Overview of major findings¹

The Agricultural Research grant funding line of the AR&T Programme has been evaluated for the first time since its establishment in 1979. From 1979 to 2001, a total of USD 171.541 million has been allocated for 199 agricultural research grants, to a total of 32 International Agricultural Research Centres. Of these, 16 have been CGIAR centres, and 19 have not been part of the system. Grants have ranged in size from USD 150 000 to USD 4 million, with an average size of USD 1.35 million.

Through this programme, and its link with the CGIAR system, IFAD has played an important policy and advocacy role in promoting pro-poor agricultural research.

Over the years, the focus and nature of the programme has gradually changed. On the one hand the programme has come to increasingly finance research in a much wider range of sectors, and a greater diversity of research topics. On the other, the nature of the research has become more short-term and downstream, more multidisciplinary, more farmer and women participatory, and more localized in nature.

The evaluation found most grant projects to be well designed. Implementation over the 23-year period has shown greater variance in terms of achieving grants goals and objectives. Realism in design, variance in national and international institutional capacities, types of research undertaken, extent of integration of socio-economic factors, extent of farmers participation, and quality of supervision played a role in determining performance. There has been a notable impact on building capacity for pro-poor research, particularly at the national (NARS) level, at least in the short-term. Impact on poverty was clear in several instances, although proved hard to assess in others for a number of reasons, including the indirect nature of the impact process and the multiple factors often involved. Overall, while the likely rural poverty impact appears moderate, it may possibly be higher than what transpires from available evidence.

Overall, the programme is faced with three main challenges:

i. The need to make better use of scarce resources, through: (i) strategically focusing on a limited number of priority areas, towards a balanced mix of longer-term strategic innovation-generating research and short-term problem-solving research, in line with the research needs of IFAD investment portfolio and IFAD's new strategic emphasis; (ii) making full use of the available human resources for the programme, through improvements in efficiency and a rigorous investigation of the programme's effective needs in this area.

ii. The need to ensure consistently good performance of the research funded, through: (i) paying more attention to capacity, especially at the national levels; (ii) providing additional guidance to grant applicants and recipients.

iii. The need to enhance poverty impact of research outcomes, through: (i) measures to further strengthen linkages with rural poverty focused research application and uptake pathways, especially with IFAD's investment programme; (ii) allowing more time to achieve good results; and (iii) improving impact evaluation.

The recommendations and implementation plan are designed to respond to these above challenges.

Agreed upon recommendations and implementation plan

Developing a research strategy for IFAD

At present the programme is attempting to do too much with its limited resources. Priorities and selection criteria have been defined since May 2000. Since then, IFAD has adopted the Strategic Framework 2002-2006. A more selective and priority focused approach is now needed. To date, the programme has not had an agreed-upon strategy for guiding IFAD's catalytic contribution in this area. The preparation of a research strategy for the programme will need to build upon IFAD's Strategic Framework, the Regional Research Strategies and the new policy on TAG, which is currently being developed.

The strategy would need to cover, inter alia: (i) the programme goal and general objectives; (ii) the type or types of research IFAD should and should not finance, including the extent to which it should be strategic or downstream and how innovative it should seek to be; (iii) the type and characteristics of Research Institutions that should benefit from IFAD's grants; (iv) specific thematic priorities or technology gaps which have greatest importance for 2003- 2006 (to be reviewed periodically); (v) the extent to which the research would be expected to link with and contribute directly or indirectly to the IFAD loan programme.

Implementation plan: PT to organise the preparation of the strategy in close consultation with PMD, EAD, OE and partners IARCs. The Strategy should be guided by the IFAD Grants Policy currently under preparation by the VP-chaired Task Force.

Time of delivery: October 2003 (final draft circulated in-house).

Strengthening the contribution of grant financed research to the IFAD investment programme

In general, the evaluation found the programme to have growing poverty relevance, and particularly since 1998 growing relevance to the IFAD investment programme. But the systematic contributions of individual TAGs to individual loan projects could not be established. Various Board documents have reiterated that the programme's chief purpose is to expand, prepare and support the opportunities for investment by IFAD. The evaluation found a few notable successes of "direct supporting input," but overall, little evidence of effective linkages to loan projects. Grants progress reports, supervision reports and completion reports rarely provide information on this aspect. Clearly, direct grant support to loans is always easier where the research produces identifiable and poverty–appropriate technology outputs, with clearly visible benefits and attraction to farmers. On the other hand, many loan projects with which linkages were sought, had their own share of implementation problems to allow for fruitful links to emerge, despite genuine effort. Links were more likely to occur with farmer-participatory downstream research. However, longer term or more strategic research can achieve linkages with the future loan portfolio the potential of which should be identified up-front and its achievements ensured through systematic follow-up. The onus for this should lie jointly with the Regional Divisions and PT. The IARCs recognized this issue and are willing to work closely with IFAD in achieving better linkages.

