Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

News from the ILAC Initiative:

1. Vacancy ILAC Coordinator

Bioversity International is recruiting a new ILAC Coordinator. Jamie Watts, Coordinator since 2003, has accepted a position as Senior Evaluation Officer with the World Food Programme. Jamie made a valuable contribution to ILAC Programme and the CGIAR. We wish her every success with her new plans.

The main responsibilities of the Coordinator is to:
•    Provide strategic and operational management of ILAC activities including setting strategic direction, conducting research and promoting integration in the CGIAR reform process;
•    Deliver scientific, policy and capacity-related outputs;
•    Lead and supervise Project staff, Honorary Fellows and consultants;
•    Develop grant proposals to obtain funding and other resources;
•    Establish and maintain excellent relations with partners, donors and other key stakeholders within and outside of the CGIAR;
•    Maintain networks of experts and develop new opportunities for studentships, fellowships, Associate Experts and others as needed;
More information about the position and how to apply can be found at http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/vacancy-coordinator-ILAC

2. ILAC Mid-Term Review

ILAC Initiative is undergoing a Mid-Term Review (MTR) of its activities from 2003 up to the present. The focus of this MTR is on ILAC’s future directions in order to position ILAC in the new CGIAR. Therefore, the MTR addresses these issues:

• To what extent are the objectives of the ILAC Initiative relevant in the context of recent and expected future changes in the CGIAR?
• Given the expected changes in the CGIAR, what strategies should be employed by ILAC in order to make the greatest contribution to a reformed CGIAR?
• Should continuing efforts be made to institutionalize ILAC in the CGIAR and partner organizations?
• If so, what are the main options for institutionalizing ILAC?

The MTR is being carried out by an external reviewer and the final report, with conclusions and recommendations will be available in February 2010.

3. Workshop on Inclusive Partnership

A two day workshop will be held February 3-4, 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya to bring together key stakeholders to discuss how agricultural research for development partnerships can be made more effective and thus contribute more to development impact. The workshop is being co-sponsored with the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR). AccountAbility is providing facilitation and communication support.

The Partnership Workshop aims to increase understanding of how to connect research with development through partnerships including issues, best practices and ways forward. Strong and direct linkages with the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) will help ensure that the lessons learned are made available to a wide range of agricultural research organizations and their partners.

The workshop will focus on highlighting success factors, principles and broad recommendations, which will be presented to a wider constituency at GCARD as part of reframing the agricultural research for development system for greater impact for the poor.

The workshop webpage www.cgiar-ilac.org/workshop/wip contains the complete list of participants, prospectus, reference list and other information.

4. Impact Evaluation Approaches for Agricultural Research for Development Project Approved

A proposal for development of new methods for impact evaluation has been recently approved by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The grant of $1 million over 4 years will support:

• Impact evaluation for several participatory pro poor research-for-development - programmes (and the development of new methodologies appropriate to this type of work)
• Further development of a web portal on impact evaluation methodologies,
• Training and documentation of methodologies and results

The grant resulted from a collaboration between the ILAC Initiative, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Research into Use Programme established at the March 2008 Rethinking Impact Workshop held in Cali, Colombia. Research into Use provided funding for a scoping study that led to the grant proposal. The grant builds on the strong funding support to ILAC from DGIS.

5. ILAC Learning Laboratory Activities

ILAC Learning Laboratory Meeting - Nairobi, 21-25 September, 2009

The second meeting of the ILAC Initiative Learning Laboratory brought together professionals from collaborative research-for-development programmes to share knowledge and experiences, experiment with new approaches for facilitating pro-poor innovation, and evaluate the results. The following programmes are currently participating in the Learning Laboratory (more information at http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/learning-laboratory

The meeting had three main objectives:

1. Draw lessons from participants’ experiences with collaborative programs / partnerships, to inform the development of partnership strategies and policies in agricultural R&D organizations
2. Conduct a self-assessment of the ILAC Project
3. Plan future activities of the Learning Laboratory and the ILAC Project more broadly

The lesson-learning exercise included an analysis of the following aspects of partnership:

• Goals of collaboration / partnership
• Types of partners involved and nature of their involvement
• Partnership structures and processes (governance, accountability and communication)
• Success factors for partnerships
• Value added by working in partnership
• Implications for partnership strategies and policies

The report on the workshop is available in ILAC website (http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/files/LLab_meeting_Nairobi_Outline.pdf). In addition, a discussion paper on partnership, based on results of the workshop, was prepared and will be presented early next year at a Partnership Forum, co-organized by ILAC and GFAR, to be held in Nairobi (please see more details at the upcoming events section). The paper can be downloaded from http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/working-papers 

6. 'Group Facilitation Skills for Participatory Decision-Making' Workshop

The 2009 training workshop which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, from 26 to 29 May. An evaluation was carried out and the report is available at http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/evaluations. The feedback received was very positive. Here are some comments from participants immediately after the course:

• I feel lucky to have attended this workshop. Heart-felt gratitude for all who helped me attend and enjoy it.
  
