| Sumario: | Providing compelling empirical evidence of the impacts of participatory research has been a
major goal of the PRGA Program since its initiation. The number of our published Impact
Assessment documents over the past 5 years supports the conclusion that the Program has
well reached that goal. We are pleased to note that the EPMR report recognizes the high
quality of our “conventional” economic ex post impact assessment work, but we had
expected an acknowledgment of an equal importance of process-oriented documentation of
impacts, associated with the incorporation of participatory research (PR) and gender
analysis (GA) in research processes.
To accomplish this major Program goal of substantial body of empirical evidence has
required first convincing researchers to see value in assessing the impact of a participatory
research approach, and forming a network of people interested in working together to
accomplish this goal. Furthermore, reaching this goal has required developing frameworks
for assessing the impacts of the PR methods as compared to the impacts of technologies
alone, developing and testing some specific tools and methodologies for such assessment,
conducting case studies, organizing workshops and international meetings to build the
impact assessment capacity in the CG system and to promote mutual leaning among the
impact assessment practitioners and maintaining the network amongst them, and providing
support and backstopping to the centers conducting impact studies of participatory
research.
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