Agricultural research will reach more farmers if it is built into the large investments governments make with international financial institutions, and CGIAR should start with the problems those investments are trying to solve. That was the message of a session at CGIAR Scaling Week 2026 titled "From Innovation to Investment: Building a CGIAR-IFI Pipeline for Impact at Scale".
The session was organised under the Scaling for Impact Program with IITA, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), CIMMYT and ICARDA. Speakers from the World Bank, the African Development Bank and AIM for Scale discussed what makes an innovation relevant, investable and practical to deliver inside large development programmes.
The main example was the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) Clearinghouse, led by IITA. It holds more than 200 evidence-based technologies and links them to country investments through project-design missions and an online catalogue. Its experience, the session heard, is that a technology scales only when it comes packaged with evidence, technical assistance and support for implementation.
Two projects approved in December 2022 showed how this works. The African Development Bank's programme for integrated development and climate adaptation in the Zambezi River Basin included a catalogue of climate-smart technologies, and its technical assistance in Mozambique and Zambia used AGWISE, a digital tool that advises on fertiliser, planting time and farm practice. In Guinea-Bissau, an emergency food crisis project set aside USD 255,801 for TAAT support, covering climate-resilient crop varieties, cassava multiplication and improved vegetable technologies, with training for national institutions and producers.
Participants noted that a technology can do well in field trials and still fail to reach farmers because of weak delivery systems, scarce finance or restrictive policy. Climate-smart seed needs reliable suppliers, regulation and distribution; digital advisory services need an owner and lasting funding; machinery needs repair services and incentives that make it affordable. Who can use an innovation, including women and young people, also has to be designed in.
The priorities the session set for CGIAR were to engage governments and lenders earlier, while country strategies and project designs can still be shaped; to match innovations to investment needs; to present evidence in the terms financing decisions use, such as cost-effectiveness and implementation risk; and to stay involved through implementation and learning. The measure of success, it concluded, should be better development results from large investments, carried by national systems able to sustain adoption.
Photo: U.S. Department of the Treasury / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: CGIAR
Comments
(0)