One of the challenges associated with tackling the slowly evolving and interlinked crises associated with climate change is that there are few visible milestones to mark their dismal progress and attract the necessary attention of the development community, let alone the broader public.
In October 2024, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Pacific Office provided, without the fanfare it surely deserved, one such milestone in the form of a report entitled An overview of food security and nutrition in the Pacific 2022. Behind the humdrum title lies a remarkable effort to pull together the perspectives of agencies that work across the spectrum of sustainable development – in agriculture but also in food and nutrition, health and education. The title sets this baseline assessment in 2022 but the two-year delay in bringing this evaluation to light underlines the challenge of achieving consensus in this complex field.
A corresponding challenge of marking slow-but-positive progress faces those trying to build solutions to these “wicked problems” – in the form of more climate-resilient agrifood systems. At December 2024, another small but important milestone on the solution-building side also seems to be passing under the radar. The Pacific Agricultural Scholarship, Support and Climate Resilience program (PASS-CR) is winding up, bringing to a close 16 years of targeted research capacity building, with some 140 postgraduate scholars having passed through or currently completing the program.
At the 2024 Australasian AID Conference, three of us who have been involved in the program for most of its lifetime presented a paper seeking to capture the key lessons learned. Based on our own experience and the gathered testimony of alumni of the program, we propose that this program offered a uniquely effective way to address the crisis in Pacific agri-food systems, and that this model deserves to be built on and expanded, not buried in the archives of development history.
PASS-CR was a program of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). ACIAR’s research-for-development agenda is based on a partnership model that links researchers in Australia with fellow researchers and development practitioners in developing countries, to tackle problems – in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries – that are identified as priorities in dialogue with national governments and organisations.
Like many other agencies, ACIAR has offered, for much of its 40-year history, postgraduate scholarships to help build the capacity of the national research organisations it partners with. In 2008-2009, ACIAR and the University of the South Pacific (USP) launched a scholarship program with various novel characteristics that explicitly extended ACIAR’s project partnership model to capacity building. It focused on a Master of Science (MSc) by research (though with some postgraduate diploma and PhD scholarships); rather than travelling to Australia for their studies, students were registered at USP (or, from 2019 onwards, with Fiji National University (FNU)); and the students carried out their thesis research linked to an ACIAR project, with an external co-supervisor provided by the project.
Results from these early years showed that the model was remarkably successful in generating capacity and enthusiasm for applied, problem-solving research, and that many alumni were then successful in building their careers within their national agricultural research systems. However, it also became apparent that students needed a lot more than just a grant if the program was to achieve lasting positive outcomes. Hence, a much more sophisticated level of support and a more strategic approach to capacity building in the region was provided from 2019-2020 onwards, during the third phase of the scholarship program. At this point, ACIAR co-invested in a contract with the University of the Sunshine Coast, to partner with USP and FNU to provide a range of support for students, supervisors and management.
The program’s Theory of Change shows how co-building individual capacity, institutional capacity and networks enables the functional elements of an agricultural innovation system for the Pacific, closely networked with the highly effective innovation system of Australia.
A key proposition here is that Pacific island states individually do not have the “critical mass” of research disciplines and other resources to generate the kind of cross-sectoral innovation needed to generate transformative change and tackle the challenges of improving the climate resilience of food systems; but working together, and effectively networked with partners in Australia and internationally, it becomes feasible to generate this quality of innovation in the Pacific.
Our preliminary evaluation of outcomes, based on individual interviews and a small survey of alumni, suggests that the program has been remarkably successful in strengthening capacity and supporting innovation in key areas.
To take just one example, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that collapsing soil fertility on a degrading natural resource base is at the root of falling productivity across cropping systems and countries in the Pacific. Two Fiji Ministry of Agriculture staff, an analytical chemist and an extension officer, started their journey working on an ACIAR project designed to tackle a crisis related to collapsing soil fertility in Fiji’s multi-million dollar taro export industry. Both started with an ACIAR MSc scholarship at USP and went on to PhD studies under other programs. Both returned to higher-level leadership positions. Through their growing network of research projects and partners, they introduced innovations: for instance, “soil health report cards” now support the soil management decisions of individual farmers in Fiji; and the adoption of Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy as a rapid, cost-effective approach to soil analysis at the government’s soils laboratory has not only enhanced the value of this facility to Fiji but promises to make it a valuable hub for neighbouring Pacific countries as well. Meanwhile, the former extension officer has become the head of the soils program at the regional research organisation, The Pacific Community, helping to make the Pacific Soils Portal and other resources available to the entire Pacific.
