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EVALUATION REPORT EV672April 2007

DFID’S 2005 AGRICULTURE

POLICY:AN INTERIM EVALUATION

Author:John Heath,

Evaluation Department

DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

EVALUATION REPORT EV672

DFID’s 2005 Agriculture Policy:An Interim Evaluation

John HeathEvaluation Department

April 2007

PREFACE

In December 2005 the Secretary of State launched a new Agriculture Policy for DFID. The Policyrestates the case for agriculture as an integral part of a broad-based, pro-poor growth strategy. The sevenpriorities of the Policy are:

• Create policies and procedures that support agriculture

• Target public spending more effectively

• Tackle market failure

• Fill the agricultural finance gap

• Spread the benefits of new technology

• Improve access to land and secure property rights

• Reduce distortions in international markets

Recent changes in the way we work, including supporting nationally-owned development strategies anddelivering more of our aid through government budgets, have presented new challenges for our work onagriculture.

In its concern to address these challenges, the Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture Teamapproached DFID’s Evaluation Department and requested an independent evaluation of the AgriculturalPolicy, focusing on the relevance of its objectives to DFID’s overall mandate and the effectiveness to datein implementing the principles of the policy. In view of the shortness of the time elapsed since the policy paper was issued this is very much an interim evaluation. A more comprehensive evaluation willbe conducted by the RNRA team in 2008.

This report reflects findings from desk work and interviews carried out between September andDecember 2006. The evaluation concludes that while the Agricultural Policy is highly relevant to DFID’spolicy reduction mandate, early efforts at implementation have been only moderately effective, partlybecause there is limited ownership of the policy by DFID’s country offices. The evaluation contains recommendations aimed at addressing this performance shortfall.

The report is available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/aboutdfid/performance/default.asp.

By Nick York,Director, Evaluation Department

Preface

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The evaluation was managed and drafted by John Heath, a Senior Evaluation Adviser in EvaluationDepartment, seconded to DFID from the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group. Julia Compton,Senior Evaluation Manager, EvD, provided guidance on the evaluation approach. The report was quality assured internally by Joanne Bosworth (formerly of Evaluation Department) and externally byMichael Flint (consultant). Fred Downs (EvD) helped with the database search and content analysis conducted for this evaluation. Pre-publication assistance was provided by John Murray (EvD).

The author would like to thank the Renewable Natural Resource and Agriculture Team, led by RichardMoberly, for their collaboration with the evaluation and for commenting in detail on earlier drafts of thisreport. The contribution of all who were interviewed for the evaluation is gratefully acknowledged. A fulllist of interviewees appears in Annex VII of this report.

Full responsibility for the text of this report rests with the author. In common with all evaluation reportscommissioned by DFID’s Evaluation Department, the views contained in this report do not necessarilyrepresent those of DFID or of the people consulted.

Acknowledgements

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ABBREVIATIONS

CAADP Comprehensive African Agriculture Development ProgrammeCAP Country Assistance PlanCGIAR Consultative Group for International Agricultural ResearchCRD Central Research DepartmentCY Calendar YearDAC Development Assistance CommitteeDANIDA Danish International Development AgencyDDP Director’s Delivery PlanDFID Department for International DevelopmentEQ Evaluation QuestionFAO UN Food and Agriculture OrganizationFIRST A multi-donor challenge fund on financeGDP Gross Domestic ProductIFPRI International Food Policy Research InstituteMDG Millennium Development GoalNAO National Audit OfficeNGO Non-Government OrganizationOECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentPRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy PaperPSA Public Service AgreementR&D Research and DevelopmentRNRA Renewable Natural Resources and Agricultural TeamSWAp Sector-Wide ApproachSRSG Statistical Reporting and Support GroupUN United Nations

Abbreviations

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Table of Contents

Preface i

Acknowledgements iii

Abbreviations v

Executive Summary ix

1 INTRODUCTION 1Background to the 2005 Agriculture Policy Paper 1Who is Responsible for Implementing the Policy? 2Evaluation Purpose 2Evaluation Approach 2Data Sources 3

