Expl. Agric. (2008), volume 44, pp. 3–19 C  2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0014479707005972 Printed in the United Kingdom RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGES OF IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH AND GENDER ANALYSIS By NINA LILJA† and JOHN DIXON§ CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis for Technology Development and Institutional Innovation (PRGA Program), A.A. 6713, Cali, Colombia and §International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Apdo. Postal 6-641, 06600 Mexico, DF, Mexico (Accepted 16 May 2007 ) SUMMARY Since the Green Revolution, the public-sector’s agricultural research strategy for increasing food crop productivity has been explicitly based on the premise that technology can cross political and agro- climatic boundaries, primarily through the ‘training and visit’ system of extension (also known as ‘transfer of technology’ and the ‘pipeline’ model). Today, a different strategy is emerging. Efforts to develop the necessary institutional capacity for more client-oriented participatory research, particularly in plant breeding, are now a central part of the public-sector agricultural research strategy. Greater use of participatory and gender-analysis approaches in agricultural research has significant conceptual and methodological implications for impact assessment and institutional learning. INTRODUCTION Participatory plant breeding (PPB), participatory varietal selection (PVS) and parti- cipatory natural resource management (PNRM) emerged in the early 1980s as potential solutions to the problem of limited adoption of improved varieties and natural resource management technologies by farmers in developing countries (Ashby, 2003; Farrington, 1988). The empirical studies show that participatory methods are being applied in strategic, applied and adaptive stages of research (Johnson et al., 2004; Weltzein et al., 2000) and there is empirical evidence in support of their effectiveness in terms of improved farmer acceptance of crop varieties and resource management techniques (e.g. Bellon et al., 2003; Ceccarelli et al., 2000, 2001, 2003; De Jager et al., 2004; Dorward et al., 2003; Ortiz et al., 2004; Witcombe et al., 1996) and impact (e.g. Dalton et al., 2005; Johnson et al., 2003; Joshi and Witcombe, 2003; Onduru et al., 2002; Smale et al., 2003; Witcombe et al., 1999, 2001). There are a number of explanations for the observed effectiveness of participatory methods in accelerating adoption and impact, which are explored in the papers that follow in this special issue of Experimental Agriculture. The integration of gender analysis into agricultural research processes began over 30 years ago, when Boserup (1970) initiated inquiry into the role of women in economic †Corresponding author. E-mail: n.lilja@cgiar.org