Measuring and Analyzing Agricultural R&D Investment and Capacity Trends:

General Observations

Presentation at the ASTI Side Event at the CORAF/WECARD Science Week Cotonou, Benin, 24 May 2010

Nienke BeintemaHead, Agricultural S&T Indicators (ASTI) initiative,

IFPRI-Rome office

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■ Important to measure and monitor inputs, outputs, and performance of agricultural S&T systems.

■ Important tool to assess the contribution of agricultural S&T to agricultural and overall economic growth.

■ Assist R&D managers and policymakers in policy formulation and decision-making.

■ But national S&T indicators are still scarce in developing countries and, when available, difficult to extract agricultural S&T indicators.

Relevance of agricultural S&T indicators

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■ Objective: To provide internationally comparable information on investment, capacity, and institutional environments surrounding agricultural R&D, thereby informing and improving research policy.

■ Collaborative network with large number of national, regional and international partners; facilitated by IFPRI.

■ Collects national-level investment and capacitydata on agricultural R&D:• Focused on developing countries.• Through institutional survey rounds (primary data).• Data coverage includes government, higher-education, nonprofit

and business sectors.

Agricultural S&T Indicators (ASTI) Initiative

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■ Aim is to provide:• Trends (to measure progress/digress over time).

• Comparative information (higher/lower relative to others). across countries and regions.

■ Dataset includes country and regional-level trends.

■ Outputs: country briefs, regional and global reports, datasets, data fact sheets, analytical reports, news and updates, ASTI data tools (all available on www.asti.cgiar.org).

■ ASTI has provided inputs in many influential initiatives (WDR-08, IAASTD, GCARD-2010).

ASTI initiative (cont’d)

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ASTI’s range of stakeholders (national, regional, international)

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■ Involvement of sub-regional organizations (ASARECA, CORAF, SADC).

■ Collaborators: mostly national agricultural R&D agencies (in few cases consultants).

■ Improved country coverage (38 initiated, 5 ???)• West Africa (15-16): Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo (Republic of), Cote

d’Ivoire, Gabon, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo (no responses so far: Cameroon).

• East Africa (7-9): Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda (no responses so far: DR Congo, Rwanda).

• Southern Africa (11-13): Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe (no responses so far: Angola, Swaziland).

Current ASTI survey round in Sub-Saharan Africa

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Portfolio of ASTI data at country level

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Follow-up: Strengthening analytical capacity

■ Improving the use, understanding, and expansion of the ASTI data collection by stakeholders by stimulating further analysis:• Build internal analytical capacity.• Link ASTI to various other institutions and researchers and country,

regional, and global levels.• Capacity building at country level, where capacity to collect and

analyze ASTI data is limited (in partnerships) .

■ Building this capacity will ensure better quality data, fill the current analytical gap, improve long-term sustainability of ASTI, and increase the reach, advocacy and policy relevance of the data.

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Follow-up: Planned activities in short/medium term

■ Review workshops to discuss data collection experiences and ways to enhance the usage of ASTI data as an information tool and further analytical activities.

■ Research report and tool kit that outlines ASTI’s methodology, standards, and definitions.

■ Further in-depth assessments on capacity developments and investment/funding realities.

■ Series of commissioned papers (e.g., role of networks, donor funding trends).

■ Update (and expansion?) of Sub-Saharan African datasets in 2012.

Thank you

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