Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

The objectives of this project are to learning on the Learning Capacity of Development Donors through and externally conducted Knowledge and Monitoring System of SG2000 innovations in Uganda and Ethiopia to assess impacts, inform SG2000 on its interventions in Africa, on successes, constraints, lessons learned, recommendations and to refocus their work and achieve highest impact based on their own declared goals.

Justification for participation in the Learning Laboratory:

The project under question is a unique case of an external evaluation, commissioned by a Donor to CIMMYT to evaluate the effects of their past and current efforts in funding development in Africa , because of a need to assess and document impacts as well as to learn from past and current efforts to improve targeting and effectiveness of their work. The effort brings together effectively a variety of key development players that, after some initial reluctance to participate for the fear of evaluation, are now convinced of the approach and need for the assessment and eager to learn from it for improving their own performance so to have real impact on their own declared goals. This is demonstrated by early change in policy by the implementing agency to refocus their work based on the findings of the assessment being conducted by CIMMYT.

The benefits expected from participating in the Learning Laboratory include training and skill building for the field teams and development agency, principally increased visibility for the work, among stakeholders and within the broader agricultural innovation community and particularly as outstanding providers of impact assessment and evaluation leadership, increased knowledge and skills from participation in the Learning Laboratory and evaluations and impact studies, expanded publication output, strengthened capacity to foster pro-poor innovation and to conduct useful evaluations and impact assessments, access to human and financial resources for capacity development, evaluation and impact assessment. The Learning Laboratory case would in fact be the collaborative project that uses the SG2000 – CIMMYT project as a learning case.

Dejene Aredo, Addis Ababa University (on the picture)