DIME Workshop on Innovations for Agriculture

On June 16 – 20, 2014 the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) team facilitated an Impact Evaluation workshop on Innovations for Agriculture, in Kigali, Rwanda. The workshop brought together practitioners, subject experts, and researchers working to improve the productivity of smallholder farmers. The workshop was led by the World Bank’s Development Economics Impact Evaluation unit (DIME) in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda (MINAGRI) and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California – Berkeley. Generous funding from i2i (impact Evaluation to Impact Development Policy), the new umbrella facility for impact evaluation, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), and the World Bank Africa Region Chief Economist’s Office, is gratefully acknowledged.

This workshop is part of a broader effort to support governments in getting answers, in real time, to their most pressing questions. DIME has a high-level research team that works hand-in-hand with the World Bank’s operational teams and in-country counterparts, to design and implement IEs that respond to operational learning needs. The objective is to achieve better results by identifying how to make interventions work.

The workshop focused on two themes:

1. Bolster commercial agriculture, with a special focus on Public-Private Partnerships and building sustainable value chains.

 2. Build agricultural resilience, with a special attention to management of water resources, operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructure, and adoption of resilient crop varieties.

Twenty-three projects from Africa, South Asia, East Asia and Latin America were represented at the workshop. Each participating project team was matched with an impact evaluation (IE) specialist, who they worked with throughout the week in interactive clinics. The IE specialists helped teams incorporate the latest evidence into their projects and to design IEs that produce state-of-the-art evidence, to achieve better results on the ground.

The objectives of the workshop are to:

1. Enhance knowledge and capacity to design and implement rigorous IEs through hands-on training in IE methods and management including data collection and analysis.

2. Design, with each participating project team, a high-quality impact evaluation (IE) to develop project-specific solutions for better results. These impact evaluations will incorporate the latest evidence, adapted to each project’s context, to inform program management and provide evidence for policy making

3. Advance the state of knowledge in reducing fragility, conflict, crime, and violence. The IEs designed at the workshop will test hypotheses addressing the root causes and symptoms of fragility, conflict, crime, and violence. Participating teams and researchers will form a community of practice to promote this operational and research agenda.

Visit the DIME event website for more details

Photo credit: Elisa Cascardi, Rwandan Fields

Agenda

Click here to visit the DIME event website and view the workshop agenda