Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on SI publishes new sustainable intensification assessment framework
The sustainable intensification assessment framework is an initiative of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification and the Africa-RISING project. The framework develops and recommends metrics and indicators for measuring sustainable intensification under five critical determinants of project sustainability —productivity, economic, environment, human condition and social domains. It was created to strengthen researchers’ ability to holistically assess an innovation’s performance in terms of the direct and indirect consequences within and across the five domains.
The five indicators listed address smallholder farming contexts where agricultural production is closely linked with development goals such as alleviating poverty, avoiding land degradation, increasing food security and nutrition security, and supporting women’s empowerment. Ideally this framework will support assessment of sustainable agriculture intensification innovations through interdisciplinary, and iterative co-learning approaches. The framework is not designed for project evaluation, though it can contribute towards that goal.
There are two primary documents to support the use of the sustainable intensification indicator assessment framework:
- The guide for sustainable intensification assessment framework: The guide provides an overview of the framework of indicators and includes a recommended process for indicator selection and identification of tradeoffs and synergies.
- The sustainable intensification assessment methods manual: The methods manual provides a detailed summary of the steps needed for data collection and estimation for each of the metrics provided in the framework. For most metrics, there are several data collection methods provided and a description of the strengths and limitations of each method.
If you would like to be added to the sustainable intensification assessment framework listserv for updates and for the ability to share examples of using these tools, please e-mail siil@ksu.edu and put ‘SI Assessment Framework’ in the subject line.
