New Reports

Farmers’ Agency and Experiences of Agricultural Change in Rural Kenya: Insights from Exploratory Fieldwork

Author: Joanes Atela, Charles Tonui, Dominic Glover
Publisher: ESRC STEPS Centre
Publication Date: Mar. 14, 2018.

Using novel agricultural technologies to boost farm productivity in the face of climatic and demographic disruption remains a priority for African policy and research. This paper uses an innovative, participatory and ethnographic methodology to explore, through farmers’ experiences, the historical pathways of social, ecological and technical (socio-eco-technical) change that have reshaped agriculture, livelihoods and rural landscapes in three sites in Kenya (Machakos, Siaya and Kisumu Counties) over recent decades. The paper identifies events and processes that triggered major changes in farming systems at household and community levels. Insights from engagements with farmers reflect an evolution in the strategic direction of agricultural development in Kenya from a more ‘bureaucratic’ mode during the colonial and immediate post-independence periods to a more ‘technocratic’ mode today. In the bureaucratic mode, the state was at the centre and aspired to align all farming practices and technologies with the priorities and programmes determined by the national government. In the contemporary period of technocratic development, agricultural programmes and interventions have been designed by scientific experts and implemented by technical agencies through the institutional form of short-term projects and programmes. In both the bureaucratic and technocratic systems, the agency of local farmers has remained weak and constrained. Both systems of management established formal development processes and power structures that largely sidelined meaningful contributions by ordinary farmers to technological change processes. We argue that the agency and capacities of farmers and rural communities, to make choices and respond to opportunities arising from or introduced into their local situations, should be recognised as an important engine of socio-eco-technical transformations towards a sustainable future for African agriculture. We therefore propose that this exploratory study helps to build a platform for further research both conceptually and methodologically, with the potential to inform the design and implementation of future agricultural development interventions

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Impact Evaluation and Implications for Korea's ODA Evaluation System

Author: Yoon Sun Hur, Jisun Jeong, Juyoung Lee, Alia Yoo
Publisher: KIEP World Economy Brief
Publication Date: Feb. 14, 2018.

The goal of this study is to examine the trends, policies and issues of impact evaluation, and to draw policy implications for the introduction of impact evaluation in Korea's ODA evaluation system. To achieve this goal, this study first compares and analyzes the policy, evaluation system and various cases of impact evaluation from other donor agencies such as the World Bank, ADB, USAID, MCC, and JICA. Second, we analyze the major issues related to impact evaluation in details. Three issues are raised and analyzed: evaluability assessment, methodology design, and feedback of the result. Third, we conduct an impact evaluation using clustered-RCT to assess the performance of a health project supported by the Korean government in Vietnam. Finally, we analyze the tasks for introducing impact evaluation into Korea's ODA evaluation system at the level of an ODA-integrated evaluation system and implementing agency. This study also proposes a mid- to long-term roadmap to reform Korea’s ODA evaluation system.

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Branding K-REDD+ and its implications for South Korea's middle power diplomacy

Author: Yeon-Su Kim, Jae soo Bae, Larry A. Fisher, Jione Jung
Publisher:The Pacific Review
Publication Date: Jan. 30, 2018.

The need for new and stronger middle power diplomacy is growing as global challenges are increasingly governed by various horizontal inter- and trans-national networks. Climate change is one of the most complex and urgent global challenges that require collective action, and it is an issue for which more middle power leadership is greatly needed. The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been successful in becoming a primary actor in green growth governance, and its success has been attributed to its strategic middlepowermanship, integrating both material and ideational contents. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in tropical developing countries has been lauded as an immediate and effective solution to mitigate climate change. ROK's unique history of forest transition before rapid economic growth highlights the fact that improving forest management is possible even with imperfect governance, rapid population growth, and low economic development. The lessons learned from ROK's forest transition can be developed as a distinct contribution to the international effort to address forest-related impacts on climate change, and offer an important opportunity for ROK to play a constructive role and achieve enhanced stature within the international community.

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The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Tanzania

Author: Takaaki Masaki
Publisher: World Development
Publication Date: Jan. 29, 2018.

Do intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs)? There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants “crowd out” local revenues. Most existing studies, however, explore the fiscal implications of intergovernmental transfers in high-income countries where sound fiscal systems are taken for granted. In this paper, I explore the impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenues in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where local fiscal capacity is limited and endogenously determined by financial support from international donors and the central government. I argue that in places where the existing capacity of LGAs to administer tax collection is weak and political costs of enforcing taxation are low—which are perennial features of many rural districts in Africa—intergovernmental transfers facilitate local revenue generation instead of undermining it. Analyzing newly available quarterly fiscal data on local revenues in Tanzania, I show that intergovernmental grants improve the mobilization of local revenues, and also that the positive effect of fiscal transfers on local revenue collection seems to be more pronounced in rural districts.

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The impact of agricultural extension services in the context of a heavily subsidized input system: The case of Malawi

Author: Catherine Ragasa, John Mazunda
Publisher: World Development
Publication Date: Jan. 29, 2018.

This paper examines the interplay between Malawi’s input subsidy and access to extension services, and the impact of both on farm productivity and food security using Malawi’s Integrated Household Panel Survey. A correlated random effects (CRE) device is used, and consistency and robustness of results are checked using various other estimation models. The receipt of fertilizer and seed subsidies is shown to have an inconsistent impact on farm productivity and food security; at the same time, access to agricultural advice is consistently insignificant in explaining these. Further analysis, however, shows a statistically significant and strong association with farm productivity and food security when access to extension services is unpacked to include indicators of usefulness and farmers’ satisfaction. Households that reported receipt of “very useful” agricultural advice had greater productivity and greater food security compared to those that reported receipt of advice that they considered not useful and those that did not receive any advice at all. This result implies the need to ensure the provision of relevant and useful agricultural advice to increase the likelihood of achieving agricultural development outcomes.

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Competition or cooperation? Using team and tournament incentives for learning among female farmers in rural Uganda

Author: Kathryn N. Vasilaky, Asif M. Islam
Publisher: World Development
Publication Date: Nov. 26, 2018.

This study explores the behavioral learning characteristics of smallholder female farmers in Uganda by quantifying the amount of information learned under different incentive schemes. The paper shows how competitive versus team incentives compare in motivating Ugandan farmers to learn and share information relevant to adopting a new agricultural technology. We find that tournament-based incentives provide greater outcomes in terms of total information learned than threshold-based team incentives. Furthermore the order of the incentive – whether the tournament precedes or follows the team incentive scheme – does not affect the volume of information learned. New information introduced between rounds was learned by more individuals under team incentives than under tournament incentives. The study provides direct practical policy recommendations for improving learning in the context of agriculture in Uganda.

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