Enhancing <I>ex post</I> impact assessment of agricultural research: the CGIAR experience

Abstract

Impact assessment of individual research activities have existed in the 15 international research centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for many years. In 1995, however, the members of the CGIAR decided to give much stronger emphasis to impact assessment at the system level and established what is now called the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA). This paper reviews the panel's efforts to bring ex post impact assessment more to the forefront of the CGIAR, and the lessons learned from this effort are discussed together with some of the remaining methodological issues that need to be addressed. The paper ends with a discussion of the desirable direction for impact assessment in the CGIAR, including broadening the work in terms of purpose and goals, the types of research assessed and the types of impact indicators used.