2 THE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK 5Limitations of the Evaluation 5

3 RELEVANCE 7How relevant is the Policy to DFID’s mission? 7Are staff members persuaded of the relevance of agriculture to DFID’s mission? 7How faithful is the Policy to the outcome of the consultation process? 7How appropriate is the Policy in the light of development research findings

and wider knowledge? 8How gender-sensitive is the Policy? 10

4 EFFECTIVENESS 13Did the consultation process achieve its objective? 13To what extent has agriculture been prioritized in DFID’s corporate agenda? 13Are the principles of the Policy reflected in country programmes? 13Are the principles of the Policy reflected in DFID’s work with muiltilaterals? 17What steps has RNRA taken to promote the Policy with country offices? 17Which of the 7 priority initiatives in the Policy have made most progress? 18What are the constraints on implementation of the Policy? 20

Government priorities 20Spending 21Staffing 24Tension between Top-Down and Country-Driven Mandates 25Influence of Type of Aid Instrument 25

5 CONCLUSIONS, RATINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 27Conclusions 27Ratings 27Recommendations 28

Table of Contents

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AnnexesAnnex I Baselines for Evaluating Implementation of the Policy Paper 31Annex II Method 38Annex III Responses to Questionnaire 39Annex IV Questionnaire 40Annex V Implementation Plan for Agriculture Policy Paper (October 2005) 44Annex VI Agriculture Expenditure by Government: Selected Countries in

Africa and Asia 53Annex VII Persons Interviewed By Phone in December 2006 54

BoxesBox 1 The View of a DFID Livelihoods Adviser in a Country Office 25

TablesTable 1 Framework for the Agriculture Policy Evaluation 6Table 2 Returns to Government Investment 9Table 3 Scores for Agriculture Coverage:

(a) By Country; (b) By Instrument 15Table 4 Typology of Countries Based on Level of Agriculture Coverage 16Table 5 Disbursement Progress of RNRA Initiatives

(Up to 31 December 2006) 19Table 6 Official Development Assistance to Agriculture by Bilateral

and Multilateral Agencies (in billions of 2002 US dollars) 23Table 7 Ratings 28

FiguresFigure 1 Share of Government Spending on Agriculture (1980-2002) 21Figure 2 DFID: Agriculture Spending vs. Total Spending 22Figure 3 DFID: Bilateral Spending on Agriculture (1996-97 to 2005-06) 22Figure 4 Changes in the Size of Advisory Groups between 2003 and 2005 24

Table of Contents

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Executive Summary

Background

S1 On 7 December 2005 the Secretary of State launched a new Agriculture Policy for DFID. ThePolicy restates the case for agriculture as an integral part of a broad-based, pro-poor growth strategy. Theseven priorities of the Policy are set out in Annex V below.

S2 A full evaluation of the Policy will be conducted in 2008. In response to a request from theRenewable Natural Resources and Agriculture team, Evaluation Department conducted an interim evaluation. This evaluation, which covers the period up to December 2006, asks:

• Are the objectives of the strategy right? (“Relevance”)• Have the objectives been accomplished - or are they, at least, likely to be accomplished?

(“Effectiveness”)

S3 The evaluation evidence is mainly derived from a document review and interviews with DFIDstaff; there were no country visits. Where appropriate, this report cites the findings of the National AuditOffice’s recent enquiry into DFID’s work on rural poverty. Given that neither the policy paper nor theassociated implementation plan contained a baseline or a detailed specification of indicators and targets,one of the primary contributions of this evaluation is to suggest what such an apparatus might look like.

Findings

S4 First, of the fifty largest country programs, only 10 made new commitments to agriculture projects in CY2003-2005. This needs to be qualified. Some additional projects may have had agriculturecontent but were not coded as agricultural (for example, certain infrastructure projects). Also, the number cited does not include budget support and sector-wide approach operations which may havesome bearing on agriculture policy and sector capacity building. A review of these non-project operationsfound that 28 percent of budget support intervention and 5 percent of SWAps had at least a potentialbearing on the agricultural sector.

S5 Second, based on a content analysis of strategy documents - Country Assistance Plans andPoverty Reduction Strategy Papers - the commitment to support agriculture was greater than perceivedby many of those interviewed for this evaluation. For example, it is not the case that the current batch ofPRSPs focuses almost exclusively on the social sectors: 87 percent of the PRSPs reviewed for this evaluation contained substantial sections on promoting agriculture.

