Strategic Guidance for Ex Post Impact Assessment of Agricultural Research

The CGIAR Science Council encourages fair use of this material provided proper citation is made. Contents Tables and Figures iv Boxes iv Acronyms v Acknowledgements vi Foreword vii 1. Introducing epIA 1 Defining the ex post impact assessment of agricultural research 1 About this guidance document 1 Limitations 2 Organization of this document 3 2. Describing EpIA and Rationalizing a Strategic Approach 5 A typology of ex post impact assessments in agricultural research 5 Documenting consequences along the impact pathway 8 General methodological issues 16 Attributes and standards of good-practice EpIA 22 The rationale for an approach that accumulates the results of success stories 23 Programmatic epIA 26 3. Conducting EpIA 29 Selecting the research-related technology or policy for epIA 29 Estimating adoption of the technology or policy selected for epIA 33 Arriving at a persuasive counterfactual 39 Estimating benefits and costs 40 Presenting results 49 Assessing poverty impacts 50 4. Institutionalizing and Managing EpIA 59 Accountability, learning, and where EpIA fits in to research evaluations 59 Gestation lags, new initiatives, and epIA 63 Meeting multiple donor demands for accountability 64 Building EpIA into project design and funding for EpIA 65 Who should conduct EpIAs? 66 The communication and dissemination of EpIA results 68 5. Summary and Conclusions 71 6. Bibliography 75 Annexes 87 Annex A. Tables and Figures Table 2.1. A typology of ex post impact assessments in agricultural research. 5 Figure 2.1. Impact pathway for development-oriented global public good agricultural research. 8 Figure 2.2. A stylized map of factors and players involved along the pathway from research inputs to outputs to outcomes to impact for the CGIAR research portfolio from an ex post impact assessment perspective. 10 Figure 2.3. Example of impact pathways for a research project focused on developing high yielding varieties. Source: Sanginga et al. (1999). 11 Figure 2.4. Example of an impact pathway realized from policy-oriented research conducted by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Source: Templeton and Jamora (2007). 12 Figure 3.1. Minimum thresholds for selecting interventions for ex post impact assessment. Table 3.1. An illustrative checklist for scoring the desirability of economic rate of return assessment (for epIAs). 32 Figure 4.1. Linkages between priority setting, monitoring and evaluation, and epIA. 60 Table 4.1. Potential for learning from the impact assessment of a project. Adapted from: Boardman et al. (2001). 61 Boxes Box 2.1. Criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management – an example …