ISPC11

1. AR4D and Partnership
Issues, focus, and the ISPC
ISPC 11, 31 March 2015

2. Partnership is an invention of the devil ~ Russian proverb
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor
“Our success has really been based on partnerships from
the very beginning” ~ Mr. Gates, BMGF.

3. Clear agreement on the key guiding principles of the approach:
(a) aimed at the delivery of development impact at different
scales and timeframes;
(b) adapted to systemic nature of the innovation and
development process; and
(c) no primacy allocated to any particular mode of research or
development practice.
AR4D
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

4. MTR
“Strategic partnerships that will lead to the delivery of the
agricultural research required to transform agriculture to meet
nutritional requirements and a food secure future”, as one of
the five big challenges facing the CGIAR in its “transformation”.
This presentation
‘New’ issues that might require further in-depth assessment to
ensure that - in the words of the MTR -, the “formation and
incentivisation of the appropriate partnerships”, becomes a key
tool in helping the CGIAR meet its goals and responsibilities in
the international AR4D space.
Partnership
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

5. - Adoption of innovation systems as a conceptual framework
- Impressive array of new partners and new partnerships
- Overriding reason for ‘new’ partnerships: engagement of
development partners «to take technologies that are ready
(or near ready) to go to scale»
- A number of CRPs: ‘innovation platforms’
Explicit recognition of the need for partnership beyond
the ‘traditional’
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

6. - Benefits in innovative performance that may result from
productive relationships between those organizations
engaged in formal research and those engaged in the use
of new knowledge in economic production;
- Learning-based approaches can work well within the
sphere of community action and may have significant
impact on local (research) capacities;
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

7. - Research products are the starting point. Innovation is a
research and technology driven process. Key partnership
tasks:
- Making information and technology available for use;
- Support to existing and new delivery mechanisms;
- Measures of success: Rates of adoption by farmers
and impact at household level, with maybe some
insights about the effectiveness of different type of
delivery systems.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

8. - Partnership-based activities where research and its
products are just one source of information, and where key
tasks involve linking and enabling technical, institutional,
and policy change, are rare.
- All interventions are experimental and that partners would
jointly experiment with new configurations and ways of
working that would enable innovation.
- Measures of success: Insights on how best to organize for
learning and innovation in different contexts.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

9. - In the absence of within and among CRP linkages and
coordination that would permit across site analyses and
learning - Value-added of CGIAR involvement in what are
largely development activities only?;
- No clear evidence of connection among breakthroughs in
frontier science (both within and without the CGIAR) and
breakthroughs in understanding how knowledge is
produced, packaged, and applied to solving problems or in
response to opportunities at the food and agriculture
interface.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

10. - ‘Exclusive’ partnership contracts between CRPs and
NGOs / CSOs / private sector organizations in the
execution of local activities may restrict dissemination and
partnership options;
- Pre-empts experimentation on how to finance and
stimulate innovation by combining different forms of
entrepreneurship.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

11. - CGIAR’s donor partnerships: Different funding windows
are increasingly allowing donors to set research agendas,
and, by extension, to co-opt fungible core funds;
- Perpetuate an institutional environment where donors’
vision of scaling out research products to farmers almost
exclusively shapes notions of accountability and impact;
- Restricts the scope to contemplate different ideas beyond
the technology-led vision of innovation
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

12. - Such funding imperatives resonate also in the general
assumption that higher level institutional and policy
learning / change will take care of itself;
- Presence or lead in relevant regional and global
discussions?
- Strategy to ensure alignment or leveraging of other
research and development spending towards the CGIAR’s
stated objectives?
- Partnership’ arrangements pursued and developed, that
recognises the cross-sectoral linkages, interactions, and
trade-offs that will be required as an integral part of
delivering on the promise of AR4D?
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

13. - Firmly pegged its future engagement in the global food and
agriculture arena to AR4D.
- Current evidence: An organization that offers supply-side
science, rather than a programme of global AR4D
excellence to tackle the major development challenges laid
out in its SLOs.
- Partnerships are opportunities, based on the recognition of
one’s own strengths and weaknesses, to learn, grow, serve,
and become better at what one is supposed to do.
Some bottom lines…..
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

14. - Part of its commitment to AR4D: explicitly include roles as
facilitators and practitioners of global R4D excellence in its
mandate as centres of research excellence;
- Effectively link breakthroughs in understanding and practice
of poverty reduction at the food and agriculture interface,
with breakthroughs in understanding how knowledge is
produced, packaged, and targeted at solving problems or in
responding to opportunities.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

15. - Understanding the ways in which the process of research
and partnership is used for innovation and sustainable
development, rather than only how research products are
transferred and adopted, is essential.
- Many a different role for research in the innovation and
development process: a source of creativity; a responsive,
problem solving source of expertise; or a way of structuring
learning around specific problem or opportunities.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

16. - Currently, however, this is often being interpreted to justify a
large diversity of approaches in partnership for local
development problem solving;
- Provides opportunities to address specific demands, but
need for an overall research strategy and appropriate
coordination: Inherent danger of inefficient resource use,
not providing additional insight on how best to organize for
innovation and development in different contexts.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

17. - Embedding research is important because its shifts the
analysis from a narrow focus on technology diffusion, to a
broad emphasis on understanding the location of the
research process as part of a wider process of innovation.
- Value-added: What public policy in this area needs is not
yet another new approach, but some practical guidance on
which ways of using research for innovation and
development should be supported and under which
circumstances.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

18. - A key issue in the adoption of AR4D and its partnership
approaches: Accommodate sufficient scope for the
continuing process of institutional change, and the
recognition that institutional and policy adaptation required
are needed at all levels.
- Attention to the wider institutional change agenda and the
partnership required for this, essential to achieve the
potential of the CGIAR for impact.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

19. - Presence or leadership by the CGIAR in relevant global
agenda setting processes?;
- Partnership within the CGIAR consortium based on an
integrated strategy and priorities, and clarity on the
contributions it can make to the post-2015 SDGs;
- Provide a stronger basis to engage in ongoing sectoral and
cross-sectoral global dialogues, but also to establish and
lead new relevant agenda-setting dialogues to provide its
mandated leadership in harnessing agricultural research for
innovation and development.
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor

20. - Can a new approach to partnership can flourish in the
current policy and institutional setting?;
- No longer just about better ways of using research and
partnership - the political economy of publicly-funded
international research;
- Opening up debate. Contemplate different ideas beyond the
technology-led vision of innovation
http://ispc.cgiar.org/ISPC 11, Bogor