International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

• CIAT's Participatory Research Project develops participatory approaches, analytical tools, and local knowledge, leading to the incorporation of the needs of farmers and other end users in the research process. The development and scaling-up of the farmer research committee (CIAL) approach is a significant methodological contribution. (More information...).
• CIAT in Asia currently has three major projects guided by the principles of participatory research and gender analysis: The Smallscale Agroenterprise Development Project builds institutional capacity in developing agroenterprises in Laos and Vietnam. Participatory Research for Development in the Uplands is a collaborative venture with the International Potato Center and the International Fund for International Development (IFAD) providing support to IFAD projects in Laos, Vietnam and China in participatory research methods and particular agricultural technologies. The Livelihood and Livestock Systems Project conducts research on smallholder livestock livelihood systems in the China and SE Asia. A wealth of experience with participatory approaches has been distilled into a series of guides called the CIAT in Asia Research for Development Series. (More information...).
• The Rural Agroenterprise project encourages local actors to participate actively in the project's decision making. Local actors participate in decision making, analyses, contracting, planning, administration, resource management, evaluation, and benefits resulting from their activities. Likewise local actors have commitments and responsibilities toward the project and toward the entity or group that represents them. An array of resources resulting from this work are available (More information...).
• The community of San Dionisio, Nicaragua won an international prize for its work on natural resource management. San Dionisio residents and several local organizations used participatory tools developed by the Communities and Watersheds project to make decisions on local natural resource issues.
• CIAT's Impact Assessment project has developed a large body of work on Social Capital, Collective action and Rural Agroenterprises.
• The Cassava Improvement Project has uses participatory approaches in research for improving cassava production in indigenous communities. A publication describing results in the Vaupés region of Colombia is available.
• The Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF) has developed decision-support tools to enhance farmer participation in soil fertility management. Empowering farmers to scale up soil fertility management research and results is a major thrust of TSBF's work.
• Other efforts include: participatory selection of rice varieties and participatory selection and strategic use of Multipurpose Forage Germplasm by small farmers in hillside production systems in Central America. The Bean Improvement project recently initiated a project to develop drought tolerant bean varieties for Central America, working with CIPRES, a Nicaraguan NGO, that organizes farmer groups who practice selection on segregating populations. Besides participatory selection for drought tolerance, local adaptation, grain color and disease resistance, the project foresees the extension of PPB methods to other institutions and scientists working with beans and genetic improvement in Central America, including those in the official public sector. Another project funded by BMZ on developing beans with aluminum tolerance also has a component of participatory evaluation with farmers. This is carried out through the Bean International Low Fertility Nursery (BILFA) in several African countries.

Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

All of CIFOR's research programs are developing and applying participatory and/or participatory action research in combination with more traditional research approaches and using some gender and/or diversity-oriented analysis.

• The Forests and Governance Program assesses and develops processes to enable socially inclusive policy decision-making and adaptive collaborative management approaches to community forestry. This research is oriented towards enhancing accountability and representation in forest governance, livelihood benefits, equity, and sustainability.
• Research in the Forests and Livelihoods Program focusses on the management of landscape mosaics including forests, with specific action research projects covering a range of interventions from catchment management to livelihood benefits via environmental service payments.
• The Environmental Services Program uses participatory approaches in its research on forest rehabilitation.

Some of CIFOR's gender and diversity-related lessons, such as linkages between policies and gender in the management of miombo woodlands of southern Africa, are brought together in our recent books on communities, equity and diversity.

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

In Asia CIMMYT uses quick and inexpensive participatory rural appraisal techniques to ensure that the problems of maize farmers in marginal areas are brought to the attention of researchers. In Zimbabwe, Mother-Baby trials have created a forum where farmers and researchers communiate about the kind of maize seed farmers need. Although participatory plant breeding (PPB) is gaining greater acceptance worldwide, the techniques needed to analyze the data from participatory methodologies in the context of plant breeding are still not well known or understood. In 2002, CIMMYT organized a workshop on Quantitative Analysis of Data from Participatory Methods in Plant Breeding. The papers presented address the three themes: designing and analyzing joint experiments involving variety evaluation by farmers; identifying and analyzing farmers' evaluations of crop characteristics and varieties; and dealing with social heterogeneity and other research issues. Topics covered included different statistical methodologies for analyzing data from on-farm trials; the mother-baby trial system, evaluation of maize landraces by small-scale farmers; and a PPB process that aims to address the difficulties of setting breeding goals and choosing parents in diversity research studies.

