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Evidence To Action Conference – Nairobi 2018

Introduction

Information is increasingly becoming the most important currency in today’s global economy. With the United Nations predicting that the world population will hit the 9 billion mark by the year 2050 and that during the same period, Africa’s population is expected to double from the current 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion. In view of the above, there is an urgent need to define strategies to enhance Africa’s development Tied to this, there is a need to ensure that there is efficient information and knowledge being generated by researchers and M&E experts to influence decisions by key policymakers. In view of this, there’s therefore an ardent need to ensure that ongoing research and evaluation projects are producing information that is available, accessible, affordable and adoptable.

During the past decade, Africa has seen a huge growth and interest in production of research, monitoring and evaluation. Today, a large number of institutions are investing in production of huge amounts of stimulating research results as well as M&E data. However for many of them, the production of the research report often marks the end of the process, hence missing out on an opportunity to create meaningful change by influencing policy and practice at both the national and institutional level.

To aggravate the situation, there continues to be a big disconnect between generation and creation of new and solid evidence in development systems research efforts and the translation of that same evidence into data-informed policies. Policy makers struggle to find, collate, understand and apply the evidence to support their own decision-making needs, despite existing knowledge. These challenges are not insurmountable. With the right level of support and collaboration between researchers, evaluation experts and decision-makers, the translation of evidence-based research findings into actionable policy and programmatic guidance is an achievable goal.

It is against this background that the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) in conjunction with Tegemeo, Atai, BASIS and ISSER is organizing a five day Africa Evidence Conference in Nairobi next year to enhance collaboration between researchers and stakeholders and outline clear recommendations on how to ensure Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and evidence-based research positively impacts regional and national priorities and contributes to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Malabo Declaration.

Through this convening, the organizers seek to ensure increased uptake and utilization of research and innovation in evaluation for development to influence policy and drive change at the national, regional and global levels.

The conference will offer an exciting platform for renowned research and evaluation professionals, and development practitioners from national, regional and international organizations to tackle important topics such as Agriculture and Food Systems in sub-Saharan Africa, Climate Change and Environment, Agriculture Risk, Index Insurance and Risk Mitigation, Private Sector in Development, Impact of investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, Innovative Finance, Credit and Savings for Smallholders, Gender and Youth in Agriculture and Food Systems, Youth Employment, National and Local Governance and Accountability, Evidence Synthesis and Impact Evaluation for Policy Making, Knowledge Brokering and Knowledge Translation.

Overall Goal

The Conference will provide a platform for industry stakeholders to discuss strategies for enhancing the dissemination of research findings and ensuring that the process achieves the desired impact. They will provide stakeholders with a platform to do the following :

• Highlight the innovative & cutting-edge research and evaluation projects
• Support for and scale up uptake of what is working in terms of innovation and best practices.
• Use evaluation and research results to contributing to systemic change in African countries.

Conference Objectives

The objectives of the conference are as follows :

• Increase the dissemination of high quality evidence of what works, where, and why to develop seed systems, enhance soil health, improve post-harvest storage and strengthen rural institutions and mechanisms for market access for African and South Asian farmers.
• Support the dissemination of policy-friendly systematic reviews and summaries of new and existing evidence for interventions to develop seed systems, enhance soil health, improve post-harvest storage and strengthen institutions and mechanisms for market access for African farmers.
• Increase awareness amongst the Africans and policy makers, and international development staff of this evidence. Also on the factors that prevent uptake of research and evaluation data in Africa and discuss strategies for scaling up their dissemination and impact.
• To achieve a transformation of smallholder agriculture through changing smallholder behaviour to promote wider adoption of improved technologies.

Our Approach

The Conference will have a five-day program as follows: The first two and a half days will be set aside for side events and exhibition while the remaining days will be scientific and technical sessions. Research and development papers will be presented in different sessions and will include the following activities:

• Self-organized side events where institutions can present their programmes and galvanize support for their activities.
• An exhibition where organizations can exhibit their projects and activities
• Plenary sessions to be addressed by a mix of high level speakers and stakeholders
• Breakout sessions to address specific issues and topics
• A business to business platform where stakeholders attending the Conference can meet each other on the side lines of the event.

Congress Theme

The theme for the Conference, “Evidence to Action” is premised on the understanding that great research and evaluation findings have huge potential to positively influence Africa’s policy decisions and development agenda.

