This brief provides an overview of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system of the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) and describes how the M&E system is designed to support the program to achieve its goals. The AAS program aims to improve the lives of 22 million people dependent upon aquatic agricultural systems by 2024 through research in development.
Based on eleven case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this report describes farmer-led research findings and their dissemination, and analyzes available evidence on the impact of farmer-led approaches to agricultural research and development on rural livelihoods, local capacity to innovate and adapt, and influence on governmental institutions of agricultural research and development.
The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is a research in development program which aims to foster innovation to respond to community needs, and through networking and social learning to bring about development outcomes and impact at scale. It aims to reach the poorest and most vulnerable communities that are dependent upon aquatic agricultural systems. AAS uses monitoring and evaluation to track progress along identified impact pathways for accountability and learning.
Much of fish consumed by the poor are caught by household members and traded in local markets. These fish are rarely or poorly included in national statistics, and it is therefore difficult to estimate precisely the real contribution of fish to the rural poor households. This report is the first global overview of the role played by fish in improving nutrition. Fish consumption patterns of the poor, the nutritional value of fish, and small-scale fisheries and aquaculture activities are considered. It also highlights the gap in knowledge where more research is needed.
This study explores the properties of innovation systems and their contribution to increased eco-efficiency in agriculture. Using aggregate data and econometric methods, the eco-efficiency of 79 countries was computed and a range of factors relating to research, extension, business and policy was examined. Despite data limitations, the analysis produced some interesting insights. For instance public research spending has a positive significant effect for emerging economies, while no statistically significant effect was found for foreign aid for research.
This paper documents a positive relationship between maize productivity in western Kenya and women’s empowerment in agriculture, measured using indicators derived from the abbreviated version of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Applying a cross-sectional instrumental-variable regression method to a data set of 707 maize farm households from western Kenya, we find that women’s empowerment in agriculture significantly increases maize productivity.
This study aims to explore how the Positive Deviance approach can be adapted to identify and prioritize rural development interventions for diverse farming households that pursue multiple objectives. We describe the adapted approach, consisting of three research steps, and a case study implementation in Tanzania. Based on this experience, the potential of the Positive Deviance approach for household-specific prioritization of multi-objective development opportunities is discussed
Multi-stakeholder platforms have become mainstream in projects, programmes and policy interventions aiming to improve innovation and livelihoods systems, i.e. research for development interventions in low-and middle-income contexts. However, the evidence for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions and their added value is not compelling. This paper focuses on stakeholder participation as one of the channels for multi-stakeholder platforms' contribution to the performance of research for development interventions, i.e.
Strengthening research capacity in low-and-middle-income countries is essential to drive socioeconomic development and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Understanding strengths and weaknesses in institutions’ research capacity can guide effective targeting of investments and resources.
Land-use changes have dramatically transformed tropical landscapes. We describe an ecological-economic land-use change model as an integrated, exploratory tool used to analyze how tropical land-use change affects ecological and socio-economic functions. The model analysis seeks to determine what kind of landscape mosaic can improve the ensemble of ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, and economic benefit based on the synergies and trade-offs that we have to account for.