The commitment to mutual accountability to results and action raises a fundamental question about the role of mutual accountability (MA) processes and mechanisms in enhancing the capabilities of governments to implement the vision and strategies that will deliver quick results and foster agricultural growth and transformation on the continent. This chapter addresses this fundamental question and related issues using as background information the inaugural CAADP BR report and the accompanying Africa Agricultural Transformation Scorecard (AATS) that was launched at the 30th ordinary session of the AU assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2018 (AUC, 2016). ; ReSAKSS; IFPRI5 ; AFR ; PR
In Uganda, agricultural extension has been hotly debated since the implementation of the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program in 2001. Conceived as a demand-driven approach and largely publicly funded with services provided by the private sector, the NAADS program targets the development and use of farmer institutions. It is a key strategy in the government's poverty-reduction and national development plan. Due to methodological challenges arising from the complex ways that many factors influence the relationship between extension inputs and outcomes, as well as data-quality issues, the effectiveness of agricultural extension in raising agricultural productivity and incomes and reducing poverty is often viewed with skepticism among policymakers and development practitioners. The NAADS program has been no exception. Some initial evaluations, mostly qualitative in nature, indicate the program has had a favorable effect on increasing the use of improved technologies, marketed output, and wealth status of farmers receiving services from the program. However, the program does not appear to be promoting improved soil-fertility management, raising concern about the sustainability of potential productivity increases. Now that the first phase of the program has ended, this study rigorously assesses the outcomes and impacts obtained thus far, in order to help inform the current second phase and offer lessons for others implementing or planning to implement demand-driven agricultural advisory services in developing countries. The findings presented here are useful to policymakers of central and local governments, farmer groups, advisory service providers, donors, and others seeking to improve agricultural extension services in Uganda and elsewhere. Program evaluators and policy analysts will find the methods instructive. ; PR ; IFPRI1; GRP32; Land Resource Management for Poverty Reduction ; EPTD; DSGD
Agricultural development strategies delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. They are usually put forward by individual countries based on assessments of national needs. Seldom are attempts made to identify strategic priorities for agricultural development that cut across national boundaries. This gap is perhaps not surprising—organizations mandated to develop and implement regional agricultural development programs are rare. Although the gap may be understandable, it is also troubling. This report helps to fill that gap for eastern and central Africa (ECA), focusing on Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Recent trends and the current performance of agriculture in these countries expose a region progressively less able to meet the needs of its burgeoning population. The analysis. suggests that to avoid the bleak growth and poverty outcomes implied by business-as-usual in agriculture, ECA governments must invest in combinations of measures that (1) spur productivity growth, focusing on subsectors with high demand within ECA; (2) strengthen agricultural markets; (3) enhance linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors; and (4) exploit opportunities for regional cooperation. ; PR ; IFPRI1; ECAPAPA; GRP38; DCA ; EPTD; DSGD
Use of agricultural input and farm support subsidies in Africa has returned strongly to the development agenda, particularly following the recent high food and input prices crisis. Many of the donors who opposed them in the past and subsequently put pressure to discontinue them due to their high cost and distortionary effect on the domestic economy are now providing aid in the form of farm support and agricultural subsidies. In Ghana, for example, the country of study in this paper, the government has since 2007 introduced four major subsidy and support programs on fertilizer, mechanization, block farms, and marketing. Therefore, a key question that arises is how the structure and policies of these current programs account for any of the general lessons and controversies experienced in the past and, in the process, achieve their intended goals in a more effective and economically viable manner. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; Theme 6; Subtheme 6.2; GRP32; GSSP ; DSGD
The need for agricultural ministries to have the capacity to develop appropriate policies and effectively implement them is becoming increasingly important as African countries, following on their commitment to Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), pursue economic growth through agriculture-led development. The ministries need to take the lead in pulling together evidence based strategies and building partnerships that ensures their ownership. As donors begin to align their policies with those of governments, an increasingly large share of external support to agriculture is likely to be delivered in the form of support to budgets rather than specially implemented projects. Capacities of ministries and effectiveness public systems will have significant bearing on effectiveness and impact of investments in agriculture. This public expenditure and institutional review of Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture offers insights on diagnosing limitations to and identifying strategies for improving the capacity of ministries to make effective use of human and financial resources. The review makes use a conceptual framework in which mission and functions, organizational capacity - a combination of structures, processes and resources -and organizational incentives interact to produce organizational performance. Indicative strategies are recommended that the ministry can use to generate discussions internally and developed a set a reforms that are owned. They key message is that to improve performance both capacity and incentives faced by organizations need to be addressed. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP32 ; DSGD
Most efforts to raise fertilizer use in SSA over the past decade have focused on fertilizer subsidies and targeted credit programmes with hopes that these programmes could later be withdrawn once the profitability of fertilizer use has been made clear to adopting farmers and once they have become sufficiently capitalized to be able to afford fertilizer on their own. This line of reasoning under-emphasizes the evidence that many smallholder farmers obtain very low crop response rates to inorganic fertilizer application and hence cannot use it profitably at full market prices. A central hypothesis of this study is that Ghanaian farmers will demand increasing quantities of fertilizer when they can utilize it more profitably, and that doing so will require improved agronomic and soil management practices that enable farmers to achieve higher crop response rates to fertilizer application. The study's findings are based on reviews of existing studies from Ghana and the wider region, key informant interviews of cocoa and maize farmers, international and local scientists, fertilizer distribution companies and government officials. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI2; GSSP; Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Food Security Policy (FSP) ; DSGD
