Building African scientific capacity for agricultural development

Abstract

Eicher, C.K., 1990. Building African scient.ific capacity for agricultural development. Agric. Econ., 4: 117 -143.During Africa's first t.wo decades of independence from 1960 to 1980, priority was given to increasing the size of national extension services because it was assumed that technology could be imported from industrial countries and the International Agricultural Research Centers. Over the past decade, donors have turned their attention to assisting national agricultural research systems (NARS). But many NARS are performing poorly and are faced with a high turnover of scientific staff and inadequate operating budgets. Moreover, the present donor-financed project by project and country by country approach to building African scientific capacity is seriously flawed. This paper examines Africa's agricultural research history over the past six decades and draws lessons for strengthening national and regional agricultural research systems over the coming 30 years."The true measure of the success of a program of international and technical collaboration is not in its accomplishments during the period it is in force but rather in what happens after foreign aid has been withdrawn." -George HARRAR, 1967, p. 20. 0169-5150/90/$03.50 (i:) 1990 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

Sources of agricultural productivity growth and stagnation in sub-Saharan Africa

“…However, the results are consistent with the cross-section, time-series estimates obtained by Ghura and Just (l992) for East Africa. Other possible reasons discussed in the literature include lack of critical mass of researchers, lack of spending per researcher, lack research historically in tropical and desert zones, and lack of congruence between output and research mix (Lipton, 1988;Eicher, 1990). This may be due to the fact that Peterson's (1987) land quality index implicitly accounts for the extent of irrigation in calculation of land quality.…”

Sustainable intensification in African agriculture

“…This has helped to frame a prevailing international view that African agriculture has lagged behind the rest of the world. At the same time, there has been disinvestment in agricultural research, extension and production systems from both governments and international donors (DFID, 2009;Eicher, 2009;Haggblade and *Corresponding author. Email: jpretty@essex.ac.uk Hazell, 2009).…”

Evaluation of agricultural research in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa

“…This proved to be a great challenge for the research systems. Over the years, it has been recognized that many NARS are performing poorly, faced with a high turnover of scientific staff and inadequate operating budgets (Eicher, 1990;Pardey, Roseboom, and Beintema, 1995). Given this scenario, R&D evaluation has become a critical issue during the last two decades.…”

“…Most donors ignored the differing stages of institutional maturity of individual African states as they prepared projects to strengthen national research and extension services with durations of five to seven years (Eicher, 1990). Africanization of agricultural research began to occur during the late 1960s, reflecting the need for a major reorientation from export-oriented agriculture to food crop production.…”