• Institutions and policy processes

Institutions and policy processes

How can knowledge better contribute to poverty reduction? While the international community’s attempts to mobilise science and technology for sustainable development are not new, it is not clear that they have been as successful so far. This new report from the Center for International Development at Harvard University and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, reviews experience in implementing five agricultural projects in Africa and Asia over a period of twelve years. It aims to identify institutional arrangements and procedures that are more likely to strengthen the links between research and development.

In making this link, the report considers the three major challenges as being finding ways to:

• bring about a closer match between R&D agendas and decision-maker needs
• combine knowledge from different scientific disciplines and sources
• facilitate adaptive learning in the face of persistent uncertainties
  

It then reviews how five projects attempted to harness scientific knowledge for sustainable development:

• better policy and management options for pastoral lands (Kenya, Tanzania)
• fodder and natural resource innovations for smallholders (India and Nigeria)
• poverty and ecosystem services mapping (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania)
• improving productivity and market success of smallholders (Ethiopia)
• improving the management of trypanocide resistance in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea)

The report develops a seven-point framework for establishing better links between knowledge generated through research with actions that help people. It considers this to involve:

• dialogue and cooperation between the scientists who produce the knowledge and the potential users of the information including communities, policymakers and donors
  
• collaborative, use-driven rather than curiosity-driven research in which an engagement of the users is key to the research agenda
  
• building bridges between the research community on the one hand and the user community on the other, and creating networks that allow interactions between the different users and producers
  
• engagement with key partners to turn jointly-created knowledge generated by the project/programme into action
  
• an openness to failure and risk-taking as a part of the learning process
  
• maintaining project continuity and flexibility in the context of funding and staff shortages
  
• dealing with the often large and largely hidden asymmetries of power felt by the various stakeholders in the research partnership
  

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