Specific measures, identified by the evaluation, for enhancing grant-loan linkages, include: (i) introduction of joint loan-grant planning from loan project inception stage which would require strengthening related communications between IFAD CPMs, TAG-project co-ordinators and IFAD grant TAG Managers; (ii) preparation/finalisation of IFAD regional division agricultural research strategies, covering both loan and grant funded research, and with clearly identified priorities (this would also feed into preparation of an institutional strategy for the programme); (iii) transforming the current data base of the programme to a corporate-access data base, not limited to closed and ongoing approved grants, but also pipeline applications, in order to ensure greater transparency as well as information for planning purposes; (iv) wider sharing of information on technology outputs of the programme through Technical Advisory Notes (TANs) on the IFAD sub-site, as well as through other information networks and dissemination mechanisms.

Implementation plan:

(i) PI, PL and PF to finalize their agricultural research strategies, with PT support, as needed.
(ii) PA to revise its 1999 agricultural research strategy in light of lessons learned from TAG implementation.
(iii) PMD to consider a scheme for joint planning of grants and loans, to be the basis for the operational work programme.
(iv) PT to establish a corporate-access database for the programme, in consultation with PMD.
(v) PT to encourage finalization of pipeline TANs for the IFAD web site.

Time of delivery:

(i) Finalization of Regional Research strategies – by September 2003.
(ii) Revision of PA Strategy – by end 2003.
(iii) Loans-Grants joint planning system– by September 2003.
(iv) Corporate-access database by May 2003.
(v) 50 TANS on IFAD web sub-site by June 2003.

Enhancing the Poverty and Institutional Impact of the Programme

The impact of the programme should have two main dimensions – impact on poverty and impact on institutional capacity. As mentioned earlier, the evaluation found that the impact of the TAGs on poverty is hard to assess and attribute only to IFAD, because of the indirect nature of the impact process and the multiple factors involved. This difficulty is aggravated by lack of access to impact assessments except in a few cases, and by the quality of data. Using a specially developed framework for predicting the "poverty impact potential of TAGs"; the evaluation found that only a fraction of the reviewed TAGs had completed the development of poverty appropriate products and prepared the way for their dissemination and adoption. Impact on institutional capacity was clearer, particularly among national level research partners, such as research organisations, universities, and to a lesser extent NGOs and CBOs, though its sustainability could not be verified. The urgency of further capacity building at this level was underlined by the evaluation field visit findings, which showed that IARCs were in many instances taking a larger than necessary role in conducting field level research, instead of NARS, because of variability in the latter's capacity. However, it must be noted that IFAD has played a leadership role in the development of methodologies for Poverty Impact Assessment of Agricultural Research, with contributions to International Conferences on the subject – in Costa Rica in 1999 and 2001; and support to the CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment and other publications on the subject.

Measures that IFAD should take to enhance the poverty impact of the programme include: (i) increase TAG duration to up to five years, as indicated in policy documents, to allow more up-front time for better situational assessment (particularly local socio-economic conditions), and post-research time for impact evaluation; (ii) greater attention to both assessment of national capacities and to building missing capacity for participatory research; (iii) introduce a system applicable to the design of all research TAGs to enhance impact monitoring and evaluation during implementation and at completion with inclusion of earmarked funding for the purpose and agreeing on some relevant indicators, including for measuring utilization of grant outputs by IFAD investment projects.

Implementation plan: PT, in collaboration with Regional Economists and partners IARCs.

Time of felivery: December 2003.

Reviewing resources available for the programme

The financial resources devoted to the programme will be determined on the basis of strategy deliberations. The evaluation was not mandated to look at the human resources allocated to the programme, nor at this particular aspect of efficiency. However, staff working in PT have expressed the view that human resources for the programme are inadequate. Evaluation findings confirm that better grants performance is associated with intensive supervision that could well require more adequate resources. Backlogs in processing of grant proposals and of TANs and responding to queries by IARCs could also be due to limited resources. Regional divisions seem reluctant to take on additional management responsibilities in view of limited resources and exposure/experience of field research and/or capacity.

