Report of the first external review of the Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA)

Abstract

Providing compelling empirical evidence of the impacts of participatory research has been a major goal of the PRGA Program since its initiation. The number of our published Impact Assessment documents over the past 5 years supports the conclusion that the Program has well reached that goal. We are pleased to note that the EPMR report recognizes the high quality of our �??conventional�?� economic ex post impact assessment work, but we had expected an acknowledgment of an equal importance of process-oriented documentation of impacts, associated with the incorporation of participatory research (PR) and gender analysis (GA) in research processes. To accomplish this major Program goal of substantial body of empirical evidence has required first convincing researchers to see value in assessing the impact of a participatory research approach, and forming a network of people interested in working together to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, reaching this goal has required developing frameworks for assessing the impacts of the PR methods as compared to the impacts of technologies alone, developing and testing some specific tools and methodologies for such assessment, conducting case studies, organizing workshops and international meetings to build the impact assessment capacity in the CG system and to promote mutual leaning among the impact assessment practitioners and maintaining the network amongst them, and providing support and backstopping to the centers conducting impact studies of participatory research