Research for Improved Program Performance – reflections from a research institute

1. Research for Improved Program Performance – reflections from a research institute Andy Newsham, IDS a.newsham@ids.ac.uk

2. What I’ll cover • Examples of using research for implementation - filling gaps and capacity building • Thoughts on the relationship between researchers and implementers

3. Designing research with the Mexican government and GIZ • Research topic assess vulnerability of people & ecosystems to climate impacts in the Sierra Madre Oriental • Objective: build capacity of Commission for Protected Natural Areas (CONANP) to understand and reduce vulnerability to climate impacts

4. Process • Gather large team to design a multi-level analysis of the Sierra Madre Oriental Biological Corridor (CONANP and GIZ staff, biologists, agronomists, sociologists), with: • Micro and macro baseline studies • Climate, ecological and hydrological modelling • Local level participatory vulnerability analysis (IDS) • adaptation scenarios and measures

6. IDS contribution: methods toolkit for CONANP • Permits local-level analysis of critical dimensions of vulnerability: • Livelihoods • Wellbeing • Individual response capacity • Collective response capacity • Governance • Gives some environmental information (especially around use) and can be linked with ecological analysis

7. Methodology

8. How will CONANP use this? • The Kit is quite easy to use, but some training required • We trained Mexican researchers in the methods kit – we took them to the field and made them facilitate • They will train CONANP to use it • BUT! Will CONANP actually use it…?

9. Resource scenarios for using the toolkit

10. Implications • How many resources to be attached? What trade-off on data quality can you accept before the exercise becomes pointless? • How do you define the research agenda? Through what process? • If you are the researchers, will that change the data? (I barred CONANP people from my research team)

11. Technical Assistance for awareness raising & institutional capacity building on social protection (SP) in Zanzibar • Poverty and vulnerability mapping for Zanzibar • Raise awareness of various stakeholders on poverty & vulnerability profile & possible SP policy choices. • Capacity building for the SP Unit of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Youth, Women and Childrens’ Development to coordinate of SP policy in Zanzibar • Social Protection Policy finalisation, with a draft ready for submission for approval to the cabinet.

12. Model of engagement

13. Model of engagement (2)

14. Implications • When it works well, it is a process of effective knowledge exchange • BUT! When should IDS no longer be in this diagram? • Are governments and donors willing to pay for building local research capacity? (Yes in Zanzibar, no in Chad)

15. Concluding thoughts • Incentives for PVOs to do research is not strong internally and waxes and wanes externally according to VFM pressures • Temptation for PVOs to shave research budgets and to underestimate how much good research costs and how long it takes • No need for PVOs to embed research in too many of their programmes—only when trying something new or working in a very new context • PVOS should develop partnerships with research organisations, not one-off consultancies

16. Concluding thoughts (2) • Research institutions not sufficiently sensitive to operational realities • Research institutions not sufficiently creative in doing research that answers PVO questions—methods driven tendency rather than issue driven • Researchers not great at communicating the ‘so what’ • IDS bridges the gap through having researchers who have also been practitioners • Personal relationships are crucial—need to find ways to invest in understanding each other