The CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis for the Technology Development and Institutional Innovation (PRGA Program), Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative and (ILRI) Innovation Works Program at the Institutional Livestock Research Center have complementary objectives to promote research for poverty reduction and are thus co-sponsoring a workshop to be held in March 26-28, 2008 in Cali, Colombia, to follow up on earlier meetings and continue to stimulate dialog, build capacity and address issues of institutionalizing of new approaches to research and assessment of the impact of these approaches. The title of the workshop is Rethinking Impact: Understanding the Complexity of Poverty and Change. The objective of the workshop is to draw from the experience of professionals from multiple disciplines of natural and social sciences regarding evaluation of research aimed at poverty reduction, social inclusion and sustainable development. (For more information about background events leading to this workshop, please read the section 4 in the Challenge Paper.)

The registration to this workshop is now closed. The workshop will have about 70 participants, 37 of whom were selected through competitive call for papers (of the total 97 submissions received).

The workshop has three themes:

1. Practical cases studies with lessons learned about sustainable poverty reduction, social inclusion and equity;
2. Methods for evaluation and assessing the impact of poverty reduction, social inclusion and equity; and
3. Institutional and behavioral issues related to the other two themes.

The expected outcomes of the workshop are:

1. Learning about new frameworks for understanding the role of science, technology and innovation in poverty reduction and social inclusion drawn from case studies and other experiences.
2. Increased understanding of impact-assessment approaches, methods and metrics that deliver empirical evidence of effectiveness of research processes in contributing to poverty reduction.
3. Increased understanding about institutionalizing new methods and approaches for research or impact assessment.
4. Plans are developed (either by organizations, groups of participants, or individuals) to go forward. These could include:
  a. production of publications and other methods of distributing findings and implications of the   workshop,
  b. joint projects,
  c. creation of, or joining existing, networks, and
  d. plans to change own personal behavior (e.g. introduction into personal workplace of new   methods learned about during the Dialogue and Workshop) or other actions.

Specific publications expected to be produced are the proceedings of workshop paper abstracts and keynote papers (available on-line and on CD-ROM), full papers available on the web-site, briefs for decision-makers, and participants list.