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- jenspeter on S2 – Q4 – Scenario 2, Question 4 (Livestock and Fish with a Global Animal Science Agenda – Theory of Change)
- Mblummel on S1 – Q1 – Scenario 1, Question 1 (Livestock and Fish like now – Key Research Areas)
- Mblummel on S1 – Q1 – Scenario 1, Question 1 (Livestock and Fish like now – Key Research Areas)
- Mblummel on S1 – Q1 – Scenario 1, Question 1 (Livestock and Fish like now – Key Research Areas)
L&F Yammer Group
For global agenda - expand current TOC to better cover climate smart agriculture and resilience
We must change our thinking about change.
Change does not happen because we make it happen. It is happening anyway, and we need to figure out how to engage with change processes. Our approaches are too driven. We analyze on the basis of problematized statements, render all of these to be some form of technical or economic problem, and then draw on our armoury of known solutions. We act as trustees for the poor, assuming that we know what is best for them. We ignore political issues that are often more important, such as land rights, and marginalization. In other words, we see what we want to see, and then act within our comfort zones It is no surprise therefore that change does not happen as we expect it to.
In my perspective, the truth is quite different. The understanding of how change happens is more greatly vested within people who live their lives at the nexus of different powers and influences. We need to engage this knowledge, and harness the agendas of the poor to work with them to shape what needs to be done. Then, and only then, can we bring our technology and innovations as possibilities. We would need to bring more than this, and this would be done with partners.
Right now, we try too hard to drive change. My opinion is that we should rather engage change. This means that our theory of change must fit with the emergent realities of complex systems, and so too must be emergent.
But this can be a slippery slope, with the challenge being how to establish expectations about what will be achieved and convince our bosses and funders that it is worth doing. Relying on emergent processes can be too easily interpreted as a cop out -- 'I'll tell you what needs to be done when we get there....' I remember one donor reacting to our classic 'we need to assess first what is needed/where the opportunities' with 'do you mean you don't have any sense of what is needed or ideas after 40 yrs of research (are you idiots)?' He had a point! Perhaps better to frame this as one dimension of our research framed within the innovation systems area that examines these processes, but doesn't stop us from testing what our previous research has provided as insights.
It is only slippery if you are not robust about it. The fact that donors believe that they can drive change into being does not mean that this is true, or that we should simply obey. There are robust ways to engage with change on an iterative basis without copping out. It is too easy to dismiss this argument by saying that donors won't buy it. While there is truth to this, we also must work to generate evidence that shows that iterative research does lead to change pathways.
The belief in linearity is a deep system pattern that underpins our funding context. Our donors will hold us to drive change because that is what is required of them. If the change we need to see counters their opinion, we have two choices; show that there is a better way, or simply comply with their demands and shut down such lines of thinking. My take on this is that we must engage in iterative change process - even if we do this behind a screen of compliance. This is the subversive approach, and at times has virtue.
There are some important large scale changes going on that I think are unlikely to be changed by the CG - e.g. urbanization. While not forgetting some longer term issues, it makes a lot of sense to surf changes where we can provide positive impact (more affordable nutritious food for the urban poor) in practical time frames than attempt work that might be the equivalent of trying stop the tide coming in and would essentially waste resources. That would also provide wins that should help leverage funding for other issues.
Developing a compelling ToC for such a much broader agenda will certainly be a challenge. My first thoughts are to build on the existing one of 'by and for the poor', by expanding each of those two paths to include the livelihoods/resilience uses of livestock and fish. So 'by the poor' (income and poverty reduction) would now include not only ramping up productivity and increasing market orientation of systems to increase supply, but also to manage more efficiently and greenly livestock in extensive systems kept for other reasons, contributing to household food and income security, but not necessarily to community or national food security as such. And on the 'for the poor' (nutrition and food security) side, we would now include backyard systems generating food for the household. So while the 'more meat, milk and fish' from our tag line now becomes just one component of our program, the 'by and for the poor' is retained and expanded.
I ike the idea of expanding our focus on the environmental aspects (reducing emissions, reversing land degredation, etc...) of livestock and fish production in the developing world. However, I think we may be missing an opportunity if we focus only on the poorest of the poor in this area. Medium-large scale livestock production systems are very important in Latin America, and CIAT forages work could potentially have impact in reducing the environmental impacts of cattle production in both small and larger scale systems. Perhaps some of the same things could be said for some of the aquaculture work done by WorldFish in Asia?
I am not familiar with the current "Theory of Change" so I can only make a complete stab in the dark for this question.
I would take a step back and ask the question: do we need a TOC for the aims we have in Phase 2.
Is there a prove need for a TOC or does it become its own goal that only detratcs from our mission to put more ASF on people's plate and improve wealth of the poorest?
Adjust our 'closed loop' by and for the poor, i.e. from poor farmers producing for poor consumers, to working with more open, complex systems of poor producers producing for both poor and rich consumers as well as poor consuming products produced by non-poor farmers. As long as the poor are increasingly involved/included and benefiting (equitably) in these different value chains then we are moving in the right direction. And needless to say: research, compare, and contrast the different impact pathways and act on the insights generated.
Well said Jens Peter.
Jens Peter: I never understood that we had a closed loop -- that seems to be the conclusion that everyone jumps to, including our review panels -- but I don't think it was ever articulated that narrowly. Certainly something we need to correct, even if it is just a matter of perceptions.
I think the misconception comes from 'by and for the poor' ... maybe instead 'for benefit of both poor producers and poor consumers', but this is less catchy
I agree that this misconception might be the case. As a catch phrase, it is difficult to escape the idea that the phrase does NOT refer to a closed loop of poor people somehow just doing things with and for poor people. But I don't see anyone articulating that we want this closed-loop thinking. And what does an audience outside of CRP understand by this phrase. Seems to me that we're playing with fire --- that our message may be misunderstood both internally and externally.
Tom: yes - even the current IEE seems to be under that 'misperception'...(judging from the initial interactions today). Clearly something to be addressed/corrected.
My dream is that one day our ToC defines some indicators (for which i do not feel competent enough to define here) which can be collected in an easy and smart way.
I have seen databases, where NGOs and other players where actually collecting/sharing data (such as market prices and volumes, observed adoption) out of their own interests, as all of them were interested in the more global picture resulting from their collective knowledge (across different locations). Once the data was provided, compilation and analyzes of the data was in real time informing the player about ongoing trends (based on their data as well as the one provided by others) and providing a new base for decision making and priority setting. Also the data collection provided a panel data set that allowed scientists to understand dynamics of change better and always provide the information of the situation today, making baselines for new projects unnecessary.