The prevalence of volatility in funding trends

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the inception of ASTI. During this time, governments, donors, and international organizations have used ASTI’s evidence to guide agricultural research investment and policy decisions, to assess areas of underinvestment, to identify capacity gaps and training needs, and to demonstrate the returns to agricultural research investment. This series of notes marks this important milestone by focusing—and updating—on some of the key advancements and insights ASTI data have enabled in the past 20 years. This note focuses on the prevalence of volatility in long-term funding (and hence spending) trends, largely stemming from high levels of donor dependence.