Understanding Impact Pathways

1. Understanding Impact Pathways Jamie Watts, Victoria Henson-Apollonio and Joanna Kane-Potaka

2. Objective • To provide support to the planning process by: • Clarifying what is an “impact pathway” and • Emphasizing its importance as a planning tool • Medium Term and Annual Work Plans • Global Public Goods • Marketing the products of our work • To refine our work and to better achieve our goals

3. Structure of the Session 11:30 – 12:15 Presentation of background information, linked to an example, plus questions for clarification 12:15 – 12:45 Working groups to further explore the ideas presented 12:45 – 13:00 Discussion of lessons, comments and linking to the rest of the planning week

4. What is an impact pathway? • A planning tool to help articulate how activities lead to impacts • The “Pathway” from… • Tasks and Activities (the work we do) leading to… • Milestones/Output Targets (annual deliverables) leading to… • Outputs (the products we produce such as improved germplasm, publications, capacity building, improved practices, policy) that lead to… • Outcomes (external use, adoption or influence of the outputs) leading eventually to… • Impacts (ultimate social, environmental and economic benefits)

5. MTP Annual Work Plan APW

7. Ultimate goal Impacts Outcomes Output

8. Outputs Milestone/Output Target Activity Tasks

9. Impact pathways for monitoring • An impact pathway can be used for monitoring progress and results… • Did we do what we said we would and what results were achieved? • Who needs to monitor what was achieved: • IPGRI Grant managers, Project Coordinators, Group and Programme Directors, Priorities and Strategies Committee etc. • Science Council • Donors, partners and others

10. “Impact Pathway” analysis is not new to IPGRI • A logical framework approach • The research design process • we have impact pathways in our heads if not on paper… • what are we doing, why are we doing it, who will benefit, how to we overcome obstacles etc.

11. Critical Thinking: • What are the hypotheses that form the basis of the work you are doing? • How would you know if you were successful? • What will constrain the accomplishment of the work and how will these constraints be overcome? • Who will benefit from or participate in the work? • What is the role of IPGRI in the process, and what is our “zone of influence”?

12. Global Public Goods Access Useful • What are they? • Why are they important? • How do we manage them? Core Business

13. Managing GPGs • Identification • Adequate description (USE) • Who is user? • Look at inputs, contracts, regulations, etc. that may constrain distribution, uptake, use at local level • How will you distribute? • Partnerships • Stewardship

14. Ultimate goal Impacts Outcomes Output

15. Outputs Milestone/Output Target Activity Tasks GPGs

16. Partnerships • 17. Makerere University, Uganda • 18. University of Bonn, Germany • 19. Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Brasil • 20. University of Costa Rica • 21. Universidad Autónoma de Nicaragua-Leon, Nicaragua • 22. University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique • 23. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium • 24. Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Ecuador • 25. University of Philippines at Los Baños, Philippines • 26. Uganda (Bushenyi Farmers’ Association) • 27. Musa producers in Costa Rica • 28. Musa producers in Guinea • 29. Musa producers in Ecuador • 30. Musa producers in the Philippines • 31. Africare, Mozambique • 32. World Vision International, Ghana • 33. Gatsby Trust, Cameroon). • 1. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) • 2. Institut pour l’Etude et la Recherche Agronomique (INERA) • 3. Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) • 4. Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza • 5. Centro Internacional Agricultura Tropical: Rural Enterprises Institute and Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute • 6. Institut Interaméricain de Coopération pour l’Agriculture (IICA), Haiti  • 7. Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI), Australia • 8. Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola (FHIA), Honduras • 9. Fundación para el Desarrollo Agropecuario (FUNDAGRO), Ecuador • 10. Institut de Recherche Agronomique de Guinée (IRAG), Guinea • 11. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana; Selian Agricultural Research Institute (ARDI), Tanzania • 12. Instituto Nacional de Investigaçao (ININA), Mozambique • 13. National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), Uganda • 14. National Research Centre for Banana (NRCP), India • 15. Centre africain de recherches sur bananiers et plantains (CARBAP), Cameroon • 16. Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), France

17. Working Group Questions Move your chairs to form five groups Thinking of the example provided (improved bananas to improved livelihoods) discuss the following questions: • What are several key hypotheses behind the work? • What are the Global Public Goods that are likely to be developed through this work, and who are the users of these goods? • How would we make sure that the products we produce arrive into the hands of the people who are intended to use them, and that they would then actually make use of them?

18. Closing Discussion • What lessons come out of the working groups? • How does this relate to “real world” experience? • How does this relate to the rest of the planning week?