Capacity Development: what, where, how? Per Rudebjer, Head, a.i., Knowledge Management &

Capacity Strengthening, Bioversity International

Agricultural Biodiversity to Manage Risks and Empower the Poor

To strengthen the capacities of

women and men farmers,

including indigenous

communities, and other value

chain actors to manage risks

associated with climate change,

poor nutrition status and

economic disempowerment

Issue 1. Assumed outcomes and impacts

It’s a miracle!

I HAVE TAUGHT

BUSTER TO

WHISTLE

I DON’T HEAR

HIM

WHISTLING

I SAID I HAD

TAUGHT HIM, NOT

THAT HE HAD

LEARNT

Issue 2. Teaching vs. learning

What is ‘capacity’?

Capacity is the ability of people, organizations and

society as a whole to manage their affairs successfully

Capacity development is the process whereby

people, organisations and society as a whole unleash,

strengthen, create, adapt and maintain capacity over

time

(OECD, 2006b:12)

• Beyond human resource development

• Individuals’ knowledge and skills depend on quality of

the organizations and the enabling environment in

which they operate.

• Not only about skills and procedures; it is also about

incentives and governance

Dimensions of capacity development

(1)

Genetic

diversity

(2)

Selection &

cultivation

(4)

Value

addition

(5)

Marketing

(6)

Final use

1.1 Rescued diversity

1.2 Map diversity

1.3 IK Documentation

1.4 Conservation

(ex situ / in situ)

2.1 Better varieties

2.2 Best practices

2.3 High Quality Seed

3.1 Improved

technology

4.1 Novel food items

4.2 Food Recipes

4.3 Quality standards

4.4 SHG, Cooperatives

5.1 Efficient value chains

5.2 Commercialization

5.3 Branding

5.4 Multi-stakeholders

5.5 Platforms of Cooper.

6.1 Nutrition awareness

6.2 Enabling Policies

6.3 Promotion, Education

6.4 Agritourism

IMPACT

Improved

nutrition,

incomes

and other

livelihood

benefits

Outcomes Community empowerment: more

resilient to eco-socio-economic

changes and food systems

Outcomes Preservation of

options for

resilient systems

Outcomes Self-reliance of value

chain actors on broader

set of options, resilience

to market changes

SYSTEM

RESILIENCE

(3)

Harvest

Some voices from Day 1

It’s very micro; how to scale up?

Citizen science can reduce costs of

research and increase upscaling

Activities that educate Activities that celebrate Activities that elevate

Behaviour change needs communication

Agricultural Biodiversity to Manage Risks and Empower the Poor

Theory of Change

Socio-economic and

agro-ecological

context

Actors, organizations

and networks that

influence change

Desired

change

Activities at

farm, community,

NARS, national

and international

levels, to trigger

change

Agricultural Biodiversity to Manage Risks and Empower the Poor

Theory of Change

Socio-economic and

agro-ecological

context

Actors, organizations

and networks that

influence change

Poor local &

indigenous

communities

will have

improved

capacities to

manage

weather-

related risks

and improve

their

livelihoods

Activities at

farm, community,

NARS, national

and international

levels, to trigger

change

A complex system of related actions

Skills in cultivation,

value addition and marketing

Participation in income

generating activities

Raising demand for nutritious

products

Development of climate-resilient

and adaptive practices

Availability of high-quality

seeds

National

Landscape

Farm & community

Who’s capacity?

• NARS

• Enabling environment/policy

• Universities National

• Development practitioners

• Private sector Landscape

• Indigenous/local women & men farmers

• Value chain actors

• CBOs

Farm / community

Lessons from other interventions

Quinoa (Chenopodium

quinoa)

Cañihua (Chenopodium

pallidicaule) Amaranth (Amaranthus

caudatus)

Andean grains IFAD NUS Project, Latin America 2001-2010

Slides credit: Stefano Padulosi

• Linked aspects that R&D otherwise often handle separately

• Perseverance: Two phases over 10 years

• Regular national and regional meetings and community-based events created necessary linkages and synergies among all stakeholders across the value chain

• 30 students did Thesis research

• Enhanced social processes + technical solutions = success

• Private sector role

IFAD-NUS: Andean grains in Bolivia & Peru

- some capacity-related lessons

• Participatory mapping of actors and their functions

• Joint assessment of constraints and bottlenecks

• Development of upgrading strategies and action plans

• Synergy and trust

• Impact beyond project sites

• Dissemination tools for range of target groups

Multi-stakeholder cooperation platforms for

amaranth, quinoa, canahua value chains

• Bambara groundnut and amaranth (vegatable + grain)

• Benin, Kenya, Zimbabwe (sub-regional hubs)

• National Action Plans for upgrading value chains

• Research capacity

• Higher education curricula

• Policy & awareness

ACP-EU NUS value chain project 2014-2016

• Constraints and solutions identified

• A lot going on, but fragmented efforts

• Demand and consumer awareness key issues

• Many researchable issues, but scientists need to

ground their work on a proper analysis of VC, and better

communicate results

• Bridging gaps:

Agriculture + nutrition;

academia + private sector

Lessons from three national stakeholder

workshops

Institutional Learning & Change Initiative of the CGIAR 19

A system to monitor learning and

change in CGIAR/CRP

• Innovations result from the interactions among different

types of actors conditioned by technology and institutions

• The interactions among researchers and their partners can

be represented as networks and some features can be

measured

• The networks change as the innovation processes evolve

• The networks’ structure, composition and changes are

correlated with the ToC

Institutional Learning & Change Initiative of the CGIAR 20

Features of the monitoring system

under development • Every two years each researcher will be asked to list

his/her active collaborations

• Uses tables, simple statistical tools and Social

Network Analysis methods to analyze the activities of

the 16 CRPs and centers

• Studies changes in the partnerships and research

activities (RTB experience)

• ToC will be compared with the actual collaborations

and organization of research activities

Institutional Learning & Change Initiative of the CGIAR 21

Collaborations between researchers and

non-research actors

Institutional Learning & Change Initiative of the CGIAR 22

RTB induced sub-network (nodes colour-coded by discipline)

• Fine-tune the Theory of Change in each site

• Stakeholder analysis:

– Who are the actors, at different scales?

– What are their roles in a change process?

• Network analysis:

– How do actors interact and connect?

• 3-P: Partners + Process + Products

• Indicators for tracking change in capacity

What a capacity development framework might

entail

• Realistic expectations and ambitions

– Still pilot scale ( 1.5 m EUR in Year 1)

• Learning: How to document and share CapDev

experiences across sites?

To think about

Thank you