facilitate flows of information on climate change in Africa • To broker relationships between different communities of practice • To add value to the culture of how we share knowledge Communications/social learning characteristics: Africa Adapt is managing to achieve, in part what other web-based initiatives often fail to achieve, a good balance in terms of engagement and the potential for social learning. Right from the beginning during the initial scoping phase the project team was careful to assess needs and to identify what kind of knowledge sharing and engagement would be possible and relevant. It has made deliberate attempts to build up and strengthen the online presence and the offline presence. Online it provides a wealth of information presented in a number of different formats – for example film, web photo albums, online discussion groups, as well as thematic browsing of projects. Although its presentation of information requires the user to spend some time looking through the collection rather than sourcing information immediately, the counter balance is that this has been done to ensure that a full range of voices, types of knowledge and information are representative of a wide group of stakeholders. Offline the project has worked hard to resource knowledge sharing officers in country partner officers who have developed the offline engagement work. This includes activities, like “Meet and Greet” where staff set up fairly impromptu meetings to discuss particular issues or visit a particular village to share experiences. These events are then shared on the website by film It is felt that one of the reasons for this growing success is that there is a strong culture of reflection and learning within the project team itself and regular meetings and discussions on what Africa Adapt’s USP is and how it fits with the range of other climate change information and networking projects take place. This has helped to keep the focus and really look where engagement works and where it does not. This kind of project is expensive but knowing where you add value helps to justify the support. Audience: It was originally intended to speak to policy makers and others working in climate change adaptation in Africa and elsewhere. It considers that the audience that has responded the most to this format has been practitioners or those working one step away from communities. It is not so much of a recognised tool for policy makers. Getting research into use (how this case study does or does not contribute to that): Africa Adapt is an attempt at getting local and global climate change knowledge discussed more widely and that knowledge put in to practice. As part of the monitoring and evaluation of the approaches Africa Adapt has taken in getting research in to practice, they carried out interviews to assess where people in the network had seen real world behaviour change: “stories of change”. The stories of change help to act as supporting evidence and demonstrate a number of uses of material from the Africa Adapt website that communities have used as teaching aids or opportunities for learning. Evolution of the project (how has the project evolved or developed if known): The project has put in mechanisms to help learn what is working well – for example the stories of change process mentioned above. The phase one project evaluation also encouraged a re-think on how to integrate the online and offline activities. One outcome was a decision to take more time to have online discussions using DGroups to bring the physical network and communities of practice together virtually. This emphasis on trying to build up further engagement and learning is well on its ways to providing a good platform for increased social learning

Evidence and Lessons from Latin America (ELLA)

Describes experiences of: DFID, Practical Action, KITE, Ghana with Networks, Knowledge products, Community of practice, Learning alliance, Study tourEvidence and Lessons from Latin America (ELLA) was established as a programme in 2009 by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as a way to synthesise research and policy lessons from Latin America and discuss them with a global audience – as part of a responsible exit strategy from bilateral aid to the region. The DFID conception of ELLA was “extracting” lessons from LA for the rest of the world and the regional centres developed knowledge topics that were pushed out to a network that was set-up to discuss the issues. Practical Action led this work and identified that any “knowledge push” should be matched by demand. Working with KITE in Ghana on a 2 year inception phase - consisting of online surveys, structured interviews and desk-research - topics of interest to Africa and South Asia were identified that Latin America could offer learning on. The climate change agenda was a key demand topic. Latin American partners consisted of regional centres of expertise across three broad areas of economic (growth) learning, governance, and environmental issues. However, inside the topic areas that have been introduced, participants themselves have come together to co-construct learning through an online platform and local meetings of participants with video-conference links to Latin American interest groups, and through learning tours. This is an example of a constructed network that was reasonably well resourced to gather and synthesise knowledge to “push” to networks of interested groups around particular topics. There is a sense here that this is more of an individual rather than network approach to learning through “knowledge transfer” – in particular when considering knowledge to implementation. However the networks are evolving. Within the constructs of the network, there are examples of group level learning occurring which stem beyond the materials pushed in to the network and there is emerging evidence that new alliances have been formed focused on South-South learning and implementation projects. What remains to be seen is whether the ELLA constructed networks or any spin off learning alliances will continue significantly after the formal end of the project – and of the funding that supports it