Chapter 10 - How Agricultural Research for Development Can Make a Change: Assessing Livelihood Impacts in the Northwest Highlands of Vietnam

Abstract

This chapter explores how impact assessment of agricultural research for development (AR4D), which applies a holistic approach, can provide important insights about the contribution of research to changes in people's livelihood. It argues that an impact assessment framework that takes into consideration a broad set of livelihood indicators is better able to show how a more participatory approach to AR4D can lead to more sustainable impacts for farmers. This is particularly important in regions that experience varied stages of social change and development, such as the Northwest Highlands of Vietnam. This study developed a holistic impact assessment framework and tested the framework on three agricultural research projects (one Australian, one French, and one Vietnamese-funded project) in Son La Province. The study used participatory techniques involving focus group discussions and semistructured interviews with farmers, in-depth interviews with key informants, documentary review for data collection, and subjected the results to a thematic analysis. The study found that, among the three case projects, one project adopted participatory processes and communication strategies to facilitate the engagement of stakeholders in a research process and targeted the immediate use of research outputs for development. This project achieved better livelihood impacts for local communities. The results of the study indicate that a holistic impact assessment framework utilizing the sustainable livelihoods framework and participatory methods could help to assess the contribution of AR4D projects to development outcomes given the careful attention paid to understanding the complexity of local areas.