Learning is at the heart of AgResults

This assessment, conducted during project implementation, found significant diversity in the roles men and women play in households’ dairy activities, with female farmers often less well positioned than males to achieve and benefit from dairy intensification. While the project’s design offsets some risk of negative outcomes to women, payment-for-results projects have limited leeway to promote gender equity.

The AgResults Tanzania Dairy Challenge Project was established to incentivize private sector input suppliers to raise awareness and educate smallholder farmers on the value of adopting productivity-increasing input bundles to enhance production and strengthen dairy-based livelihoods. This Lessons Learned article explores how the project has already made an impactful shift in the dairy input supplier model and market, strengthening SHF’s demand for improved inputs.

This brief, the fifth and final in the series, provides an overview of the fifth phase of AgResults’ approach to Pay-for-Results prize competition design. It explains how program designers can develop a thorough verification plan to evaluate competitors’ results and determine prize payments. It also summarizes the activities involved in project management of a prize competition.

This brief, the fourth in a series of five, provides an overview of the fourth phase of AgResults’ approach to Pay-for-Results prize competition design. It explains how program designers can determine the size of the prize purse to effectively drive participation and innovation without overpaying for results.

This brief, the third in a series of five, provides an overview of the third phase of AgResults’ approach to Pay-for-Results prize competition design. It explains how program designers can create the set of parameters and rules that determines who competes, how to win the prize(s), and the implementation timeline.

This brief, the second in a series of five, provides an overview of the second phase of AgResults’ approach to Pay-for-Results prize competition design. It explains how program designers conduct deeper research on relevant market systems to articulate a Theory of Change for the competition and to reasonably estimate the project’s impacts.

The first in a series of five, this brief provides an overview of concept sourcing, the first phase of AgResults’ Pay-for-Results prize competition design process. It shows how program designers begin the process by brainstorming and assessing potential development challenges to see if a prize competition is best suited to address the identified problem.

The evaluation design for the Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project by Abt Associates lays out a mixed-methods approach. To assess impact on dairy producers, the evaluator will use a quasi-experimental design to gauge technology adoption and subsequent impacts on income and consumption. The approach will use a structure, conduct, performance framework to assess market impact.

This toolkit is a practical guide for agricultural development practitioners who are interested in using Pay-for-Results prize competitions to stimulate new markets for agricultural technologies and engage the private sector for scale-up. It draws upon the experience of AgResults, which has designed and implemented prize competitions around the world since 2013.

Since 2013, AgResults has been designing and implementing agricultural prize competitions to encourage the private sector to "solve" a market failure and work toward a defined goal to receive a monetary award. In this cross-cutting learning document, AgResults presents 12 key takeaways based on its experience with prize concept design and sourcing; launch and marketing; and running a prize competition.