Investing in Africa: the WorldFish Center's African strategy in summary

Across much of Africa, freshwater and coastal fisheries provide an important source of food and livelihood for many millions of people. In addition, the aquaculture potential of the continent has only recently begun to be developed. To help sustain these capture fisheries, support the emergence of aquaculture and foster the contribution of both to sustainable livelihoods and improved food security, the WorldFish Center is increasing its investment in Africa. The framework for this investment is provided by a new Strategy for Africa and West Asia 2002-2006 that identifies priorities for the Center’s work in rivers and floodplains, lakes and reservoirs, coastal fisheries, aquaculture, policy research and capacity building. The present article summarizes the issues being addressed by the Center and describes initial research priorities.

Using theory of change to achieve impact in AAS

The CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework sets out four system level outcomes (SLOs), namely: reducing rural poverty, improving food security, improving nutrition and health and sustainable management of natural resources. In pursuit of these objectives the CGIAR has developed a set of sixteen CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs), each of which is expected to make specific contributions to a range of intermediate development outcomes (IDOs) linked to the SLOs. As part of this work the CRPs are developing impact pathways and theories of change designed to explain how the programs will achieve IDOs. The purpose of the present paper is to explain the approach that the CRP on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is taking to using these programmatic tools to help achieve impact.

Research in development: the approach of AAS

The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is pursuing a Research in Development approach that emphasizes the importance of embedding research in the development context. Reflecting this emphasis the six elements of this approach are a commitment to people and place, participatory action research, gender transformative research, learning and networking, partnerships, and capacity building. It is through the careful pursuit of these six elements that we believe that the program will achieve the development outcomes we aspire to, and do so at scale.