This report synthesizes findings from seven country scoping studies on gender‐responsive approaches to rural advisory services (RAS) in Africa. The studies, which were conducted in Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda, were meant to identify existing policies, programmes, approaches, and tools into which gender considerations had been injected, and then to provide them as RAS to farmers, with specific focus on women and youth. The goal was to propose a road map for mainstreaming RAS to promote sustainable agriculture in Africa
This policy brief shows how digital tools can help to ensure that public money for agricul-tural extension is spent wisely. Governments often fund offices, training centers, and the salaries of extension officers, but cannot eas-ily review the impacts of these expenditures. This is because the activities of extension agents are not monitored systematically. Ex-ension services rarely generate quantitative data on the effects of their work.
Agricultural innovation systems require strong linkage between research and extension organizations in particular, and among the various actors engaged in the agricultural sector in general. In the context of Ethiopia and the Amhara regional state, the agricultural research and extension system is characterized by a large number of actors in a fragmented and underdeveloped innovation system, resulting in very low national and regional innovation capacities. Farmers are generally viewed as passive recipients of technology.
There is a considerable shortage of improved seed in Ethiopia. Despite good reasons to invest in this market, private sector investments are not occurring. Using an institutional economics theoretical framework, this chapter analyzes the formal Ethiopian seed system and identifies transaction costs to find potential starting points for institutional innovations.
This book highlights the important links between agriculture and nutrition, both direct and indirect, both theoretical and practical. It explores these relationships through various frameworks, such as value chains, programmes and policies, as well as through diverse perspectives, such as gender. It assesses the impacts of various agricultural interventions and policies on nutrition and profiles the up-and-down journeys of countries such as Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, and Malawi in integrating nutrition into agricultural policies and programmes.
This brief explores the evidence on the relationships between food aid transfers and investments in climate adaptive agriculture using data from Ethiopia, Malawi and United Republic of Tanzania. Four climate adaptive agricultural investments are considered, namely: adoption of cereal-legume intercropping, use of organic fertilizers such as manure and compost, construction of soil and water conservation structures in fields, and investments in livestock diversification.
- Lack of automated data capture systems affects timely feedback and accuracy of information for breeding decisions.
- CGIAR researchers and national research partners have adopted a digital genetic database, Dtreo, that is enhancing genetic improvement by providing timely and accurate animal ranking information to communities.
- Dtreo is a digital genetic database that is flexible and easy to use, that allows users to capture and save data offline. Data is uploaded to the database once an internet connection has been established.
IFAD’s technical assistance programme INSURED (Insurance for rural resilience and economic development) has been building knowledge about how to strengthen women producers’ access to climate risk insurance. Working with partners, INSURED supported research, and fieldwork in Ethiopia including group discussions with smallholders about insurance options. A checklist was drawn up for insurance designers and implementers to help them reach out to women every step of the way.
The Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada. The LIVES capacity development pillar seeks to strengthen innovation and the learning capacity of value chain actors and service providers to develop livestock and irrigation agriculture value chains. Using participatory processes to assess knowledge and skills gaps of value chain actors and service providers, it identifies capacity development interventions. Project staff then design and implement these interventions
Research, extension, and advisory services are some of the most knowledge-intensive elements of agricultural innovation systems. They are also among the heaviest users of information communication technologies (ICTs). This module introduces ICT developments in the wider innovation and knowledge systems as well as explores drivers of ICT use in research and extension