• The course was wonderful and valuably contributed towards improvement of my facilitation skills.
  
• For sure I have gained a lot and I assure you that I will improve my way of doing things
  
• I found it extremely useful. The skills and knowledge gained will help me improve the way I deliver workshops and training programmes
  
• The course was brilliant.
  
• The workshop was great with highly skilled facilitator and assistant facilitator. Thanks for having sponsored our participation.
  
• I benefited greatly and found the course extremely useful. I acquired a number of skills that I want to put into practice immediately.

The course was delivered by Dr. Sarah Fisk, of Community at Work (San Francisco, California). The next course will be in June 2010, hosted by IRRI in the Philippines. For more information on the course, please go to http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/facilitation-training-workshop

7. ILAC Initiative Publications

ILAC Briefs:

• ILAC Brief 23: Participation in Virtual Environments: Three efficient Web tools for horizontal communication and collaboration by Peter Shelton, Petr Kosina, Simone Staiger-Rivas and Nancy White (http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/ilac-brief)

And in the final stage of publications

• ILAC Brief 24: An Accountability Framework for Technological Innovation by Brendan Whitty.

These publications will be available for free download on the ILAC website (www.cgiar-ilac.org). A limited number of paper copies may be obtained upon request. Contact ilac@cgiar.org for more information.

8. New at the ILAC Website (www.cgiar-ilac.org)

• New references on organizational learning, agricultural innovation and partnership added in ILAC Library http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/biblio
• New methods and tools on M&E and Impact Evaluation available at http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/content/tools-and-methods-me

To subscribe to ILAC News, first subscribe to the website following these simple steps:

• Go to www.cgiar-ilac.org
• To create a new account, choose a username and password at bottom right ‘user login’.
• Alternatively go to link http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/user/register

For those who have an account already, simply log in and enjoy the site. Comments and suggestions for improving the site are welcome.

9. News from the Broader Community

Preval has a bilingual web page (Spanish and English) specialized in M&E for Rural Development with News, a Virtual Library, Good Practices, Useful links and a Multimedia section, and others see http://preval.org/en

American Evaluation Association Conference

Jamie Watts attended the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association -- the world’s largest conference of professional evaluators. This year’s conference was in Orlando, Florida from November 12 through 14. The conference included 655 sessions spread over 3.5 days plus 52 professional development workshops. More than 1,500 people attended the event.

Some of the sessions most relevant to ILAC included:

• Qualitative and quantitative approach to impact evaluation of International Development Interventions: the case of Heifer International in 20 countries 2005 -2009. The presentation was chaired by Michael Bamberger, a well-known evaluator and author.
• Complementary Approaches to Evaluation in the World Bank. The session was chaired by Cheryl Gray. One of the three presentations was made on Evaluating Effectiveness: Case Study of Agriculture in India by Regina Birner of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
• Evaluation for Dynamically Complex Contexts, an expert lecture by Michael Quinn Patton, recently author of an ILAC Brief on Utilization Focused Evaluation.

A round table discussion on Alternatives to the Conventional Statistical Counterfactual: Assessing effects and impacts in real-world evaluations. Discussants were Fred Carden, Michael Bamberger and Jim Rugh.

Several sessions were organized by people associated with ILAC. Patricia Rogers organized a session on Improving External Validity: A Realist Understanding of the Role of Context in Theories of Change. Bob Williams organized a session on Complex Systems Evaluation and Dynamic Logic Modeling: Lessons From the Field. Sophie Alvarez, organized a skills-building workshop on How to Do Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis. And last but not least, Doug Horton organized a session on The Evolution of Evaluation in International Development Organizations, which presented the experiences of the CGIAR, World Bank, IDRC and Care.

For more information about the conference, please see the web site http://www.eval.org/eval2009/