Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural (RIMISP) presentation to "Assessing the Impact of Policy Engagement: RIMISP / IFAD Learning Event, Rome 23 June 2015"

1. Rural Dialogue Groups
Policy Influencing for Rural
Development
M. Ignacia Fernández
Rome, 22 june 2015

2. Large Impact Scale - Knowledge for Change
▶ The Program was designed to make rural poverty and rural
development a higher priority on the policy agenda.
▶ RDGs consist of diverse stakeholders, always in the rural
world, who organize and conduct processes of political
dialogue, policy analysis and technical assistance for
decision makers.
▶ RDG’s in Latin America:
▶ Colombia
▶ Ecuador
▶ El Salvador
▶ Mexico

3. Participatory Impact Pathways
Adapted to RDGs experience
▶ Evaluation method for policy influence
▶ 2 premises:
▶ Policy influence outcomes are part of a causal chain
involving diverse stakeholders, and programs therefore
have different degrees of attribution and contribution
to these results
▶ The effects can lie in three areas:
▶ Stakeholders
▶ Policies
▶ Their Processes

4. Products and
activities
Intermediate
Effects on
actors
Changes in
policies and
processes
Impact
Total Control
Attribution
Lack of Control
Contribution
“Links of Policy Influence”

5. Implementation of the Method
1. Reconstructing the objective and strategy of each RDG using
trees of problems and objectives, along with their
respective stakeholder’s maps.
2. Identifying the action strategy.
3. Identifying the outcomes achieved.
4. Describing the mechanisms and factors that were key for
the achievement of those outcomes.

6. Implementation of the Method
▶ Review of documentation and secondary material (RDG
records, reports and documents about public allocations, etc.)
▶ Personal interviews with members of the groups and relevant
public stakeholders
▶ Focus groups or ordinary meetings of the RDGs, at which
their members discussed their actions and achievements.
All of the resulting information was analyzed and
triangulated

7. Some Findings

8. RDG México
▶ Public Policy
▶ Government Program of the candidates for President of
the Republic
▶ RDG Contribution
▶ Elaboration of a programmatic proposal on poverty and
rural development in Mexico, delivered to the candidates.
▶ Results
▶ Proposal was used for the National Development Plan in
agricultural and rural issues. Permanent Agrarian
Congress took proposal and gave it to the Presidency.

9. RDG Ecuador
▶ Public Policy
▶ National Seed Plan
▶ Competitive Improvement Plans (PMC) for products based on
family farming.
▶ RDG Contribution
▶ Technical inputs to the National Seed Plan
▶ Creation of institutional mechanisms of agreement for Market
Chains
▶ Results
▶ Government gave priority to 11 territories for Rural Good Living
▶ Seed Plan: $ 36 million provided as grants, covering over 47,000
beneficiaries
▶ PMC are already a MAGAP public policy and are being executed
for rice, corn, cocoa, banana, and oil palm

10. RDG Colombia
▶ Public Policy
▶ Mission for Countryside Transformation (Rural Mission)
▶ Rural territorial development in the Caribbean Region
▶ RDG contribution
▶ Defining categories of rurality with DNP
▶ Document: "Implementation Strategy for Integrated Rural
Development Program (DRI) with a Territorial Approach"
▶ RDG Caribbean formulated guidelines for a strategy for rural
development with a territorial approach
▶ Presentation of the GDR in the Civil Society Forum on Peace and
Rural Development
▶ Seminars for Rural Development with a Territorial Approach
▶ Results
▶ Directing Council of the Rural Mission approves the
implementation strategy of the DRI Program.

11. RDG El Salvador
▶ Public Policy
▶ Food and Nutritional Security and Sovereignty Law
▶ National Environmental Policy
▶ “Territories In Progress” program
▶ Interministerial Agreement on a “Green Sugar Harvest”
▶ RDG contribution
▶ RDG develops a media strategy requesting the approval of the
law, including Policy Brief and media inserts.
▶ Contribution to strategies for ecosystem restoration and climate
change adaptation to change agricultural practices
▶ RDG supports MESPABAL in its creation, working together with
different national actors and the Technical Secretariat of the
Presidency
▶ Contribution to Interministerial Agreement MAG / MARN on a
“Green Sugar Harvest”, motivated by dialogue between the RDG,
MESPABAL and the Sugar Association of El Salvador.

12. Key Factors – “Processes”
▶ Importance of the selected strategies: flexible and attentive to
opportunities.
▶ The makeup and modus operandi of the RDG’s: pluralistic, with
regular activities over time.
▶ High-quality input for discussion and ongoing analysis of the
situation, and with dynamic issues and stakeholders.
▶ The ability to involve key stakeholders either as members or as
interlocutors in the State.
▶ The role played by the technical secretaries as legitimate
conveners and conductors.
▶ Progressive ability of RDGs to deal with complex issues – inter-
sectorial from the perspective of policy makers

13. KNOWLEDGE FOR CHANGE IN RURAL POVERTY
AND DEVELOPMENT
M. Ignacia Fernández
22 june, 2015
ifernandez@rimisp.org
www.rimisp.org/proyecto/impactosgranescala