At the request of the USAID Malawi Mission, the MEAS project (Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services – a USAID funded project) conducted a rapid scoping mission to examine the pluralistic extension system in Malawi and to develop recommendations for strengthening extension and advisory services in the country.
African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
Accountability pressure to demonstrate how research for development projects will bridge the ‘output - outcome gap’ and achieve impacts ‘at scale’ has increased. Consequently, efforts to develop ‘Theory of Change’ (ToC) and impact pathways that steer programs and projects to outcomes have grown within Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) strategy. In response, the cross agency Food Systems Innovation (FSI) initiative piloted the use of ToC thinking within Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
This book contains a collection of papers that discuss the experience of an Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) capacity building program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The program was the AusAID-funded Agricultural Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF), which ran for fi ve years from 2007 to 2012, and which sought to improve the delivery of services by agricultural research organisations to smallholder farmers.
In an effort to raise incomes and increase resilience of smallholder farmers and their families in Feed the Future1 (FTF) countries, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project. This project is led by Digital Green in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CARE International (CARE) and multiple resource partners.
The Feed the Future Uganda Agricultural Inputs Activity is to increase the use of high quality agricultural inputs in Uganda by increasing availability of high quality inputs to farmers in Feed the Future focus districts, and decreasing the prevalence of counterfeit agricultural inputs.
The Agribusiness and Market Development (AMDe) project is funded through USAID Ethiopia’s Feed the Future program from June 2011 to May 2016. It goal is to sustainably reduce poverty and hunger by improving the productivity and competiveness of agricultural value chains that offer jobs and income activities for rural households.
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.
This assessment has been conducted over December 2015 to May 2016 under the Powering Agriculture Support Task Order (PASTO). PASTO is funded by USAID and implemented by Tetra Tech ES, Inc. PASTO provides support services to the Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGC) and its Founding Partners to enable their effective management, monitoring and evaluation of the program.
To ensure that Feed the Future impact evaluations are well-conceived, build on existing evidence, and fill critical evidence gaps, the Bureau for Food Security of USAID is supporting a comprehensive assessment of existing evidence and gaps in knowledge for each of six themes covered by the Feed the Future Learning Agenda. This paper summarizes available evidence that relates to key questions for the Feed the Future Learning Agenda theme on improved gender integration and women’s empowerment.