Finally, in a modest but innovative and ambitious experiment, the “CR” (climate resilience) component of the PASS-CR program sought to mainstream an understanding of climate science and its implications into the existing research (in agriculture, forestry and fisheries) of the ACIAR-supported scholars, via a competitive small grants scheme dubbed the Future Thinkers initiative. The initiative was terminated (through an administrative decision on the part of the donor), after only two years and before it had had a chance to properly prove its value, but the initial outcomes appear very promising – such as the opportunity for a young Rotuman islander to take the results of his taro research to COP27 in Egypt. We believe this initiative deserves to be extended, with more resources, and its outcomes properly evaluated before a decision is made on whether or not to invest further.
This brief and relatively informal study, conducted by participant-observers currently or previously involved in the program, has generated evidence of the effectiveness of the ACIAR model in enabling and promoting innovation for more climate-resilient agri-food systems in the Pacific. A larger and more rigorous independent evaluation of outcomes is now needed, in line with ACIAR’s normal external review process for research programs, to provide a sound base for good decision making on investments going forward in Pacific agricultural research capacity for greater resilience.
Read the Australasian AID Conference blog series. View selected presentations at the Devpolicy ANU website and Devpolicy YouTube.
Hi Richard, a colleague of mine forward this to me. This is an excellent piece and thanks for sharing about the ACIAR PASS-CR program. I 100% agree with you and your points here. I am not one of the alumni of the program but I am one of those Pacific Island researchers supporting the ACIAR-PASS Scholars for some years. I think it has been a successful program and the support component from the University of the Sunshine Coast is excellent in providing that enabling environment for students and supervisors. The ACIAR-PASS-CR to my own experience has been really critical in building “research capacity” of the ACIAR PASS scholars. I was the Principal Supervisor for few ACIAR PASS scholars when I was with the University of the South Pacific and now a co-supervisor from Unimelb. I have seen the evolution and improvement of research skills of ACIAR scholars before and after the 2019-2020 initiative. I also agree, the Climate Resilient component has been a fantastic opportunity to build/add in that “climate change light-bulb moment skills” into agricultural research thinking, framing and in practice. This is fundamental for two reasons – 1) traditional agriculture education and research in the Pacific Islands “rarely or with some level” cover climate change (adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage), meteorological and disaster risk management skills in the curriculum and in research framing. CR provides that opportunity to build in the CR research capacity and research framing into the “traditional agriculture research approach” of the scholars. 2) It is a very important priority in our Pacific Island governments (sectors including agriculture), communities and at household levels to integrate climate change, disaster risk management and resilience thinking and skills into planning, implementation, evaluation and learning. This requires not just CR skillset and capacity to do, but also a knowledge system that is starting to generate from the CR program, as you rightfully pointed out Christian’s excellent work. For example, his work is now adding that important climate resilience lens on taro food loss and milk loss research and knowledge creation. Then add the specific vulnerabilities and also the great roles of women, and youth in the mix – we are starting to see the CR knowledge systems built. But sad to hear it is changing now. The CR program provided the opportunity for Christian to study the climate resilience of dairy farmers in Central Victoria in collaboration with Murray Dairy (wonderful support from MD), School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences (SAFES) and Oceania Institute (in Unimelb) and also dairy farmers in Fiji. There is a huge networking happening as a result of the CR component when Christian visited and spent a month with us at Dookie Campus of the University of Melbourne. We are having discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture and Waterways in Fiji to build an initiative to do more research with dairy farmers in Fiji; a farmers exchange program with Dookie campus and probably a larger research with development partnership on Dairy and Livestock and Climate Resilience for Fiji and the Pacific Islands. The CR enables a lot of capacity and networking building that will leave a strong legacy – wow only for 2 years and this is just one testimony from one scholar, imagine the rest. Thank you again for sharing and I hope you will do a thorough evaluation of the programs as you mentioned and get some good learning on scaling up and out with ACIAR or with other partners. ACIAR has been doing outstanding research work in the Pacific Islands. Amazing research network, partnership and impacts on the ground benefiting our farmers, fishers and local partners and I’m sure the evaluation will generate important lessons to build on.
Oh before I forget, just another suggestion on these research capacity building programs to find ways to increase the involvement of Pacific Island researchers who are based in Australia and NZ and other regions in research programs and supporting the research scholars who are based in the Pacific Islands. No need to be territorial, the living words of our own Professor Hau’ofa come to mine, we are Oceania, we are in our journey and the Pacific Ocean connects us, so please do not separate us. It does not mean that I, like many of us are based outside of the Pacific Islands then we are outside of the capacity building, research, development engagements of our communities – we are still children of Oceania. For example, I am still a Samoan matai, a Tuvaluan citizen and a proud son of Oceania living and working in our beautiful rural Victoria Dookie campus of the University of Melbourne. Thanks again and Merry Christmas.