Innovating in a dynamic technical context - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 99

5 Innovating in a dynamic

technical context

Larry W. Harrington a* and Martin van Brakel b

a CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food CPWF, Ithaca, NY, USA;
b CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems WLE,
Colombo, Sri Lanka; * Corresponding author, [e-mail].

Introduction
In this chapter we discuss Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF)
research on technologies and how it was used to define and research problems
of water scarcity, water productivity, poverty, food security, livelihoods and the
environment. We place technological research within the CPWF's theory of
change (ToC) and show how we used learning to inform engagement with
decision-makers. We place learning in a longer-term, dynamic context taking
account of previous and concurrent research.
We then explore how technical innovation and institutional change
complement each other. The CPWF's experience is that we need both when
the purpose of research is to get to outcomes. We describe how the CPWF
explored how people innovate and its effects on productivity, income, gender
and equity, resilience and ecosystem services. We show how we used this to
inform the processes of engagement and dialogue. We conclude with an
analysis of categories of technologies that the CPWF studied. We comment
on the research problems of intensifying and diversifying agroecosystems and
their relationship to improved rainwater management.

An overview of CPWF project categories
The CPWF planned and implemented 123 projects, 68 in Phase 1 and 55 in
Phase 2 (Box 5.1). It selected Phase 1 projects from proposals received in
response to a competitive call for research on defined topics. Projects were for
the most part independent and were not intended to form coherent programs
in basins. Phase 2 projects were designed as integrated basin-level programs to
address specific development challenges.

A note on sources
Like the other chapter authors, we faced a dilemma in selecting sources.
Research in CPWF Phase 1 projects (2004-2008) was published in topics and
journals, but did not use a research-for-development (R4D) approach. Research