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Priority assessment is an integral part of research planning at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), which involves a broad base of rice research and development stakeholders at different policy- and decision-making levels. Research priorities identified through a multi-stakeholder participatory process are reviewed, monitored and approved continuously by the WARDA Board of Trustees, the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Council of Ministers. This chapter summarizes the methods and processes used in assessing research priorities at WARDA during the past 10 years. The essential elements of the priority assessment methodology were: (i) review the WARDA strategic plan (SP), its mission statement and goals to select impact criteria associated with the main developmental objectives towards which the medium-term plan (MTP) projects were intended to contribute; (ii) conduct a survey of representatives of major WARDA stakeholders to elicit relative (subjective) weights they attached to each selected impact criteria; (iii) develop a method and criteria for assessing and rating the potential and expected contribution of each research activity, output and programme/project to each selected impact criteria; and (iv) conduct a two-day priority assessment workshop involving WARDA management, scientists and representatives of major stakeholders to: (i) review and validate the methodology; (ii) conduct the assessment and ratings of the potential contributions of the research activities and outputs and the external factors that affect the conduct of research activities; and (iii) analyse and discuss the results of the priority assessment.

Manual weeding is the predominant weed control practice and the most labor-consuming activity in smallholder, rainfed rice systems in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigates the technical inefficiency of weeding labor, other labor, and overall inputs, and identifies sources of technical inefficiency of weeding labor in the context of parasitic weed infestation. The analysis applies a two-stage approach. First, a directional input distance function DEA approach was used to compute input-specific technical inefficiencies. Second, sources of technical inefficiency of weeding labor were identified using a truncated bootstrap regression. Data from 406 randomly selected smallholder farmers from Benin (n = 215) and Côte d'Ivoire (n = 191) were used. The technical inefficiency of weeding labor was high in both countries (58% in Côte d'Ivoire and 69% in Benin). This implies that a substantial fraction of weeding labor could be saved without reducing rice productivity or increasing the use of other inputs. A decrease in the technical inefficiency of weeding labor with an increase in production scale was observed. In addition, weeding regime and education level were each associated to significant changes in the technical inefficiency of weeding labor.JEL classifications: C01, C02, C14, C34

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