The IFAD Innovation Strategy does not set new objectives for staff, but rather defines what is needed to create an innovation-friendly environment and to support staff in achieving the expected results.To strengthen its innovative capabilities and become a better catalyst of pro-poor innovation, IFAD will focus on four clusters of activities: (i) Building capabilities and understanding of challenges requiring innovation; (ii) Nurturing partnerships and facilitating an innovation network; (iii) Embedding rigorous innovation processes and the related risk management into IFAD’s core business

There is renewed attention on the importance of advisory services and extension in rural development processes. This paper, based on the publication ‘Mobilizing the potential of rural and agricultural extension', focuses on five opportunities to mobilise the potential of extension and advisory services. The five areas are: (1) focusing on best-fit approaches; (2) embracing pluralism; (3) using participatory approaches; (4) developing capacity; and (5) ensuring long-term institutional support.

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.

This research refers to the application of a innovation framework to sustainable livestock development research projects in Africa and Asia. The focus of these projects ranged from pastoral systems to poverty and ecosystems services mapping to market access by the poor to fodder and natural resource management to livestock parasite drug resistance.

This Thematic Research Note reviews the evolution of collective action among smallholders. It assesses determinants of their success such as incentives, capacities, and social impediments. The Note also discusses lessons and options for future action. These include lessons from collective action for market participation by African smallholders, value chain penetration by developed country farmers, and natural resources management among pastoralist communities.

This manual is a resource and toolbox for NGO practitioners and programme designers interested in diagnostic and action research for gender sensitive and socially inclusive climate change programmes in the rural development context. It is meant to be an easy to use manual, increasing the research capacity, skills and knowledge of its users. Integrating gender and social differentiation frameworks should ideally begin from the start of the programme cycle and be coordinated throughout research, design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation phases.

This facilitation guide was developed to support the training of scientists who are members of the CCAFS Working Group on impact pathways and M&E for results-based management. The group attended a highly participatory introductory training from 1-5th April 2014 in Segovia, Spain. The objectives of the workshop were: 1. To introduce working group members to outcome thinking; 2. To present elements of the CCAFS theory of change (TOC), impact pathway (IP) and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework; 3.

This paper presents the processes, general guidelines lessons and experiences pertaining to “good practices” for organizing and forming Agricultural Innovation Platforms in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site, covering three countries (Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo) with widely differing social political environments to address agricultural development challenges.

This guide is mainly for researchers already involved in natural resource management (NRM). It assumes some familiarity with the often complex and chaotic reality of NRM projects, and tries to provide a systematic treatment of all the issues that may need to be considered. While many issues are considered in the guide, only a subset of them have to be dealt with in any specific NRM project. This booklet will also be of interest to implementers of NRM projects, as many of the elements and strategies are common to research and implementation.