Impact Assessment of Policy-Oriented Research in the CGIAR: A Scoping Study Report

Policy-oriented research (POR) comprises an increasingly significant share of the research portfolio of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), with the annual budget having risen from less than US$30 million in 1995 (9 percent of the total budget) to more than US$70 million presently (18 percent), when conservatively estimated. Using a more liberal definition, the figures may be more than twice that. Yet, it is one of the areas of CGIAR activities with the least compiled evidence of impact. That policy research (and with it, natural resources manamanagement research) remains an ‘under-evaluated’ area of investment within the CGIAR was a key point highlighted in a major World Bank evaluation study two years ago, and has since raised critical questions about the direction of the CGIAR. How can the CGIAR continue to shift resources away from areas of research for which it has consistently demonstrated impact and high economic rates of return, e.g., crop germplasm improvement, in favor of research for which little documented evidence of impact exists?