PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 178

3) Partnerships and development efforts in low-income countries
IRMLA project illustrates that long term investment in capacity building of NARS
pays off for all parties involved. For NARS by enabling them to respond to requests
from local governments and other organizations for policy-relevant information;
for Wageningen UR by creating a platform for exchange of students and for local
governments and other stakeholders by receiving more tailor-made information.

4) Interactions between research and decision makers, both in The Netherlands and
in the low-income countries

In The Netherlands, the work in IRMLA has stimulated and intensified collaboration
and dialogue between Wageningen researchers and officials from LNV on the future
role of agricultural science for rural development and sustainable land use. IRMLA
has fostered fruitful South-South research collaborations and has led to a number of
similar policy-oriented studies carried out independently by NARS in Asia on
request of local governments or international organizations.

5) Which insights were gained by employing a multi-disciplinary methodology that
would have been missed by disciplinary research?

See point F2 above.

G) Unfinished business and future challenges

1) Which important things remain to be done that could not be achieved by the
project?

Still, efforts should be made to translate more of the numerous and valuable research
findings into policy briefs for decision makers in The Netherlands and for the
partner countries in the South.

2) Which important challenges in the area of RDSA in the tropics are there in the
near future (say 5 to 10 years)?

To develop a holistic approach to generation and dissemination of knowledge on
efficient and sustainable agricultural production systems; to gain more insight into
factors facilitating implementation of sustainable land use and rural development
options.

3) What type of research could contribute to addressing these challenges?

• Integrated agricultural systems analyses - combining scenario analyses and

empirical studies;

• Integrated studies in representative case study areas.