This synthesis report presents the outputs of the workshop organised by CTA at its headquarters in Wageningen, The Netherlands, 15-17 July 2008. The outputs are presented in two main parts, each corresponding to one of the workshop objectives, and ends with a section on the way forward as suggested by the workshop participants. It also includes a first attempt to come to a consolidated generic framework on AIS performance indicators, based on the outputs of the different working groups.
The use of mobile phones has increased rapidly in many developing countries, including in rural areas. Besides reducing the costs of communication and improving access to information, mobile phones are an enabling technology for other innovations. One important example are mobile phone based money transfers, which could be very relevant for the rural poor, who are often underserved by the formal banking system. We analyze impacts of mobile money technology on the welfare of smallholder farm households in Kenya.
This report details the results of the Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of the Sustainable Nutrition and Agriculture Promotion (SNAP) program in Sierra Leone. This is a five-year USAID Food for Peace (FFP) Multi-Year Assistance Program. The overall goal of SNAP is to reduce food insecurity and increase resiliency among the most food insecure and vulnerable rural populations.
The Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) has commissioned the Natural Resources Institute to develop a toolkit for the evaluation of extension (projects, programmes, tools and initiatives). This commission has a number of components:
The CGIAR research program on livestock and fish aims to sustainably increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems so as to increase the availability and affordability of meat, milk and fish for poor consumers across the developing world. The purpose of this document is to lay out a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework for the program. The Framework provides a concise narrative of why the M&E system is important, how it operates, what kinds of data it will collect and who is responsible for data collection and analysis.
Con el objetivo de generar insumos para las iniciativas TIC de las instituciones públicas para la agricultura y rescatar las experiencias y lecciones aprendidas de los países de America Latina y el Caribe que llevan la vanguardia en este tema, a mediados de 2010 el Centro de Análisis para la Agricultura (CAESPA) del IICA inició un proceso de identificación y análisis de los principales factores que retrasan o limitan el impacto de las TIC en esas instituciones.
This report presents the impact and lessons learned from the Andhra Pradesh Drought Adaptation Initiative (APDAI). The APDAI was implemented as a package of pilot activities in two dryland districts in Andhra Pradesh (Anantapur and Mahbubnagar) with the aim of developing and testing approaches for natural resource-based economic activities to better respond to current climate variability and long-term consequences of climate change. The report discusses how innovations are being scaled up through integration into regular government programs for greater outreach.
Thw IFAD-funded Programme d'Appui au Développement Rural dans le Guéra (PADER-G) project was implemented with the main objective of supporting poor rural households and smallholder farmers in Guéra, Chad to improve their food security and livelihoods. One specific aim of PADER-G, designed to manage risks of food shortage, was to improve cereal storage among smallholder farmers through the construction of community cereal banks (banque de céréales).
This piece examines the prevailing thinking and trends in evaluation (specifically impact assessment), which is important for understanding how a contest of ideas has become something of a battleground in the quest for better evidence. It is particularly Impact assessment and the quest for the Holy Grail Common Fund for Commodities relevant for the many organisations, including CFC, who desire methodological rigour in their evaluations and yet have to be realistic when it comes to evaluation budgets.
We look at the trade-off between smallholder cocoa intensification and the ecosystem in Indonesia and investigate the determinants of environmental efficiency in cocoa production. In our analysis, we apply a distance output function that includes cocoa production and the abundance of native rainforest plants as outputs. Our data set, based on a household and environment survey conducted in 2015, allows us to analyze 208 cocoa producers with both measured and self-reported data. We find that the intensification of cocoa farms results in higher ecosystem degradation.