It is therefore recommended that a review be conducted of the current resource allocation to the programme. Issues that the review could address include: (i) a review of the financial resource allocation situation and its implications; (ii) the present HR utilisation in grant processing and implementation management; (iii) whether designation of a full time co-ordinator, would serve to enhance efficiency; (iv) are resource constraints affecting supervision intensity and quality? Are there newer more efficient ways to finance supervision e.g. earmarking funds for supervision under each grant; reinforcing field visits through electronic dialogue and monitoring etc.?

Implementation Plan: PT and PD Front Office guided by the IFAD Grants Policy currently under preparation by the VP-chaired Task Force.

Time of delivery: September 2003.

Enhancing Policy Dialogue and Advocacy to Reinforce IFAD's Global Innovation Role

The evaluation recognizes the important global policy and advocacy role performed by IFAD through the AR Programme activities and the CGIAR mechanism. In collaboration with its partners, IFAD has promoted the poverty focus of the GGIAR system organizations, became a founding member of GFAR (Global Forum on Agricultural Research), is taking a leadership position in CGIAR's Special Programme for Impact Assessment (SPIA), and most recently became a formal Co-Sponsor of the CGIAR system.

IFAD should build on this past advocacy experience and collaboration to continue to influence donor efforts towards addressing new and innovative research areas or methodological gaps, where these could enhance the impact of research efforts on poverty. This should include: no till farming; water harvesting; design of improved farm tools especially for women farmers, the elderly, and children – in areas where the labour pattern in agriculture has been changed due to socio economic factors including the spread of HIV/AIDS. Regional Agricultural Strategies should pay particular attention to these and other areas of innovations.

Implementation plan: PT and Regional Divisions through IARCs, CGIAR and related mechanisms.

Time of delivery: Continuous.

Reassessing the institutional spread of programme resources

The evaluation findings suggest that, with some notable exceptions, much of the allocation of resources under the programme has been driven by IARC's perceived comparative advantage and capacity in a given research area. This has resulted in certain international research centres, both among CGIARs and non-CGIARs, receiving a large proportion of available funds. However, a comparison of the grant programme sectoral focus with that of the IFAD lending programme, reveals inconsistent trends. The preparation of a strategy for the programme will provide the basis for a clearer understanding of whether the present cohort of institutions does, or does not cover some of the newer issues and concerns of the lending programme and whether inclusion of additional, or different, grant recipients could result in a better match with the investment portfolio.

As part of the efforts to develop the new AR Programme strategy, IFAD should review the existing institutional spread of grant resources. Among issues to be addressed are: (i) whether the emerging research needs of IFAD argue for directing some of IFAD support to other non-conventional international institutions, for instance, those international development-oriented NGOs, which have a strong research focus; (ii) whether the localization and farmer-participatory nature of research activities would argue for allocating a larger proportion of resources within grants to the country level.

Implementation Plan: PT and Regional Divisions.

Time of delivery: September 2003 in view of PT's Task Force.

Improving internal processes and procedures of the programme

The programme has made many improvements in procedures over the years, particularly through introducing screening criteria and procedures in 2000. However, additional improvements may be appropriate to further ensure that information is equally shared among potential applicants, that the most deserving grants are financed, that the process of grant implementation proceeds smoothly, and that the lessons and technology generated by the programme can achieve maximum impact. The recommendations to IFAD made by respondents to the institutional survey, which was conducted by the evaluation, provide some very useful feedback on what is needed.

On the basis of the specific recommendations made in the evaluation, IFAD should: (i) provide more practical guidance to grant applicants and recipients on application, reporting and impact assessment; (ii) continue to further strengthen the grant review and selection procedures, particularly at early entry (concept) point, to eliminate personal factors and ensure fair competition; (iii) review the impact of the 2000 screening procedures and processes over their "trial" period, to note any need for improvement; (iv) improve speed of application processing and the general responsiveness to IARC queries.

Implementation Plan: PT and regional divisions in consultation with partners IARCs.

Time of delivery: September 2003.

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1. The Core Learning Partnership for this evaluation was composed of the Director of the Office of Evaluation (OE); the Director of the Technical Advisory Division (PT); the AR&T Programme Manager in PT; the PT Technical Adviser, Agronomist; three Task Managers of the Regional Divisions Managed Grants; Representative of PD Front Office; Representative from CGIAR Institutions, Representative from Non-CGIAR Institutions; and the IFAD Senior Evaluator in charge of the evaluation.