Box 4.1: Key Messages
Overall, RBM can offer many elements and approaches to help with strategic
program design, but it needs to be adapted to the specific context of a
program, institution, or organization. It requires some enabling conditions
and an environment to support an outcome-focused R4D program.
Key lessons and enablers:
• Buy-in from the top, healthy balance between given structures but
allowing for creativity in designing processes.
• Investing in facilitation and process – and bringing the three elements of
MEL together is key and requires resources (time and money).
• Flexible condition, rigid system to allow adaptive management and learning (liberating structures).
• The ‘three thirds’ principle: one third partnerships, ownership and buy-in
externally from partners, one third capacity enhancement at all levels
internally and externally, and one third cutting-edge science.
• System support – building an online platform and working towards a onestop-shop (database).
4.2 Background
CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food secure future. Its
science is carried out by 15 research centers with 10,000 scientists working in
96 countries and a host of partners in national and regional research institutes, civil
society organizations, academia, development organizations, and the private sector
(CGIAR 2015a). Its work contributes to the global effort to tackle poverty, hunger
and major nutritional imbalances, and environmental degradation. The 15 CGIAR
Centers have different foci and operate semi-autonomously in pursuing their
specific research agendas, ranging from promoting the productivity of specific
crops, livestock, and fish commodities to production systems in specific agroecologies and research on policies natural resource management (Raitzer and
Kelly 2008).
CGIAR was formed in 1971 to foster technical solutions to agricultural productivity constraints affecting developing countries (Renkow and Byerlee 2010).
Research tended to focus on creating outputs, was often technology focused and
supply driven; success was measured by peer-reviewed publications, citations and
science products. Criticism has been mounting over the last decades, as the limitations of the output delivery model became evident: outputs do not automatically
translate into impact. It was often assumed that communication and development
specialists would repackage research findings after the researcher produced them
and that farmers would realize the value of new technologies and happily adopt
56
T. Schuetz et al.
Overall, RBM can offer many elements and approaches to help with strategic
program design, but it needs to be adapted to the specific context of a
program, institution, or organization. It requires some enabling conditions
and an environment to support an outcome-focused R4D program.
Key lessons and enablers:
• Buy-in from the top, healthy balance between given structures but
allowing for creativity in designing processes.
• Investing in facilitation and process – and bringing the three elements of
MEL together is key and requires resources (time and money).
• Flexible condition, rigid system to allow adaptive management and learning (liberating structures).
• The ‘three thirds’ principle: one third partnerships, ownership and buy-in
externally from partners, one third capacity enhancement at all levels
internally and externally, and one third cutting-edge science.
• System support – building an online platform and working towards a onestop-shop (database).
4.2 Background
CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food secure future. Its
science is carried out by 15 research centers with 10,000 scientists working in
96 countries and a host of partners in national and regional research institutes, civil
society organizations, academia, development organizations, and the private sector
(CGIAR 2015a). Its work contributes to the global effort to tackle poverty, hunger
and major nutritional imbalances, and environmental degradation. The 15 CGIAR
Centers have different foci and operate semi-autonomously in pursuing their
specific research agendas, ranging from promoting the productivity of specific
crops, livestock, and fish commodities to production systems in specific agroecologies and research on policies natural resource management (Raitzer and
Kelly 2008).
CGIAR was formed in 1971 to foster technical solutions to agricultural productivity constraints affecting developing countries (Renkow and Byerlee 2010).
Research tended to focus on creating outputs, was often technology focused and
supply driven; success was measured by peer-reviewed publications, citations and
science products. Criticism has been mounting over the last decades, as the limitations of the output delivery model became evident: outputs do not automatically
translate into impact. It was often assumed that communication and development
specialists would repackage research findings after the researcher produced them
and that farmers would realize the value of new technologies and happily adopt
56
T. Schuetz et al.