Validating the Nicaragua Dual Purpose Cattle Value chain Impact Pathway(s)

Michael Kidoido

Managua, Nicaragua :5th-9th August 2013

• The Livestock and Fish CG program is committed to delivering tangible benefits to the Nicaragua Dual Purpose Cattle value chain actors. • However,

The critical bottlenecks to developing the value chains are not clarified,

How interventions will deliver the benefits as planned is not clearly described,

How actors will need to changes is not well know. • Developing and validating Impact Pathway(s)

improves stakeholders’ understanding of the program and how it will lead to impact.

• Are result chains that represent the various steps that lead to having impact at scale, through successive stages of outcomes as a result of adoption and use of the products by different actor types at different stages

• IPs can be represented by a narrative or a flow diagram• But frequently presented graphically.

Development Outcomes

Impact

Research Outputs

Research Outcomes

Impact pathways

Why develop Impact Pathways?

• To demonstrate program rationale • To guide program planning • To provide a foundation for

program monitoring and evaluation • To provide impact hypotheses for

ex-post impact assessment

• Research information, new technologies and practices • New approaches for putting research into action

Capacity development Professional development courses On the job trainings and activities

• Engagement events and networks Communication campaigns Innovative platforms

Research outputs

Could be information and understanding

• Also include research outcomes change in knowledge, awareness and skills Change in capacity of beneficiaries and intermediaries

Capacity change outcomes

Behavioral change outcomes

• Change in actual practices of beneficiaries and “next users” Land use planners using GIS maps Smallholders adopt improved crop varieties NARES approach to soil management adapted to local conditions

• New policies and policy instruments• New or better functioning institutions

(formal or informal) Functional seed distribution system Increased value chain productivity Policies poor use of natural resources adopted

Enabling environment outcomes

• Increase productivity for beneficiaries • Improved distribution of opportunities, income,

food security and nutrition benefits to the target group

• Reduced degradation of natural resources• Examples:

Increased income for smallholder farmers from adopting improved varieties

Increased consumption of biofortified foods Reduced loss of biodiversity and genetic resources

Direct benefits outcomes

• Enhanced livelihoods in target domain across the program

Increased food security Reduced rural poverty Reduced under nutrition Enhanced sustainability of natural

resources in target domain across program

Program impacts

Generic program Impact Pathway(s)

1. Increased livestock and fish productivity in small-scale production systems for the target commodities.

2. Increased quantity and improved quality of the target commodity supplied from the target small-scale production and marketing systems.

3. Increased employment and income for low-income actors in the target value chains, with an increased share of employment for and income controlled by low-income women.

Livestock and Fish program Intermediate Development outcomes (direct benefits and enabling environment) (IDOs)

1. Increased consumption of the target commodity responsible for filling a larger share of the nutrient gap for the poor, particularly for nutritionally vulnerable populations (women of reproductive age and young children).

2. Lower environment impacts per unit of commodity produced in the target value chains.

3. Policies (including investments) support the development of small-scale production and marketing systems, and seek to increase the participation of women within these value chains.

Theory of change (TOC)• Explicit identification of the ways by which change is expected to occur from

output to outcome and impact. • The TOC questions the assumptions about causality underlying the relationships

between outputs, outcomes and impact.

Development Outcomes

Impact

Research Outputs

Research Outcomes

Description of causal mechanism, with evidence

Description of causal mechanism, with evidence

Description of causal mechanism, with evidence

Set of Assumptions for the value chain IP • Addressing whole value chain will improve relevance,

uptake and effectiveness of innovations. • Focus and targeting will increase efficiency and the

probability of achieving proof at scale. • Implementation of demand-driven innovations in the

right value chains with the right partners will accelerate the program’s progress towards achieving outcomes and impact.

• A significant number of pre-commercial smallholders can become market-oriented and intensify production sustainably.

• Pro-poor value chains can compete and generate sufficient incentives to promote investment in intensification.

• The poor rely on animal-source food produced locally by smallholders and from less formal marketing channels.

• The poor will consume more ASF if availability, access and affordability of products improve from those systems.

• Increased and equitable consumption of ASF will improve nutrition and health.

• Focusing on a few value chains might limit geographical spread of research benefits.

• Social inequalities bar women and other marginalized groups from taking up innovations, limiting achievement of outcomes at scale.

• High transaction costs of managing a complex network of partnerships.

• Program approaches may not attract investment for research and development.

• Partners may not be willing or have the interest to take up program interventions

• Income and gender inequalities are exacerbated due to program implementation.

Set of risks for the value chain IP

Program M&E/IA next steps

• Finalize Nicaragua ToC/IP narratives • Develop the Nicaragua LaF specific

M&E/IA frameworks based on the value chains Impact Pathways• Support ongoing evaluations to keep

validating the Theory of change

Objectives of the workshop

Communicate and validate the program’s intervention logic in the development of the fish value chain, clearly identifying the roles of different actors in the value chain.

Question and clarify the program’s potential for achieving impact on the intended beneficiaries and map out the key risks and assumptions of the program.

Begin to lay the building blocks for designing a framework for subsequent monitoring, evaluating and learning of the program.

CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world.

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

livestockfish.cgiar.org