Workshop on Priority Setting

1. Workshop on Priority Setting February 11, 2009 Albania-Hawaii Higher Education and Economic Development Project

2. Overview of the workshop

3. Workshop Goal To present a systematic approach for research program prioritization and strategic action that respond to: • profitability for the agricultural sector • clients' needs for new technologies and information • improves effectiveness of research impact

4. Major Objectives • Provide a method for research/program prioritization • Suggest a strategy for implementation of research priorities through self-initiative and partnerships

5. Expected Outputs/Outcomes • Improved skills in priority setting 2. Strategic plan for research support and activities 3. Improved commitment to work as a team in research priority setting and research support

6. Standardize our Vocabulary

7. General Agreement on Six Terms • planning by objectives • program • constraint • research project • research activity • accompanying measures

8. 1. Planning by Objectives A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO PLAN ACTIVITIES • Determines which research objectives are necessary to achieve the goal identified • Determine each program that contributes to achieve the objectives that contributes to the overall goal • And determine research activities of a project within a program.

9. 2. Research Program • Focuses on the implementation of new technologies/constraints, and on obtaining information in view of optimum and sustainable exploitation of the potentialities in a domain (commodity, region)

10. Focuses of a Research Program Responds to the users' needs of research results on: • Commodity (or a group of commodities) • agroecological zone • production system • production factor • market intelligence information

11. 3. Constraints Situations or factors that hinder development of the domain's potential

12. Two Types of Constraints • can most certainly be solved by research results (yield, ) • linked to environmental or economic factors, or can be solved by interventions in other areas of development (policy on import tax, level of interest rate)

13. Examples of Constraints

14. A Program Consists of Projects

15. Project consists of Activities

16. A Project Allows for:

17. 6. Accompanying Measures Actions recommended to decision makers, to enhance the adoption of new technology/policies generated by the projects of the research program

18. Examples of Accompanying Measures • Extension campaign • Market structures for inputs • Form Professional organizations - producers - nursery owners - traders - extension with University researchers • Infrastructure improvements

19. Terminology

20. 5 Programs * 3 (projects/programs) 15 Projects * 3 (activities/projects) 45 Activities Workshop Objective: How to define which programs and which activities to undertake? Agricultural Research Plan

21. Project activities complement each other: their combined results lead to the achievement of the project objective

22. Example of Fier Region Research Plan

23. Framework for developing a cohesive plan and strategy for implementing prioritized research needs

24. PRISM (Framework) Pathway for Research Implementation Strategy Model

26. BREAK

27. Step 1: Develop a list of Prioritized Research Programs for Agricultural Sector Review Agricultural Sector Analyze Constraints Determine Program Objectives Prioritize Programs Evaluate Research

31. Determine Objectives and Programs to meet the Goals and then Prioritized the Programs. • So what is the Research Goal? –profitable agricultural sector • So what are the Objectives or Criteria to attain the Goal – efficiency, enhance exports, high net profits etc. • So what are the Programs – Tomatoes, Olives, Potatoes, Maize etc..

32. Priority Setting: Approaches and Methodologies (to come up with prioritized programs –PRISM Step 1 • Explain why priority-setting methods are necessary • Understand that a formal priority-setting process does not substitute personal judgment, knowledge, and experience • List priority-setting methods

33. Principles of Priority Setting

34. Definitions of Priority Setting • A logical, consistent, and formal approach to identify most important possible activities • A process of arriving at the best possible set of research activities

35. Why Set Priorities? • Make most effective use of resources • Help in planning • Help to reach consensus on objectives • Renovate and modernize research • Provide guidance to management • Increase credibility

36. Why Use Structured Methods?

37. Why Use Structured Methods? • To organize and use available data • To identify and openly resolve conflicts of interest • To repeat analysis and arrive at same conclusions

38. Characteristics of Structured Methods • Do not substitute for the judgment, experience, and knowledge of researchers • Make systematic use of experience • Depend on the quality of inputs

39. Priority-Setting Methods

40. Checklist • Simple • Cheap • Based on an existing situation • Doesn't require a profound knowledge of agriculture

41. Congruence Analysis - Single-criterion method - Allows budget allocation - Simple, cheap, transparent - Poor theoretical logic — doubtful results

42. Cost-Benefit Analysis - Complicated - Uses ratios for prioritizing - Relates to efficiency and sustainability • Equity not considered • Needs data and takes time

43. SCORING • Multi-criteria • Simple • Easy to understand • Collective decision making • Must get all stakeholders together • Exercise gets complicated if there are many objectives and many alternatives

44. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) • Handle multi-criteria decision making • Provide feedback right away • Offers a sound technique for eliciting and quantifying decision makers’ preferences • Decision maker can focus on smaller sets of problems • Deals with both qualitative and quantitative judgments based on experience, intuition and hard facts • Good method if you have incomplete information

45. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) AHP is a decision-support tool to tackle complex multi-criteria problems, such as the situation in this study of selecting a smaller list of priority research projects. The steps of AHP are as follows: • Develop a hierarchically structure of the decision problem (See Figure) • A set of major objectives (criteria) that are deemed relevant to achieve the goal (first level of hierarchy) needs to be established as the second level of the hierarchy • Then the third level or bottom level consists of the different alternative programs for research.

46. A basic hierarchy

47. Choice of the Tool Depends on • Accuracy of available data • Time for decision making • Resources available • Degree of participation required • Transparency • Simplicity • Theoretical logic

48. It is important to involve representatives of key stakeholder groups in program planning and prioritizing

49. Advantages of Group Process • Comprehensive, unbiased analysis • Builds consensus • Fosters support • Increases chances of implementation

50. Stakeholders and Clients in Program Planning