Subthemes

The Sub-Themes are as follows

• Research and Evaluation of Agriculture transformation programs in Africa
• Public-private partnerships in seed system development
• Sub- Sahara Soil Heath and Modern Technology
• Agriculture Risk, Index Insurance and Technology
• Smart subsidies for technology up-take
• Impact Investing, Credit and Savings for Smallholders
• Information and Extension: Reaching farmers where they are
• Evidence Synthesis and Evaluation Result Generalization

Participants

Conference participants will be drawn from a diversity of stakeholders across Africa who are involved in the research and evaluation sector.
This includes the following:

• Relevant government ministries’ representatives
• Farmer organizations
• Representatives from universities
• Development think tanks
• Research Organizations (National and International)
• Development agencies and donor community
• Private Sector organizations/companies
• Technology promoters/distributors/partners

Planning/Organizing Committees

• The Conferences is co-convened by International Centre for Evaluation and Development, Tegemeo, Atai and BASIS.
• International Organizing Committee – This committee includes representatives from the partners plus other global institutions.
• Local Organizing Committees – These will be drawn from universities, research institutions, non-governmental organizations and development agencies.

Engagements With Development Partners

• This initiative has attracted financial and technical support from key partners in the research and evaluation space including ICED. Organizers are reaching out to other local and global partners to support this great initiative.

Expected Outcomes

• Awareness creation on the challenges to research and evaluation in Africa
• Linkages and partnerships among the various stakeholders including researchers and technology developers
• A Call to Action that clearly spells out what needs to be done to counter the challenges discussed
• Establish a mechanism for sourcing for evidence with potential to inform policy and action.
• Sustain the mechanism for sharing policy-related evidence with policy makers in the continent.
• Continuously nurture a culture of evidence-based decision making.

Evidence To Action Conference – Accra 2019

Theme of the Conference

The theme ‘’Responsibility and Accountability: Strengthening Evidence Generation and Use in Support of Africa Policy Reform and Development Agenda.’’

Aim of the Conference

The aim of the conference will be to identify and discuss accountability and responsibilities of stakeholders in the use of evidence to address developmental needs.

The Concept

“On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit — officially came into force. Over the next fifteen years, with these new Goals that universally apply to all, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.

Sustainable development (SD) is defined in the Brundtland Report as “development that meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Thus, sustainable development is the organizing principle for sustaining finite resources necessary to provide for the needs of future generations of life on the planet.

This definition implies the two cardinal principles of leadership – Responsibility and Accountability. The responsibility and accountability all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet.

For Development countries to be able to mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind, they should be able to provide leadership in the generating and utilization of evidence that are required for them to assess outcomes and impacts of development interventions and programs, capture the progress, success, and failures of its sustainable development interventions, inform all stakeholders for effective decisions making, strategic planning and risk management, provide accountability to its citizens and to contribute to the broader knowledge and learning in the field of sustainable development.

The type of leadership calls for the high-level responsibility and accountability from both policy makers, development professionals, researchers and evaluators and other stakeholders – that is the willingness to be responsible and accountable for the well-being of the larger community by making decision and developing policy and action that is based on well-informed evidence that are support by irrefutable facts and data. More and more global leadership are embracing the new concept of responsibility and accountability in terms of evidence generation and the use of in support of policy making and development action.

Africa countries cannot be passive spectators in the generating of evidence in their area of 17 sustainable Development Goals. We cannot wait for researchers and evaluators from the Developed countries to take the initiative and responsibility to generate the evidence that are needed to actively track and monitor our progress and attainment of the SDG Goals. There is a global responsibility for all global citizens to contribute to the global development agenda. The modern world is a global village, a global household, a global economic unit of the global community and to develop policies and development actions that contribute to the eradication of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, all should be demonstrate leadership, authority and accountability of the evidence generation and its use thereof.

Evidence Generation and Use in Support of Africa Policy Reform and Sustainable Development Agenda is a two-party proposition. The responsibility to provide the research and evaluation agenda and the resources requirement and the holding accountable of those entrusted with the resources to generate the sound, rigorous, and solid evidence that can be used for policy making and practices. While is the responsibility for policy makers and development professionals to demand solid, rigorous and sound evidence for policy making and action to contribute to the SDG goals and should be accountable of the use of these evidence at all time and provide resources needed, it is also the responsibility of researchers and evaluators to supply well documented and systematic reviewed evidence and be accountable to present research and evaluation results and findings in a manner, format, language and time needed and can be used by the policy makers and governments for effective decision making that “meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

Introduction

Strong agricultural growth is a multiplier for economic growth. However, despite the unprecedented decade of impressive advancements across the African continent and improved governance and improvements in human development indicators, African agriculture still faces major challenges. The solution to these lingering issues remains unclear in large part because there remains a gap between the research on how agricultural productivity should be sustainably boosted in Africa and agricultural policy development.