International Potato Center (CIP)

A participatory research working group (PRWG) has been active at CIP since 2000 with the aim of promoting participatory research within the Center. Activities include internal workshops about participatory research methods, supporting individual researchers interested in participatory research, establishing contacts with external resource institutions, and, recently the group launched an electronic bulletin with news about participatory research at CIP, useful references and discussion topics. As a result of the activities of the PRWG and the interest of CIP's researchers and management, participatory research activities have been formally included in the structure of research projects such as "Integrated Management of Late Blight" and "Integrated pest management for root and tuber crops". Within these projects, funding has been obtained to conduct participatory research related to these issues. Examples include a grant provided by the International Fund for Agricultural Research (IFAD) to adapt the farmer field school (FFS) approach to work on potato-related problems, and to conduct comparative studies among participatory methods. The contribution of participatory research to CIP's work has been recognised in visioning and strategic planning exercises conducted since 2000. As a result participatory research is considered as an important activity at least in two of CIP's new Research Divisions. These are: Germplasm Enhancement and Crop Improvement, and Integrated Crop Management. CIP also hosts Users' Perspectives With Agricultural Research and Development (UPWARD), a network of scientists and development specialists working to increase participation by farmers and other users of agricultural technology in research and development. UPWARD addresses three important challenges facing agricultural research and development today: linking users and R&D professionals for more effective agricultural innovation; bringing sustained benefits to less favored farming areas and marginalized groups, especially women; and working with households and local communities as key actors in problem diagnosis and research activities.

International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)

In ICARDA's Participatory Plant Breeding Program farmers and researchers work together to develop new new varieties. Decentralized selection, defined as selection in the target environment, has been used by ICARDA's barley breeding program to avoid the risk of useful lines being discarded because of their relatively poor performance at the experiment stations. Decentralized selection is a powerful methodology to fit crops to the physical (climate and management) environment. However, crop breeding based on decentralized selection can still miss its objectives if it does not utilize the farmers' knowledge of the crops and the environment, and it may fail to fit crops to the specific needs and uses of farmers communities unless it becomes participatory. Participation of farmers in the very initial stages of breeding, when the large genetic variability created by the breeders is virtually untapped, is expected to exploit fully the potential gains from breeding for specific adaptation through decentralized selection by adding farmer's perception of their own needs and farmers' knowledge of the crop.

World Fish Center (ICLARM)

In 2002 the World Fish Center organized a Global Symposium on Women in fisheries. This Symposium raised several issues including community involvement in fisheries, and the vulnerability of fishers and their families to HIV/AIDS. The next logical step is to move towards gender and fisheries, so that the constraints and inequity among men and women may be better understood, and recommendations made to overcome the inequity. The Center's Policy Research and Impact Program examines policy environment and options in fisheries, aquaculture and coastal and freshwater resources management to ensure wider adoption and benefits of research by the poor in the developing world. An intermediate goal of the program is management of aquatic resources in a sustainable, equitable and participatory manner.

World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF)

Researchers and farmers are seeking to diversify fodder sources, by testing fodder shrubs and herbaceous legumes as part of the World Agroforestry Center's strategy of doing science with farmers.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

Functional linkages between research, extension, farmers and markets and participatory approaches enhance the impact of knowledge and technologies generated through ICRISAT's research on food insecurity and poverty. For feedback from farmers click HERE.

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

IFRI's research program on Gender and Intrahousehold Aspects of Food Policy generates information for the development of policies, programs, and projects that take into account intrahousehold resource allocation processes. Research on Genetic Resources, undertaken collaboratively with IPGRI, uses participatory research to examine incentives and policies for local conservation of agrobiodiversity. IFPRI also hosts the CGIAR's Systemwide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights.

International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR): Research over the past decades has increasingly pointed to the importance of gender issues in agricultural development. ISNAR's project on Gender Relations in Agricultural Research explores the role of gender issues in agricultural research policy, management, and organization.

International Insitutute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Pilot sites for testing by farmers of "best bet" IPM options, based on the research of participating International Agricultural Research Centers and numerous partner organizations, have been established in contrasting agroecological zones across Africa in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria.

