Module 2 - Colombia: Decentralized, Demand-Driven, Competitive Technology Generation

Lessons Learned and Issues for Wider Applicability

The design of competitive research grant programs should emphasize transparency in operation; involve farmers and other beneficiaries in priority setting, evaluation, and selection of projects; establish sound monitoring and evaluation systems; and develop mechanisms to enhance portfolio coherence. Major lessons learned from the PRONATTA experience are that:

• A competitive fund can draw a wide variety of research and extension service providers into the national research system, thus building a research system characterized by greater diversity, both in the demand and supply of technology and innovations and in its varied sources of funding. It is also an effective way to leverage idle resources.
  
  
• Decentralized execution of a competitive grants program is key to substantively involving local people in an applied and adaptive research program. Competitive grants are suitable instruments for reducing regional inequity, but decentralized implementation must always be accompanied by a strong component of institutional development to strengthen capacity in less competitive regions.
  
  
• Competitive funding is a good means of promoting alliances among different actors in the agricultural innovation system. Such alliances permit interaction among a range of actors in preparing, presenting, and implementing projects, thereby improving interaction between different social groups and disciplines and leading to stronger and more demand-driven research proposals.
  
  
• Local institutional capacity building for client groups, local government, and potential service providers is important for promoting competition. Representative involvement of all sections of farming groups is not a simple task, and it depends on community dynamics. Effective involvement requires long-term investment in institutional development and community participation.

Projects similar to the PRONATTA program are being implemented in Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Mexico, and some countries in Europe and Central Asia.