Contributions

Improved Natural Resources Systems and Ecosystems services
3.1	5% increase in water and nutrient (inorganic, biological) use efficiency in agroecosystems, through recycling and reuse	20% increase in water and nutrient (inorganic, biological) use efficiency in agroecosystems, through recycling and reuse	Cumulative carbon input to soils (from 2017) from increased GLDC productivity (million tons)	4.9	13.1

1.3 Impact Pathway and Theory of Change

The future demand for dryland cereals and grain legumes suggests tangible production, market and diversified diet opportunities for women, men and young farmers, value chain actors and consumers (Figure 3). Barriers to capturing these opportunities encompass non-adoption of improved germplasm, poor agricultural practices, restrictive diet options for consumers, underdeveloped value chains, market failures, regulatory constraints and contradicting agricultural and trade policies. Although these barriers vary in terms of intensity and scale, they restrict dryland cereals and grain legumes in fulfilling their full ecological and economic potential across the semi-arid and sub-humid dryland agroecologies. Capturing the opportunities or tackling barriers in isolation of each other, however, greatly underestimates their interconnectedness and the ‘wicked’ nature^{64, 65, 66} of the societal grand challenges prominent in the drylands of SSA and SA.

The theoretical underpinning for GLDC is institutional theory⁶⁷, conceptualized in the form of sociotechnical ‘regimes’ – i.e. agri-food system regimes that have resulted from the co-evolution of institutions and technologies over time. Consequently, the GLDC Theory of Change (ToC) argues that household-level outcomes of food security, resilience and poverty reduction depend on the ability of smallholder farmers and other actors to tackle system-level change in agri-food system regimes^{68, 69} (Figure 5). The institutional setting (social values, rules, norms, traditions and practices) within such regimes and prevailing organizations and processes (technologies, markets, policy-making and governance) often act as a “hidden hand”⁷⁰ that locks farming and market systems into practices impeding the creation, development and use of improved crop improvement and agronomic technologies. For GLDC to contribute to smallholders overcoming challenges and capturing opportunities, crop improvement and farming systems research are necessary but insufficient investments. Socio-economic science, contemporary development practice and scaling partners must be well integrated within GLDC to support different types of agency of actors^{71, 72} to unlock opportunities in the context of their differing innovation capacities and agri-food system regimes.



Figure 5: GLDC Impact Pathway