Challenges of evaluating impact of IITA’s R4D work

There are many challenges IITA’s socio-economists face when monitoring and evaluating the impact of IITA’s research for development (R4D) work according to Arlene Arega, IITA socio-economist, during the IITA planning week at a session on impact evaluation.

He said the time taken to realise all the benefits of an intervention takes a long time with some taking up to 16 years and many donor organizations do not have the patience to wait that long.

He suggested possible strategies the institute can use to meet donor demands and at the same time have quality assessment on the outcome and impact of its innovations on yields and income as extrapolating the future economic outcomes or setting funds aside for future evaluation.

Secondly, he said, program level evaluation gives a truer picture of the outcomes as opposed to project level. “Projects are at different stages on the R4D continuum and their impact cannot be assessed independently. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of one project when the reality is that many projects contribute to an outcome.”

He added that project evaluation was prone to ‘cherry picking’ highlighting only the successes and ignoring failures but when looking at a program assessment, one looked at both successful and failed projects.

He also said the evaluation methodologies become more complex as the products increased ranging from genetic improvement, which is the easiest to evaluate, to capacity building, post harvest and value addition to genebank. The accompanying indicators also get more complex from yield - the easiest- to income, health, food security, and environment.

He identified information and data gap as another challenge where the interventions and results along the impact pathway are not always well documented. This starts with investments, both human and financial to the outputs – the landraces, planting material, germplasm. For example when it comes to new improved varieties, usually many will have escaped long before the official release therefore keeping track of their movement and adoption impact is difficult.

Saving our forests with fertilizer use



Jim Gockowski presenting the results of a study linking

fertilizer use and deforestation in West Africa



Research carried out among Farmer Field Schools in Ghana has shown that fertilizer use would have averted the clearing of 7 million ha of Guinea forest land in West Africa for crops such as cassava, cocoa and yams in the last 20 years.

This, in turn, would have prevented some 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere valued between US$2.8 billion and US$42 billion. This could have also saved thousands of species in the region from becoming extinct. This was reported by Jim Gockowski, an IITA Agricultural Economist and one of the researchers involved in study, during one of the sessions on Natural Resources Management at R4D Week 2010.

He added that eventhough there was a steady increase in crop production with the use of fertilizers -- with  yields more than doubling when farmers used the recommended amount -- only 4% of the sampled farmers were at that optimal level of fertilizer use.

“Despite the huge loss of forest land, the growth in crop production was insignificant, with cassava increasing only by 0.2%, oil palm by 0.22%, and cocoa by 0.64%,” he said. “We have harmed the environment but we are still way behind our MDG goals because we failed to intensify our agriculture.”

The Guinea forest of West Africa is one of the IUCN's global hotspots covering 1.4% of the earth’s surface and containing 60% of all animal and plant species. It has been heavily deforested by farmer smallholders of cassava, cocoa, and oil palm.

Good progress but countries still lag in agriculture funding goal

Increased investments in agricultural research could help lessen the
drudgery of work especially among women in many African countries

The total expenditure on agriculture -- the most important sector in reducing poverty -- was still under 10% of the GDP of many countries in West Africa. This despite the committment made by the countries under the Maputo Declaration of 2003.

As of 2007, out of the 11 countries in the region with available data, only four countries had met this target: Burkina Faso (15.8%), Mali (11%), Niger (15.4%) and Sénégal (14%).

However, IITA scientists were told, there had been a steady increase in funds set aside for agriculture since then, especially after the 2008 food crisis.

This was highlighted by Mbaye Yade, sub-Coordinator for the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), while presenting the results of the first evaluation of the Comprehensive Africa Development Program (CCADP), a strategic framework to guide the development of the agricultural sector.

He also noted that there were positive changes in indicators such as a reduction in poverty incidence, poverty gap ratio, and undernourished ratio, as well as increases in per capita GDP.

ReSAKSS is a project implemented by the CGIAR centres in close collaboration with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). It is supporting CAADP to put in place an M&E system and the Africa countries to define their agricultural programs and M& E.

Tapping opportunities and strategizing against agricultural threats

Scientists on day 2 of R4D Week 2010 brainstormed on strategies to mitigate threats to global agricultural productivity.

The Opportunities & Threats meeting, which was moderated by Victor Manyong, IITA Director, specifically sought measures that would cushion farmers from the pains caused by pests and diseases, climate change, and food price changes, among others.

Apart from climate change and pests and diseases, experts also examined the impact of global trade policies and their likely impacts on resource-poor farmers.

The group discussed the application of early warning systems and brainstormed on tools that would help in predicting threats to food production.

They said that with the growing demand for food, spiraling population, and unpredictable weather, it was time to set up machinery that would ensure the steady production of food.
The group hopes to play the role of a think-tank to policymakers, donor agencies, and farmers in the days ahead.

They also brainstormed on resource mobilization especially in line with the ongoing CGIAR reforms.

The group observed that there were many opportunities for IITA to tap by aligning most of its activities with the reforms.

Manyong commended members for their contribution and also solicited their support especially in the area of resource mobilization.

He also emphasized the opportunities in the area of developing tools for impact assessment of projects.

IITA's impact on poverty, hunger, and food security highly rated

Research and development activities of IITA are making a big difference in the fight against hunger and poverty and it was rated as having the highest impact achievement among the 15 international agriculture centres of the Consultative group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Victor Manyong, IITA’s R4D Director for eastern and central Africa, said in 2009 the institute scored the highest among all the CGIAR centres on impact assessment and had the best impact paper that effectively demonstrates a centre’s impact on the poor or food insecure people and to the environment and rated for quality and rigor.

Commending the scientists for the good work during a mini symposium looking at improving monitoring and evaluation at IITA on the third day of the R4D Planning week, Manyong stressed that the institute should continue to strengthen its impact evaluation guided by three principles: accountability, learning, and rigor.

“Monitoring and evaluation should be incorporated in the research activities at the start of all projects and not at the end and should be seen as more than a donor requirement,” he said.