International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

ILRI and the PRGA cosponsored a capacity-building workshop on Participatory research for productivity enhancement of smallholder ruminant livestock systems

International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI)

IPGRI's program on Livelihoods and Institutions focuses on the various ways people use and value genetic resources and how this affects their conservation. Socioeconomic and cultural factors which govern variation within and across communities, especially gender, need to be taken into account when designing conservation strategies for plant genetic resources. There are two main objectives:

• Enhancing the contribution of plant genetic resources to the livelihoods and well-being of the rural poor, by understanding and protecting these essential biological assets in their environments.
• Formulating decentralized methods for the use and conservation of plant genetic resources that involve resource users and local communities.

The program has developed tools for participatory research on crop and tree diversity, contributed to the development of participatory plant breeding and gender-sensitive use and conservation of plant genetic resources.

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

The Poverty Elimination through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) is a five-year project funded by the UK's Department for International Development and managed by the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, in close partnership with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture, and most importantly the resource poor rice farmers of Bangladesh. The purpose of the PETRRA Project is to increase productivity of rice based farming systems for resource poor farmers sustainably in order to contribute to poverty elimination. The project will achieve its purpose by facilitating the development of a demand-led research system.The central focus of PETRRA is resource-poor farm households (RPFs) considering both men and women. For this PETRRA strives for best practice in participation, partnership, critique and openness, poverty focus, gender sensitivity and environmental awareness. The project is committed to decentralization. PETRRA strategy has six pillars: targeting resource-poor farm households; gender-sensitivity; environmental awareness; focal areas for project activities; farmers' participation in setting research priorities and technology development; and research themes that link technology and uptake.

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

IWMI has conducted research on gender and irrigation and Integrated Water Resources Management or more than a decade. Gender research is especially prominent in IWMI's Themes on Smallholder Land and Water Management Systems and Water Resources Institutions and Policies in Africa and India. Through its Smallholder Livelihoods theme, IWMI is identifying promising land and water management innovations suitable for very poor people, evaluating them with partners to understand how they work, their impacts, how they can be adapted, and how their uptake can be promoted. A gender-inclusive action-research project has been started under the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food entitled 'Models for implementing multiple-use water supply systems for enhanced land and water productivity, rural livelihoods, and gender equity'. In this project, research institutes collaborate with local communities and implementing NGOs at global and national levels, especially for testing new self-financed water supply systems for both domestic and productive uses. IWMI also collaborates with the Gender and Water Alliance to ensure gender mainstreaming within the Global Water Partnership and other partners committed to Integrated Water Resources Management.

Africa Rice Center (WARDA)

Farmers are partners with scientists in the tailoring of rice varieties to suit their own needs. This partly explains why new rices for Africa are spreading rapidly across the region. WARDA has learned that technology spreads more quickly, with more impact, if farmers have an input early in its development

African Highland Initiative (AHI)

AHI's research focuses on key natural resource management and agricultural productivity issues in the intensively cultivated highlands of East and Central Africa. Concerned National Agricultural Reseach Institutes (NARIs), International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) and various NGOs are collaborating to improve research and development approaches and partnerships to develop and institutionalize effective and efficient approaches for sustainable integrated natural resource management (INRM) and enhanced productivity. AHI was started by ASARECA in 1995 and is hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). AHI is promoting integrated, inter-institutional research and development efforts with strong community participation to solve critical issues of soil productivity, water and land-use. AHI's mandate and role in ASARECA portfolio is to develop, promote and use an INRM approach for improving development strategies, practices and policies (more information...).

Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi)

The CGIAR System-wide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) examines factors that influence collective action for a range of activities that communities might undertake that contribute to poverty reduction. An edited volume on Innovation in Natural Resource Management presents a conceptual framework and case studies. Much of the focus has been on studies of natural resource management, but many of these same issues apply to group formation and functioning for participatory research. A workshop on Methods for Studying Collective Action provides a number of approaches and factors that affect collective action, as well as case studies of participatory research. A workshop on Watershed Management addressed the role of property rights and collective action in watershed management, including many participatory research projects. Ongoing research and a recent workshop on the role local management of genetic resources deals with the role of collective action and property rights over "partner resources" (land and water) in influencing conservation of genetic resources, as well as how different approaches to intellectual property rights can influence farmers' and breeders' ability and incentives to develop new varieties.

Gender and Diversity Program

The purpose of the Gender and Diversity Program is to help the Future Harvest Centers of the CGIAR leverage their rich staff diversity to increase research and management excellence. G&D promotes such activities as diversity-positive recruitment, international teamwork, cross-cultural communications and advancement for women. Its website features a popular series of working papers, a cybrary of best links, a special section on diversity in virtual teams, and the opportunity to sign up to its newsletter and database of women scientists.