LESSONS LEARNED - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 101

During its second phase, under the theme 'Rural Development and Sustainable
Agriculture' 15 multi-annual collaborative projects were supported (Table 1), of
which three (EROCHINA, EPISODE and NUTSAL) continued from the first phase.
REVIEW OF PHASE 2 PROJECTS AND SPECIFIC LESSONS LEARNED
On the basis of an evaluation of the projects from phase 2, we aim at drawing
lessons for future research. The evaluation proceeded in two steps. First, questionnaires
(Appendix to this chapter provides a detailed structure) were completed by the
project leaders, followed by a workshop, attended by representatives of the Ministry
of LNV, project leaders and the project team, to formulate lessons, based on the
completed questionnaires.
Evaluation of individual projects
Individual projects were evaluated on the basis of the completed questionnaires
(presented in De Jager et al. 2007), and other available project documents and
outputs. The four major criteria considered in the evaluation were: (1) scientific
innovation, (2) quality of partnership, (3) capacity building and (4) policy relevance.
The completed questionnaires were assessed by two scientists involved in the
programme and two external scientists.
(1) Scientific innovation
The DLO-IC projects contributed to scientific innovation in various ways:
- A substantial number of new tools has been produced and evaluated for
integrating biophysical and socio-economic analyses in different agro-ecological
zones; these form part of analytical frameworks for quantitative analyses of
resource use options at farm, village, small watershed and district/provincial
scales; examples include the extension of the NUTMON toolbox for nutrient
monitoring and technical coefficient generators as developed in PIMEA,
VINVAL and IRMLA for different bio-economic settings.
- Novel pathways of involving farmers and extension staff have been explored,
making use of local knowledge, combined with formalized knowledge; this has
resulted in participatory development of technologies for improved natural
resource management (examples include EROAHI, VEGSYS and INMASP).
- Introduction of new approaches and tailoring associated tools to new
environments, for instance, by combining farm and regional level analyses of
land use options (e.g., IRMLA) or by including risk assessment in the analyses
(e.g., MAMAS).
(2) Quality of partnership
In general, the scientific quality of the tasks performed by the research partners was
considered very good. However, not in all projects the science networks could be
expanded and/or the quality/mode of collaboration improved. This was partly because
of limited financial resources and/or restricted project life times, but also donor