Donors contribute some $8 billion a year to agricultural research in low-income countries. But are the benefits reaching poor farmers? That depends. Improving seed varieties or farming techniques to increase yield is useful for poor farmers only if they are right for the economic, social, and environmental conditions in which farmers operate. Recent IFPRI impact studies show that agricultural innovations sometimes help poor farmers in developing countries—and sometimes they don't. This is where Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC)—an approach to research and evaluation that involves reflection and adaptation throughout the project cycle—can make a difference. ILAC encourages researchers to work with farmers and other stakeholders to develop new ways of learning about what poor people need and how to respond.

The importance of agricultural research programs for the developing world “learning how to learn” became evident to IFPRI over the last several years, as it undertook a study of the impact made by five CGIAR innovations in Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Mexico. Rather than using only standard economic measures to assess program effectiveness, researchers combined panel surveys with focus groups, individual interviews, and case studies of village households. In some cases researchers lived in these villages for several months to learn about how technological innovations interacted with the risks people faced and the resources they owned, and how gender, wealth, and power relationships affected people’s ability to benefit from new agricultural technologies. At the end of these first-of-their-kind CGIAR studies, IFPRI asked a key question: How can an impact evaluation study and its results influence the strategies and activities of concerned research and development organizations?

To explore this question, IFPRI convened a three-day workshop in February 2003. Senior researchers from eight CGIAR centers participated, along with ILAC specialists from around the world. The workshop, which received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, inspired a new CGIAR initiative that focuses on promoting ILAC among its centers and their partners. Already, researchers and managers at nine centers have indicated their interest in joining this initiative. In the short term, IFPRI has produced two resource documents that explain institutional learning and change. The pilot phase of this initiative has been funded recently. It includes goals such as developing a comprehensive knowledge base for sharing information about ILAC; preparing a range of options for integrating ILAC into planning, monitoring, and evaluation systems in the CGIAR and its partners; and introducing ILAC into several pilot projects. For example, while experimenting with a range of seed delivery mechanisms to serve the poor, CIMMYT will emphasize the building of learning skills among staff, by having scientists, delivery agents, and farmers reflect on the effectiveness of different approaches. “If done well, impact studies can reveal important insights about where agricultural research does or does not help to reduce poverty, but these insights are often lost or do not move beyond the small group of researchers involved,” says Michelle Adato, a research fellow at IFPRI who organized the workshop. “ILAC systematizes processes of reflection and response at all stages of the project cycle, and among a wide group of scientists, research managers, and partner organizations.”