More than ever, there is a need for strong evidence to better inform development professionals, policy makers, donor community and private sector investors. This abundance of research findings and evaluation reports now needs to be systematically reviewed, translated, contextualized, and disseminated to better inform policy makers and development practitioners to effectively transform African agriculture to increase incomes, reduce food insecurity, and put African countries on track to achieve sustainable agricultural transformation on the continent.

Recommendations for policy action in sub-Sahara Africa have not been effectively communicated or implemented. There are few institutions and organizations actively engaging policy makers, development professionals, civil societies and community leaders. There continues to be a disconnect between the generation and creation of new and solid evidence from agricultural and development systems research efforts and the translation of that same evidence into data-informed policy action. Policy makers struggle to find, collate, understand and apply the evidence to support their own decision-making needs, despite existing knowledge. These challenges are not insurmountable. With the right level of support and collaboration between researchers, evaluation experts and decision-makers, the translation of evidence-based research findings into actionable policy and programmatic guidance is an achievable goal.

With this background in mind, the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) and ISSER are partnering with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access (AMA Innovation Lab), to organize two regional conferences to be held in Africa in May and July 2017.

The two conferences, which will be organized under the same theme — “Evidence to Action” – towards a measured driven and data informed policy for action to enhance collaboration between researchers and stakeholders and outline clear recommendations on how to ensure Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and evidence-based research positively impacts regional and national priorities and contributes to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Malabo Declaration.

Conference Objectives

The purpose of this convening is to promote evidence from rigorous impact evaluations and research and to encourage increased uptake and utilization of research and innovation in evaluation to influence policy and drive change at the national, regional and global levels.

The conference provides an excellent platform for researchers, academics, private sector practitioners, development agencies, civil society and policy makers to learn, share information, build networks and partnerships with the overall objective of identifying effective strategies and interventions for ensuring data generated from research and evaluation projects is well utilized.

These convening will provide a platform for industry stakeholders to:

• Learn about the innovative & cutting-edge research and evaluation projects
• Discover the range of high quality evidence of what works, where, and why
• Get actionable information about these research innovation and best practices
• Discuss strategies for scaling
• Understand more concretely how evaluation and research results can contribute to systemic change in African agriculture development

Our Approach

The West Africa convening will be held over a two-day period and will comprise the following activities:

• Plenary sessions to be addressed by stakeholders
• Breakout sessions to address specific issues and topics
• Self-organized side events where institutions can present their programs and galvanize support for their activities
• An exhibition where organizations can exhibit their projects and activities
• A business-to-business platform where stakeholders attending the Conference can meet each other on the sidelines of the event

Congress Theme

“Evidence to Action” is premised on the understanding that there are evidence-based research and evaluation projects that have a huge potential to positively impact Africa’s policy decisions and development agenda.

This conference theme has been broken down into sub- themes highlighting key issues. For each sub-theme various aspects including assessment methods and data, technologies, practices, strategies, investment, policies, cases studies, success stories will be discussed and showcased.

Subthemes

• Promotion of the adoption of improved technologies
• Developing markets through public-private partnerships
• Agriculture risk, index insurance and technology
• Financial inclusion through smart subsidies, impact investing, credit and savings
• Information and extension: Reaching farmers where they are
• Harnessing information and communications technology
• Evidence synthesis and evaluation result generalization
• Research and evaluation of agriculture transformation programs in Africa

Participants

Congress participants will be drawn from a diversity of stakeholders across Africa who are involved in the research and evaluation sector.
This includes the following:

• Relevant government ministries’ representatives
• Technology promoters/distributors/partners
• Farmer organizations
• Representatives from universities
• Development think tanks
• Research Organizations (National and International)
• Development agencies and donor community
• Private Sector organizations/companies

Planning/Organizing Committees

The planning and organizing for this conference is coordinated by ICED in partnership with ATAI, AMA Innovation Lab and Tegemeo Institute, among others.

Financing and Technical Support

This initiative has attracted financial and technical support from key partners in the research and evaluation space including ICED, ATAI and AMA Innovation Lab, ISSER, and Tegemeo Institute. Organizers are reaching out to other local and global partners to support this great initiative.

Evidence to Action Conference, Accra

Introduction

Strong agricultural growth is a multiplier for economic growth. However, despite the unprecedented decade of impressive advancements across the African continent and improved governance and improvements in human development indicators, African agriculture still faces major challenges. The solution to these lingering issues remains unclear in large part because there remains a gap between the research on how agricultural productivity should be sustainably boosted in Africa and agricultural policy development.

