Dear Colleague,

As you know, there are current debates regarding the role of agricultural or natural resources research in alleviating poverty, how to assess the impacts of such research and how to organize impact evaluation to ensure that it is used to learn and improve our work, institutions and policies. You are probably indeed struggling with your own particular realities related to these issues. We, the workshop organizers (PRGA Program, ILAC and ILRI Innovation Works Program), with input from many colleagues, have been thinking about these challenges. We feel that it is timely and useful to engage a broad and diverse group of people in a structured dialogue process to address these issues -- this led to the upcoming workshop 'Rethinking Impact: Understanding the complexity of poverty and change' in Cali March 26-28th, to which you have been invited.

This is an invitation to participate in a pre-workshop Challenge Dialogue, sponsored by Emile Frison, Chair of the Executive Alliance of the CGIAR. We are asking you to take a look at a Challenge Paper, prepared by the multi-institute team described below. We are seeking your valued inputs and opinions prior to the workshop, as it will allow us to structure the workshop sessions to best address the workshop's three themes: (1) lessons from real cases about approaches linking action with research for sustainable poverty reduction, social inclusion and equity; (2) approaches for organizing impact evaluations to assess such research and action; and (3) changing institutions and behaviors to support new ways of conducting research and assessing it for poverty reduction, social inclusion and equity.

This invitation is going to all workshop participants and any colleagues you would like to share it with. We are asking you all to take at least a brief amount of time to provide your input to the attached Challenge Paper using the associated Feedback Form (a Word document). The Paper is meant to stimulate dialogue, comment and feedback and is not intended to be comprehensive or authoritative. Please do not be put off by the apparent length of the document - we've included some additional context for anyone who may not be completely familiar with our work and have intentionally laid the paper out in an easy-to-read format which encourages annotation and note-making along the way. It is not an academic paper that we are trying to get 'right' and is deliberately somewhat provocative.

We are seeking your response by Feb. 22, 2008 (please reply directly to kjones@innovationexpedition.com). If you have limited time, please focus your attention first on providing feedback on Section 7 (initial propositions to stimulate dialogue). Of course, we welcome any and all feedback and input and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards!

The collaborative workshop planning team:
Patti Kristjanson, Innovation Works: Linking Knowledge with Action, International Livestock Research Institute

Nina Lilja, CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis Program for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation

Jamie Watts, Institutional Learning and Change Initiative (ILAC) of the CGIAR, Bioversity International

With additional collaborative support from -
Stephen Biggs, Research Fellow, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Nancy Dickson, Sustainability Science Program, Centre for International Development, Harvard University

Douglas Horton, Consultant, Sarasota, Florida, USA

Process and facilitation support by -
Keith Jones, R. Keith Jones & Associates and Innovation Expedition Inc. Affiliate, Victoria, Canada