Who is adopting CGIAR innovations, where and how? What measurable impacts are these innovations having? How can ex-post, rigorous, independent evidence about CGIAR’s reach and impacts better inform organization-wide decision-making and learning?

SPIA seeks to answer these questions through its 3 main workpillars. Below are the workpillars and the nature of evidence they each generate: 

Workpillar 1: Country studies of CGIAR reach at the System level 

• A country-level stocktake (i.e., universe of all CGIAR innovations introduced within a given country in the last 20-25 years, with an estimation of which ones have likely scaled and are potential “big wins”)
• Country-level reach estimates of CGIAR innovations (nationally-representative reach estimates, measured over-time in select countries)
• Insights from DNA fingerprinting and remote sensing to ground-truth self-reported reach

Workpillar 2: Causal impact assessments

• Range of measurable impacts attributable to CGIAR using experimental and quasi-experimental methods that inform both learning and accountability
• Policy impacts of CGIAR, in select cases
• Enhanced capacity by continually engaging the impact assessment focal points across CGIAR centers

Workpillar 3: Use of rigorous evidence 

• Translation of technical findings for policy audiences in a range of formats
• Timely cross-cutting thematic syntheses of evidence emerging from country and causal impact studies 
• Development of SPIA-wide policies on topics including research to policy pipelines, AI usage etc.  
• Periodic engagement with SPIA’s internal and external stakeholders 

In line with CGIAR priorities, SPIA’s work focuses on generating rigorous, independent, ex-post evidence of CGIAR’s impact and its contribution to the five key impact areas.