Lilja, N. and J.A. Ashby. 1999. Types of gender analysis in natural resource management and plant breeding. Working Document No. 8. PRGA Program, Cali, Colombia.The objective of the gender/stakeholder analysis is to assess what can be done to better involve all stakeholders in the innovation process. This assessment requires considering what patterns affect development among the stakeholders, analyzing what activities different types of stakeholders carry out, and assessing what resources different stakeholders have to work with. Gender and stakeholder analysis does not always directly provide answers to agricultural production or natural resource management problems, but it provides means for raising questions about links between and among different stakeholders and agricultural production or natural resource management. Moreover, carefully conducted and documented gender/stakeholder analysis provides convincing basis for developing strategies to incorporate gender issues that are key to the success of development efforts. (For gender analysis frameworks see for example: Wilde and Vainio-Mattila 1995; Lingen 1997) Similarly, a sound assessment of impacts of gender/stakeholder analysis provides convincing evidence on effectiveness of gender/stakeholder analysis on meeting the overall goals of the development.

Review of: PRGA Working Document no. 23 (revised), 2005 Impact of Participatory Natural Resource Management Research in Cassava-Based Cropping systems in Vietnam and Thailand Timothy J. Dalton, Nina Lilja, Nancy Johnson and Reinhardt Howeler.

Kristjanson, P; Lilja, N; Watts, J. September 2008. cali-Colombia. Rethinking Impact: Understanding the complexity of poverty and change - Key Issues Discussed at the Workshop.

Fukuda, W. M. G; N. Saad; Lilja, N. 2005. Participatory Cassava Breeding in Northeast Brazil: Who Adopts and Why?. PRGA Program Working Document No. 24.

Lilja, N. and O. Erenstein. 2002. Institutional Process Impacts of Participatory Rice Improvement Research and Gender Analysis in West Africa. Working Document No. 20. PRGA Program. Cali, Colombia.The participatory rice breeding and gender analysis approach used by the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) since 1996, and subsequently adopted by its national partners, can be characterized as functionally motivated participation, that is, trying to understand better what farmers want or need, and to feed back insights to formal research for improving future on-farm productivity. The expected impacts of incorporating participatory research approaches at different stages of the varietal development process can be argued to go beyond the economic benefits associated with the better crop type. “Process impacts” occur as a result of the participation itself rather than as a result of the technologies developed via participatory research methods. Some of these expected “institutional process impacts” include internal institutional changes (such as changes in breeding goals/objectives), breeding methods, and spillover effects to varietal development in other crops, as well as external institutional changes such as relations with other institutions (i.e., seed systems, and varietal release mechanisms). In an attempt to study whether some of these institutional changes are taking place in the national programs in West Africa, breeders and social scientists from 16 of the 17 national programs were interviewed during the annual Participatory Rice Improvement and Gender Analysis (PRIGA) Workshop in Côte d’Ivoire in May 2001. The results show that the national program scientists were unanimous about their reasons for incorporating participatory research /gender analysis approach into their rice breeding program. They believe that the participatory varietal selection (PVS) approach takes into account the biophysical and socioeconomic environment in which farmers operate, and hence seems to increase adoption rates better than the conventional breeding approach. National programs have received continuous, but very modest, financial support to their PVS work from WARDA. However, it has still required an additional financial and human commitment from the national programs, and it is doubtful that they would have continued investing resources into participatory research over the past 6 years were they not convinced of its benefits through a process of “learning by doing.” This is also supported by the fact that 60% of the national programs have expanded or planned to expand participatory research to research in other crops than rice.

Lilja, N.; Johnson, N. 2001. Guide to impact assessment of participatory research and gender analysis. Working Document no. 7, CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA Program), Cali, Colombia. 63p.

Lilja, N. and N. Johnson. 2001. Guide to Impact Assessment of Participatory Research and Gender Analysis. Working Document No. 7. PRGA Program. Cali, Colombia. This zipped file contains a Powerpoint presentation and several Word files. After downloading, unzip them into a single directory.

Johnson, N., N. Lilja and J. A. Ashby. 2000. Characterizing and measuring the effects of incorporating stakeholder participation in natural resource management research: Analysis of research benefits and costs in three case studies. Working Document No. 17. PRGA Program. Cali, Colombia. 132 pp.This study assesses the impacts of incorporating user participation and gender analysis in natural resource management research. Four types of benefits and/or costs are considered: (1) impact on the technology developed and its adoption, (2) strengthening of human and social capital among participating individuals and communities, (3) establishment or strengthening of feedback links to formal research, and (4) costs of research. A typology of participation at different stages of the research process is used to develop type- and stage- based hypothesis for each of these four impacts. The hypotheses are evaluated in the context of three participatory NRM research/development projects. The three projects are: the design and development of integrated crop management (ICM) sweetpotato technologies by the Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) and partners in Indonesia (1994-97); participatory testing of legume based soil fertility technologies by the International Center for Research in the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Malawi (1997-2000); and World Neighbors’ (WN) use of farmer experimentation to adapt and diffuse soil conservation practices in Honduras (1981-1989).

Sanginga, P, N. Lilja and J. Tumwine. 2001. Assessing the Quality of Participation in Farmers’ Research Groups in the Highlands of Southwestern Uganda. Working Document No. 19. PRGA Program, Cali, Colombia.

Fernández, M.E. 2001 Assessing Impacts of Participation: Stakeholders, Gender, and Difference. Working Document No. 12. PRGA Program: Cali, Colombia.