Aquatic Agricultural Systems Research Articles

Evaluating complex interventions: A theory-driven realist-informed approach

There is a growing recognition that programs that seek to change people’s lives are intervening in complex systems, which puts a particular set of requirements on program monitoring and evaluation. Developing complexity-aware program monitoring and evaluation systems within existing organizations is difficult because they challenge traditional orthodoxy. Little has been written about the practical experience of doing so. This article describes the development of a complexity-aware evaluation approach in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems. We outline the design and methods used including trend lines, panel data, after action reviews, building and testing theories of change, outcome evidencing and realist synthesis. We identify and describe a set of design principles for developing complexity-aware program monitoring and evaluation. Finally, we discuss important lessons and recommendations for other programs facing similar challenges. These include developing evaluation designs that meet both learning and accountability requirements; making evaluation a part of a program’s overall approach to achieving impact; and, ensuring evaluation cumulatively builds useful theory as to how different types of program trigger change in different contexts.

Towards a complexity-aware theory of change for participatory research programs working within agricultural innovation systems

Agricultural innovation systems (AIS) are increasingly recognized as complex adaptive systems in which interventions cannot be expected to create predictable, linear impacts. Nevertheless, the logic models and theory of change (ToC) used by standard-setting international agricultural research agencies and donors assume that agricultural research will create impact through a predictable linear adoption pathway which largely ignores the complexity dynamics of AIS, and which misses important alternate pathways through which agricultural research can improve system performance and generate sustainable development impact. Despite a growing body of literature calling for more dynamic, flexible and “complexity-aware” approaches to monitoring and evaluation, few concrete examples exist of ToC that takes complexity dynamics within AIS into account, or provide guidance on how such theories could be developed. This paper addresses this gap by presenting an example of how an empirically-grounded, complexity-aware ToC can be developed and what such a model might look like in the context of a particular type of program intervention. Two detailed case studies are presented from an agricultural research program which was explicitly seeking to work in a “complexity-aware” way within aquatic agricultural systems in Zambia and the Philippines. Through an analysis of the outcomes of these interventions, the pathways through which they began to produce impacts, and the causal factors at play, we derive a “complexity-aware” ToC to model how the cases worked. This middle-range model, as well as an overarching model that we derive from it, offer an alternate narrative of how development change can be produced in agricultural systems, one which aligns with insights from complexity science and which, we argue, more closely represents the ways in which many research for development interventions work in practice. The nested ToC offers a starting point for asking a different set of evaluation and research questions which may be more relevant to participatory research efforts working from within a complexity-aware, agricultural innovation systems perspective.

A new professionalism for agricultural research for development

ABSTRACTThere have been repeated calls for a ‘new professionalism’ for carrying out agricultural research for development since the 1990s. At the centre of these calls is a recognition that for agricultural research to support the capacities required to face global patterns of change and their implications on rural livelihoods, requires a more systemic, learning focused and reflexive practice that bridges epistemologies and methodologies. In this paper, we share learning from efforts to mainstream such an approach through a large, multi-partner CGIAR research program working in aquatic agricultural systems. We reflect on four years of implementing research in development (RinD), the program’s approach to the new professionalism. We highlight successes and challenges and describe the key characteristics that define the approach. We conclude it is possible to build a program on a broader approach that embraces multidisciplinarity and engages with stakeholders in social-ecological systems. Our experience also suggests caution is required to ensure there is the time, space and appropriate evaluation methodologies in place to appreciate outcomes different to those to which conventional agricultural research aspires.

Response to: Getting beneath the surface in program planning, monitoring and evaluation: Learning from use of Participatory Action Research and Theory of Change in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems

Response to: Getting beneath the surface in program planning, monitoring and evaluation: Learning from use of Participatory Action Research and Theory of Change in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems

Erratum to: Increasing productivity and improving livelihoods in aquatic agricultural systems: a review of interventions

Erratum to: Increasing productivity and improving livelihoods in aquatic agricultural systems: a review of interventions

Increasing productivity and improving livelihoods in aquatic agricultural systems: a review of interventions

The doubling of global food demand by 2050 is driving resurgence in interventions for agricultural intensification. Globally, 700 million people are dependent on floodplain or coastal systems. Increased productivity in these aquatic agricultural systems is important for meeting current and future food demand. Agricultural intensification in aquatic agricultural systems has contributed to increased agricultural production, yet these increases have not necessarily resulted in broader development outcomes for those most in need. Here we review studies of interventions that have sought to improve productivity in aquatic agricultural systems in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Zambia. We review evidence of development outcomes from these interventions and the particular role of participatory approaches in intervention design and deployment. There was evidence of increases in productivity in 20 of the 31 studies reviewed. Yet, productivity was only measured beyond the life of the intervention in one case, income and food security improvements were rarely quantified, and the social distribution of benefits rarely described. Participatory approaches were employed in 15 studies, and there was some evidence that development outcomes were more substantial than in cases that were less participatory. To explore the impact of participatory approaches further, we examined five empirical cases. Review and empirical cases provide preliminary evidence suggesting participatory approaches contribute to ensuring agriculture and aquaculture interventions into aquatic agricultural systems may better fit local contexts, are sustained longer, and are more able to deliver development benefits to those most in need. A worthy focus of future research would be comparison between outcomes achieved from interventions with differing levels of participation, and the social differentiation of outcomes.