More than ever, there is a need for strong evidence to better inform development professionals, policy makers, donor community and private sector investors. This abundance of research findings and evaluation reports now needs to be systematically reviewed, translated, contextualized, and disseminated to better inform policy makers and development practitioners to effectively transform African agriculture to increase incomes, reduce food insecurity, and put African countries on track to achieve sustainable agricultural transformation on the continent.

Recommendations for policy action in sub-Sahara Africa have not been effectively communicated or implemented. There are few institutions and organizations actively engaging policy makers, development professionals, civil societies and community leaders. There continues to be a disconnect between the generation and creation of new and solid evidence from agricultural and development systems research efforts and the translation of that same evidence into data-informed policy action. Policy makers struggle to find, collate, understand and apply the evidence to support their own decision-making needs, despite existing knowledge. These challenges are not insurmountable. With the right level of support and collaboration between researchers, evaluation experts and decision-makers, the translation of evidence-based research findings into actionable policy and programmatic guidance is an achievable goal.

With this background in mind, the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) and ISSER are partnering with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access (AMA Innovation Lab), to organize two regional conferences to be held in Africa in May and July 2017.

The two conferences, which will be organized under the same theme — “Evidence to Action” – towards a measured driven and data informed policy for action to enhance collaboration between researchers and stakeholders and outline clear recommendations on how to ensure Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and evidence-based research positively impacts regional and national priorities and contributes to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Malabo Declaration.

Conference Objectives

The purpose of this convening is to promote evidence from rigorous impact evaluations and research and to encourage increased uptake and utilization of research and innovation in evaluation to influence policy and drive change at the national, regional and global levels.

The conference provides an excellent platform for researchers, academics, private sector practitioners, development agencies, civil society and policy makers to learn, share information, build networks and partnerships with the overall objective of identifying effective strategies and interventions for ensuring data generated from research and evaluation projects is well utilized.

These convening will provide a platform for industry stakeholders to:

• Learn about the innovative & cutting-edge research and evaluation projects
• Discover the range of high quality evidence of what works, where, and why
• Get actionable information about these research innovation and best practices
• Discuss strategies for scaling
• Understand more concretely how evaluation and research results can contribute to systemic change in African agriculture development

Our Approach

The East Africa convening will be held over a two-day period and will comprise the following activities:

• Plenary sessions to be addressed by stakeholders
• Breakout sessions to address specific issues and topics
• Self-organized side events where institutions can present their programs and galvanize support for their activities
• An exhibition where organizations can exhibit their projects and activities
• A business-to-business platform where stakeholders attending the Conference can meet each other on the sidelines of the event

Congress Theme

“Evidence to Action” is premised on the understanding that there are evidence-based research and evaluation projects that have a huge potential to positively impact Africa’s policy decisions and development agenda.

This conference theme has been broken down into sub- themes highlighting key issues. For each sub-theme various aspects including assessment methods and data, technologies, practices, strategies, investment, policies, cases studies, success stories will be discussed and showcased.

Subthemes

• Promotion of the adoption of improved technologies
• Developing markets through public-private partnerships
• Agriculture risk, index insurance and technology
• Financial inclusion through smart subsidies, impact investing, credit and savings
• Information and extension: Reaching farmers where they are
• Harnessing information and communications technology
• Evidence synthesis and evaluation result generalization
• Research and evaluation of agriculture transformation programs in Africa

Participants

Congress participants will be drawn from a diversity of stakeholders across Africa who are involved in the research and evaluation sector.
This includes the following:

• Relevant government ministries’ representatives
• Farmer organizations
• Representatives from universities
• Development think tanks
• Research Organizations (National and International)
• Development agencies and donor community
• Private Sector organizations/companies
• Technology promoters/distributors/partners

Planning/Organizing Committees

These Conferences are co- convened by ICED and Tegemeo Institute. International Organizing Committee – This committee includes representatives from the three host organizations (ICED, ATAI & AMA Innovation Lab) plus other global institutions. Technical Committee – ICED, Tegemeo Institute, ATAI, and AMA Innovation Lab.

Financing and Technical Support

This initiative has attracted financial and technical support from key partners in the research and evaluation space including ICED, ATAI and AMA Innovation Lab, ISSER, and Tegemeo Institute. Organizers are reaching out to other local and global partners to support this great initiative.

Expected Outcomes

• Awareness creation on the challenges to research and evaluation in Africa
• Linkages and partnerships among the various stakeholders including researchers and technology developers
• A Call to Action that clearly spells out what needs to be done to counter the challenges discussed