Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Design of an evaluation framework to assess infrastructure investment for breeding operations

¹International Consultant, Monitoring and Evaluation , Germany
²International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Sustainable Impact Platform, Philippines

Abstract

Crop breeding is one of the core research and development areas within the CGIAR (global research partnership). Over the past 65 years, the individual CGIAR centers have created and released a plethora of new crop varieties that foremost address issues like food insecurity by creating high-yielding varieties. However, climate change, disease, malnutrition and other emerging threats continue to impact smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries. Therefore, crop breeding remains an important avenue to equip farmers with crop varieties to combat climate change, improve livelihoods, and ensure a stable food supply.

Modernizing breeding programmes and networks through infrastructure investment in CGIAR and National Agriculture Research and Extension Services (NARES) has been proposed as an avenue to improve breeding operations and to design new varieties faster. The present study will provide an overview of an evaluation of projects funded by German Development Cooperation (BMZ) that aimed to improve crop breeding operations to accelerate varietal development. In total, thirteen projects across at least 20 crops and eight CGIAR centers were evaluated using qualitative research methodologies. The evaluation aimed at investigating the use of infrastructure investment to build NARS breeding networks and capacity, implement shared services, increase breeding efficiencies and improve infrastructure and capacity sharing. Therefore, key informant interviews, stakeholder analysis and mapping were used to assess the contribution of investments to the project aims.

Preliminary results show that investments in crop breeding infrastructure can result in a magnitude of both expected and unexpected benefits, including efficiency gains, quality improvements, as well as higher staff satisfaction. While these gains were anticipated, there are surprising benefits in terms of innovation, gender equality and stakeholder participation, which will be assessed and discussed in more detail. This study will provide first insights into the evaluation to facilitate further discussion with relevant stakeholders for future improvements of crop breeding operations.

Keywords: BMZ, CGIAR, climate change, crop breeding, crops to end hunger, CtEH, disease, evaluation framework, food insecurity, high-yielding varieties, infrastructure investment, malnutrition, NARES

Contact Address: Peter Sprang , International Consultant, Monitoring and Evaluation , Germany, e-mail: petersprang3gmail.com