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Challenges of governance often constitute critical obstacles to efforts to equitably improve livelihoods in social-ecological systems. Yet, just as often, these challenges go unspoken, or are viewed as fixed parts of the context, beyond the scope of influence of agricultural, development, or natural resource management initiatives. What does it take to get governance obstacles and opportunities out in the open, creating the space for constructive dialogue and collective action that can help to address them? We respond to this question by comparing experiences of participatory action research (PAR) in coastal and floodplain systems in four countries (Zambia, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Cambodia) with a focus on understanding how to build more equitable governance arrangements. We found that governance improvement was often an implicit or secondary objective of initiatives that initially sought to address more technical natural resource or livelihood-related development challenges. We argue that using PAR principles of ownership, equity, shared analysis, and feedback built trust and helped to identify and act upon opportunities to address more difficult-to-shift dimensions of governance particularly in terms of stakeholder representation, distribution of authority, and accountability. Our findings suggest that the engaged and embedded approach of researcher-facilitators can help move from identifying opportunities for governance change to supporting stakeholders as they build more equitable governance arrangements.

Getting beneath the surface in program planning, monitoring and evaluation: Learning from use of participatory action research and theory of change in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems

Many rural poor and marginalized people strive to make a living in social-ecological systems that are characterized by multiple and often inequitable interactions across agents, scale and space. Uncertainty and inequality in such systems require research and development interventions to be adaptive, support learning and to engage with underlying drivers of poverty. Such complexity-aware approaches to planning, monitoring and evaluating development interventions are gaining strength, yet, there is still little empirical evidence of what it takes to implement them in practice. In this paper, we share learning from an agricultural research program that used participatory action research and theory of change to foster learning and support transformative change in aquatic agricultural systems. We reflect on our use of critical reflection within participatory agricultural research interventions, and our use of theory of change to collectively surface and revisit assumptions about how change happens. We share learning on the importance of being strengths-based in engaging stakeholders across scales and building a common goal as a starting point, and then staging a more critical practice as capacity is built and opportunities for digging deeper emerge.

Building Bridges to an Uncertain Future Lived Now: Lessons from the Use of Participatory Action Research and Theory of Change Towards A Realistic Community-Based Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation System

Building on experience from the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems implemented by WorldFish in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines, known as the VisMin Hub, we describe the development and evolution of a monitoring and evaluation (ME the latter facilitates learning to understand what, how and why change is unfolding. Unlike the conventional M&E system where indicators are pre-set at the beginning of program implementation, these processes result in an organically-evolved, communitybased participatory M&E system that is continuously revised according to contexts to guide communities towards realizing their visions. Its ultimate outcome is enhanced people’s capacity to own the product and process, giving rise to an internally-driven change. Towards the end, the paper offers an iterative discussion of learnings from implementing such an approach.

The evolution of aquatic agricultural systems in Southwest Bangladesh in response to salinity and other drivers of change

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) in coastal Southwest Bangladesh have evolved in response to a number of stimuli and constraints including improving market access, technological change, and salinization. Farming systems in the region are highly dynamic, and are characterized by the integration of varying combinations of freshwater prawns, rice, fish, vegetables, and brackish water shrimp. This paper examines the developmental history, productivity, and profitability of three distinct AAS: a low-salinity freshwater prawn-dominated system; an intermediate-salinity-mixed prawn and shrimp system, and a high-salinity shrimp-dominated system. Productivity, cropping intensity, and profitability are found to be highest in the diversified low- and intermediate-salinity systems, and lower in the high-salinity system, where cultivation of rice and vegetables is no longer possible. The paper concludes that more diverse integrated systems reduce risk and vulnerability for farming households. Salinization is found to be a double-edged sword – proving a stimulus to diversification at low levels, but reducing agro-biodiversity at higher salt concentrations. While the adaptation strategies in all systems have been successful in maintaining or improving most, though not all, system functions due to high levels of social resilience, support for effective community-based adaptation strategies will enable continued transformation and adaptation to future drivers of change.

A rights-based perspective on adaptive capacity

Whilst it is increasingly recognised that socio-political contexts shape climate change adaptation decisions and actions at all scales, current modes of development typically fail to recognise or adequately challenge these contexts where they constrain capacity to adapt. To address this failing, we consider how a rights-based approach broadens understanding of adaptive capacity while directing attention towards causes of exclusion and marginalisation. Drawing on human rights principles and lessons from rights-based practice, we develop a novel analytical tool for use with communities that considers adaptive capacity through examination of equality, transparency, accountability and empowerment. We apply this to the illustrative case of aquatic agricultural systems in Timor-Leste. This approach yields a qualitative analysis that unpacks the formal and informal institutions and actors that structure opportunities and barriers to adaptive actions. The rights framing exposes the processes of marginalisation and exclusion that lead to differentiation in adaptive capacity, but at the same time helps identify concrete actions that can be taken as part of a rights-based approach to development support for adaptive capacity. The tool and empirical illustration support an emerging body of thought that adaptive capacity requires development actors to engage not only with the technical challenges of responding to climate change, but also with the social and political context that determines the distribution of costs and benefits.

