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A first step in evaluating the effects of agricultural investments in developing countries to recognize that policy makers will almost certainly have multiple objectives. Even policy makers like those at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, with a strong focus on ensuring that interventions contribute to growth, also have a keen interest in poverty reduction and other goals such as enhancing gender equity. This presence of multiple goals has profound impacts on the choice of policies and mean it is likely that more than one policy instrument will be needed to best achieve those goals. Once the goals of policy have been identified, the next step is to identify possible policy instruments to help in achieving these goals. These potential policy instruments will likely include some policy reforms like adjustments to trade policies that are relatively easy to implement, whose impacts are relatively easy to analyze and whose implications for fiscal revenues may be slight. They may also include re-forms to the ways that policies are identified and implemented, such as moves from centralized policy making to community driven development, designed to align policies more strongly with needs in the communities affected. They are also likely to include investment projects with substantial revenue requirements that seek to rectify market failures in areas such as the provision of public goods or the internalization of externalities. Constraints Analyses are an important part of the MCC approach to identifying and evaluating interventions using the Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco growth diagnostic approach (HRV). This seeks to identify areas in which substantial progress can be made at limited cost by identifying key omissions in cur-rent policies. Their famous, and useful, analogy to a barrel with a short stave whose lengthening can increase the water level in the barrel at minimum cost helps grasp the essence of this approach. It deals with situations where inefficiencies in past policy making, and/or changes in circumstances mean that disproportionately large benefits are obtainable at low cost.
A growing number of governments, donor agencies, and development organizations are committed to supporting nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) to achieve their development goals. Although consensus exists on pathways through which agriculture may influence nutrition-related outcomes, empirical evidence on agriculture’s contribution to nutrition and how it can be enhanced is still weak. This paper reviews recent empirical evidence (since 2014), including findings from impact evaluations of a variety of NSA programs using experimental designs as well as observational studies that document linkages between agriculture, women’s empowerment, and nutrition. It summarizes existing knowledge regarding not only impacts but also pathways, mechanisms, and contextual factors that affect where and how agriculture may improve nutrition outcomes. The paper concludes with reflections on implications for agricultural programs, policies, and investments, and highlights future research priorities.
Upon request of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted this study to support USAID in assessing the state of empowerment and gender parity of men and women along the agricultural value chain in the Feed the Future (FTF) Zone of Influence (ZOI) in Bangladesh. Specifically, IFPRI’s Policy Research and Strategy Support Program (PRSSP), funded by USAID, piloted the modified Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) survey instruments in 10 upazilas (sub-districts) within the FTF ZOI across 1,200 households, which broadly belong to three economic activities of interest: (1) agricultural production, (2) agricultural entrepreneurship, and (3) agricultural sector employment. The quantitative survey was complemented by qualitative research to glean further insights into the facilitators and constraints of empowerment among various actors in the agricultural value chain. The data and analysis generated from this WEAI for Value Chain (WEAI4VC) study may inform USAID’s selection and design of interventions that may, in turn, maximize its programmatic impact on women and men’s empowerment as producers, entrepreneurs, and wage employees.
Adoption of quality-enhancing technologies is often driven largely by farmers’ expected returns from these technologies. Without proper grades, standards, and certification systems, however, farmers may remain uncertain about the actual financial return associated with their quality-enhancing investments. This report summarizes the outcomes of a short video-based randomized training intervention on wheat quality measurement and collective marketing among 15,000 wheat farmers in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that the intervention led to significant changes in farmers’ commercialization behaviors—namely, it prompted farmers to adopt behaviors geared toward assessing their wheat’s quality using easily implementable test-weight measures, assessing the accuracy of the equipment used by buyers in their kebeles (scales, in particular), and contacting more than one buyer before concluding a sale. The training also led to improvements in share of output sold, price received, and collective marketing, albeit with important limitations. First, farmers who measured their wheat quality received a higher price, but only if their wheat was of higher quality. Second, farmers who found that their wheat was of higher quality were more reluctant to aggregate their wheat (that is, sell their products through local cooperatives) than those who found that their wheat was of lower quality. Lastly, the training intervention led to better use of fertilizer in the following season. Our discovery that a short training intervention can significantly change farmers’ marketing and production behavior should encourage the development of further interventions aimed at enhancing farmers’ adoption of improved technologies and commercialization.
Impact evaluation is an empirical approach to estimating the causal effects of interventions, in terms of both magnitude and statistical significance. Expanded use of impact evaluation techniques is critical to rigorously derive knowledge from development operations and for development investments and policies to become more evidence-based and effective. To help backstop more use of impact evaluation approaches, this book introduces core concepts, methods, and considerations for planning, designing, managing, and implementing impact evaluation, supplemented by examples. The topics covered range from impact evaluation purposes to basic principles, specific methodologies, and guidance on field implementation. It has materials for a range of audiences, from those who are interested in understanding evidence on "what works" in development, to those who will contribute to expanding the evidence base as applied researchers.
Part I: Introduction; Part II: Valuation of ecosystem services and biophysical indicators of NRM impacts; Part III: Methodological advances for a comprehensive impact assessment; Part IV: NRM impact assessment in practice.
This report reviews a number of hybrid technologies that can be deployed to ‘defossilise’ economic sectors and sets out policy options to bring these technologies to commercial scale.