Pim news: november-december 2020

Dear colleagues and friends,

Welcome to the final issue of PIM News in 2020!

As this extraordinary year is coming to a closure, I would like to express my sincere admiration and gratitude to PIM researchers and partners for their – against all odds – top performance in 2020, which included a high level of patience, flexibility, and ingenuity. I am also particularly grateful to our small but mighty program management unit who have been working very hard to keep things on track and as normal as virtually possible.

The end of the year is always busy for us, and these past few months were no exception. PIM supported the release of two new books (on value chains and mechanization – more below), launched the PIM Synthesis Briefs (four released to date), organized several virtual events. A collection of PIM-supported publications analyzing the impacts of COVID-19 included modeling of the economywide effects of COVID-19 and related restrictions in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Papua New Guinea, and observational studies monitoring outcomes for households in Nigeria and for a range of value chain actors in Myanmar such as food vendors and mechanization service providers. (Read more in the Off the Press section below).

In collaboration with the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) and the African Women in Agriculture Research and Development (AWARD), PIM organized a series of three webinars led by experienced journal writers, reviewers and editors to improve the capacity of young social scientists to publish in high quality journals.

All CGIAR Research Programs were evaluated in 2020. PIM’s evaluation report, brief, and annexes have been recently published. The evaluation is quite positive about PIM’s scientific quality and effectiveness and recommends PIM to undertake internal and external assessments on its approaches to policy research that can inform the One CGIAR process currently unfolding.

We held our annual Extended Team Meeting on December 3, a much-shortened virtual version of our typical meeting. However, attendance was high, and we were able to share many recent achievements and discuss priorities for wrapping up of program in 2021. Presentations of our six research flagships are available here.

Thanks for your continued interest in PIM, and I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter.

Happy holiday season and let 2021 be a good one!

Frank Place
PIM Director

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