Green Economy: Challenges and Prospects for Improved Aquatic Agricultural System (AAS) in Niger Delta Communities

There is dire need for deliberate green action plan to solve the endemic environmental crises occasioned by unsustainable utilization of natural resources and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta; a region with its characteristic terrain and eco-fragility that is highly susceptible to adverse environmental and climate change-related disasters. But, to successfully implement a green economy plan in the Niger Delta region, there has to be a well-thought out strategy with due appraisal of baseline environmental issues and concerns. The people of the delta depend, primarily, on the exploitation of the region’s rich bio-resources with fishing and farming forming the major sources of livelihoods. Observations by independent and intergovernmental global environmental protection players indicate that, the creeks, lands, mangroves, forests, etc provide inestimable goods and ecological services to the region’s inhabitants. Yet, they have been consistently degraded over the past four decades, mainly by industrial activities. Some identified challenges in greening the region and viable alternatives for sustainable agricultural development are, also, discussed. The authors have, therefore, proposed strategies such as consideration of complex biophysical and socio-economic factors, multi-stakeholder engagement, and a paradigm shift from the contemporary fossil energy-based agriculture to the more sustainable practices of biofuels and organic agriculture. A modelled paradigm for transforming current improved aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) to become more productive while, maintaining ecosystem services is proposed. Therefore, this paper examines current environmental issues and concerns as well as efforts variously made to address them in the Niger Delta against the backdrop of existing economic activities.

Profitability and adoption of improved shrimp farming technologies in the aquatic agricultural systems of southwestern Bangladesh

This paper assesses factors influencing adoption of new shrimp aquaculture technologies within aquatic-agricultural farming systems in southwestern Bangladesh. The impacts of three new technologies were assessed: two Modified Traditional Technologies (MTT 1 and MTT 2) and a Closed System Technology (CST). A total of 789 farmers from 10 sub-districts in Khulna Division were surveyed randomly, including a control group of 350 farmers using traditional technologies. Farmers gained significantly higher (P < 0.05) net returns when practicing improved shrimp farming systems as compared to traditional farms. The profitability of CST farms was more than double that of MTT farms, and the profitability of MTT farms was more than that of traditional farms. Similar (P > 0.05) financial benefit was derived from adoption of MTT1 and MTT2 technologies. Feed use, stocking density, gher size and white spot syndrome virus incidence were key factors associated with the economic returns of CST farms, while various supplementary feed inputs made a significant positive contribution towards increased return for the MTT farms. Lime was an important input for increased return both for MTTs and traditional farms. Farmer age and access to training influenced adoption of both technologies, and gher size and access to financing were significant for the more intensive Closed System Technology (CST).

Governance of Aquatic Agricultural Systems: Analyzing Representation, Power, and Accountability

Aquatic agricultural systems in developing countries face increasing competition from multiple stakeholders over rights to access and use natural resources, land, water, wetlands, and fisheries, essential to rural livelihoods. A key implication is the need to strengthen governance to enable equitable decision making amidst competition that spans sectors and scales, building capacities for resilience, and for transformations in institutions that perpetuate poverty. In this paper we provide a simple framework to analyze the governance context for aquatic agricultural system development focused on three dimensions: stakeholder representation, distribution of power, and mechanisms of accountability. Case studies from Cambodia, Bangladesh, Malawi/Mozambique, and Solomon Islands illustrate the application of these concepts to fisheries and aquaculture livelihoods in the broader context of intersectoral and cross-scale governance interactions. Comparing these cases, we demonstrate how assessing governance dimensions yields practical insights into opportunities for transforming the institutions that constrain resilience in local livelihoods.

Agriculture, irrigation and poverty reduction in Cambodia: policy narratives and ground realities compared

This report is a contribution to an assessment of the current status of agriculture in Cambodia, focusing on the linkages between agriculture and water, mainly in the form of irrigation. It seeks to view current government policies on agriculture and irrigation in the context of experiences on the ground, as communicated through the many field studies that cover varied aspects of performance in the agriculture sector and irrigation schemes. In an effort to identify future research areas, this review examines the status quo, and connects or disconnects with stated policy through a broad lens to capture strengths and challenges across crop production, irrigation management and post-harvest contexts. It places irrigation under scrutiny in terms of its value as a major area of government expenditure in recent years, and asks whether it presents the best potential for future gains in productivity, when compared with the prospects offered by investments in other aspects of agriculture. The fieldwork and review of current literature that form the basis of this report were undertaken at the request of, and partly funded by, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). It is also intended to contribute knowledge to the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) led by WorldFish, who co-funded the activities.