Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Karen Brooks, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets.

4 April, 2014

FAO, Rome

What is PIM?

One of 16 cross-cutting research programs of

CGIAR

Applied social science research with focus on

impact

Intensive program of research activities

produced noteworthy

publications and discussion papers.

Young program; first 3 year cycle

Partnerships: Research

Implementation OutreachFunding

About USD90 million annually;

Many funding sources

We lead action-oriented research to inform decisions on food and

agricultural policies that will better serve the interests of poor producers and

consumers, both men and women.

Our partners within CGIAR

Just joined

Our major implementation partners

National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems

NGOs, CBOs

Implementation partners are our pathway to

impact.

PIM’s flagship projects:

F1: Foresight Modeling

F2: Science Policy and Incentives for

Innovation

F3: Adoption of Technology and Sustainable

Intensification

F4: Policy and Public Expenditure

F5: Value Chains

F6: Social Protection

F7: Natural Resource Property Regimes

F8: Crosscutting Gender, Partnerships, and

Capacity Building

Key current areas of focus

Status in 2013

Flagship 1:

Foresight

Modeling

• Modeling team nearly completed or advanced characterization

of 20 priority technologies.

• Progress achieved in developing new methods to assess

management practices and systemic interactions.

• The PNAS paper “Climate change effects on agriculture:

Economic responses to biophysical shocks” (in collaboration

with CCAFS) received the highest level of attention, as

measured by Altmetrics, of all IFPRI publications in 2013.

Key improvements to IMPACT model:

• updating the base year to 2005;

• including all CGIAR mandated crops;

• increasing the spatial resolution to the level of individual country;

• including water basins within countries as units;

• enhancing treatment of water and hydrological management of weather

and climate shocks.

Flagship 2:

Science Policy

and Incentives

for Innovation

• The Agricultural Science and Technology

Indicators Initiative (ASTI) finalized data

collection and analysis in African countries.

Agricultural R&D capacity and investments

have increased since 2008, although

underinvestment, volatile flows, and aging of

the scientific cadre remain problematical.

• The Program on Biosafety Systems (PBS)

released ten publications in 2013, including

several books addressing socio-economic

impacts of genetically modified crops. PBS

continued to make progress on the use of the

Netmap tool for problem solving, and

completed an activity with the African

Agriculture Technology Foundation to inform

their efforts on public outreach.

Status in 2013

Flagship 3:

Adoption of

Technology

and

Sustainable

Intensification

• PIM work led by CIAT based on the R4D multi-

stakeholder learning platforms continued in Latin

America, Africa, and Asia. The workshop “New

business models: building inclusive and sustainable

trading relationships between buyers and small scale

producers in Central America”(Nicaragua, Sept) kicked

off a two year learning cycle with the member

organizations of the Regional Learning Alliance of

Central America.

• The HarvestChoice team coordinated a CGIAR-wide

initiative on geo-referencing CRP research

activities, which included cataloging the CGIAR

technologies and developing a prototype tool to

visualize the data (country-level mapping of CRPs;

activity-level mapping of PIM) (see illustrations on the

following pages)

Status in 2013

Flagship 4:

Policy and

Public

Expenditure

• The Arab Spatial open-access

database and interactive mapping tool

launched in February 2013 displays

data on more than 150 indicators of

development in the Middle East and

North Africa.

• An ICRISAT project on women’s

empowerment in rural India builds on

existing individual and household panel

data for 6 villages from 1975 to 2011

and 18 villages from 2009 to 2011. In

2013, with methodological input from

PIM’s gender leader, ICRISAT collected

a new panel to examine changes over

time in time use, nutrition, and related

institutional arrangements.

Status in 2013

Flagship 5:

Value Chains

• The Value Chains Knowledge

Clearinghouse, an initiative led by

PIM with inputs from Bioversity,

CIAT, CIP, ICRAF, ICRISAT, IFPRI,

IITA, and ILRI, provides a

comprehensive, easily accessible

repository of research methods

and best practices.

• CIP produced five policy briefs and

2 journal articles on results of the

Participatory Market Chain

Approach (PMCA) in the Andes,

Uganda, and Indonesia.

Status in 2013

Flagship 6:

Social

Protection

• The work of the IFPRI social

protection team comparing the

effectiveness of different forms of

transfers (cash, food, and

vouchers), and especially

evidence from a randomized

experiment in northern Ecuador,

was cited in The Economist –

conveying the finding that

vouchers are more effective than

the two other types of transfers in

that context

Status in 2013

Flagship 7:

Natural

Resource

Property

Regimes

• CAPRi’s sourcebook “Resources,

Rights, and Cooperation: A

Sourcebook on Property Rights and

Collective Action for Sustainable

Development” was translated into

Chinese, adding to the English and

Spanish versions already available.

• As part of a PIM-funded activity led by Bioversity, a

common framework for monitoring agrobiodiversity has

been developed and discussed at the experts meeting in

Huancayo, Peru in November. This framework was used

by RTB to prepare an in situ conservation flagship project

for roots, tubers, and bananas, and is expected to form

the basis for developing a global network for monitoring

agricultural biodiversity.

Status in 2013

Flagship 8:

Crosscutting

Gender,

Partnerships,

and Capacity

Building

• The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)

Resource Center released an instructional guide on how

to implement, calculate, and analyze the index.

In addition to that, it published an

analytical case study for Ghana,

demonstrating how the index can

be used to understand linkages

between women’s empowerment

and key outcomes, and

supplementary resource materials

including a video tutorial on how to

implement the time-use module. A

Spanish version of the WEAI

presentation is now also available.

Status in 2013

Areas for further collaboration?

• Adoption of technology; systematic tracking

• Extension/advisory services; what models work well

under what circumstances

• Value chains: FAO’s lessons of experience

− Include in website of tools and approaches?

− Systematic overview?

• Agricultural science (e.g., Science Agenda for African

Agriculture)

• Post-harvest losses; rigorous measurement

• Social protection and insurance; instruments that

work well

• Youth employment: stronger analytical underpinning

for interventions

Relevant dates for coordination

Late April 2014:

draft proposal for 2015-16

Summer 2014:

elaboration of specific work;

identification of partners

Early 2016:

design of program for 2017-2020

Thank You!

www.pim.cgiar.org

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