S6 Third, there are several countries where agriculture represents a significant share of the economybut DFID does not intervene. In most of these cases, statements in the PRSP indicate that agriculture isa priority for the country; but the onus rests with other partners. In some cases (e.g. Uganda, Cambodia),DFID spends next to nothing directly on agriculture but keeps a foothold in the policy dialogue, working closely with other donors. In one case – Pakistan - agriculture is barely mentioned by the CAPand the PRSP even through sector value added accounts for 22 percent of GDP. The countries with thelargest “coverage” of agriculture - meaning strategy emphasis and operational commitments - are India,Afghanistan, Malawi and Rwanda. What is generally missing is a clear articulation in CAPs of the rationale for supporting or - as is more usually the case - not supporting agriculture.

Executive Summary

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S7 Fourth, one-half of DFID spending on agriculture is now channeled through multilaterals, a significantly higher proportion than for DFID spending overall - for which the figure is 40 percent.Among the multilaterals, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research has received thelargest increase in DFID spending. The multilateral share will probably continue to grow given pressuresto reduce staff, these having hit agriculture more than other areas of DFID intervention. With fewer specialist staff DFID will rely more on other partners to promote agriculture.

S8 Fifth, any assessment of the implementation of the 2005 policy paper must take into accountrecent spending and staffing trends which seriously challenge DFID’s capacity to sponsor a strategy of agriculture-led growth. Spending on agriculture has halved over the last decade and there has been a dropin the number of advisory staff with the requisite technical skills.

Ratings

S9 The relevance of the agriculture policy is rated high. First, the priorities identified in the policypaper are fully consistent with DFID’s commitment to poverty reduction, as enunciated in the 2006White Paper. The agriculture policy emphasizes the centrality of broad-based economic growth to poverty reduction, a position that is strongly supported by the research evidence (some of which isreviewed in this report). Second, in preparing the paper DFID sponsored a lengthy consultation withacademic experts and civil society representatives and the policy embodies most of the recommendationsthat emerged from that process. Also, the agriculture policy paper is sensitive to the gender issues recently mainstreamed in DFID’s work.

S10 The effectiveness of policy implementation is rated moderate. This is only a provisional assessment, and is based only partly on implementation achievements (given the shortness of the timeelapsed since the policy was issued); it also takes into account an assessment of disposing factors whichbear on the likelihood that the policy will be implemented.

S11 The rating of moderate effectiveness balances two countervailing considerations, one highly positive and the other less so. On the positive side, the consultation process that led up to the policypaper was very sound (see paragraph 5.3 below): both intellectually substantive (there was a discussionaround several excellent background papers) and inclusive (many people participated in the e-forum,with several contributions from developing countries). Equally positive, the DFID team charged withleading on the policy (Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture) has launched important initiativescorresponding to each of the seven priorities in the October 2005 implementation plan, some of theseinvolving work by members of the RNRA team, some (agriculture research, agriculture finance) involving appropriate coordination with other DFID units. The seven areas are reviewed in paragraphs5.23 to 5.59 below.

S12 Less positive is the lack of a clear pathway from the policy to uptake by countries. Respondingto the priorities identified in the implementation plan (particularly the first) hinges on action by DFIDcountry offices. Many of the heads of these offices show little awareness of, or commitment to, the agriculture policy and the scope for the RNRA team to advocate directly with country heads is limited.This reflects the tension between centrally-developed mandates (expressed through policy papers) and thedemand-driven, country-office-led strategy that has become dominant in DFID in recent years.

Executive Summary

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Recommendations

For Top Management

(1) A bigger attempt must be made to communicate to country offices the need to prioritize agriculture. This process cannot be driven by RNRA alone but presupposes commitment at the highestlevel within DFID. In particular, regional Directors’ Delivery Plans need to send the right signals.

(2) Given the weak evidence that budget support promotes agricultural growth, top managementneeds to consider the merits of a twin-track approach - combining budget support with more traditional projects targeted towards agriculture.

For the Renewable Natural Resource and Agriculture team

(3) Now is the time to define and formalize the baseline measures that will be used in the 2008 evaluation. Particular attention must be given to defining suitable baselines and targets for outcomes - nottackled by this evaluation.

(4) The design of the 2008 evaluation should be proportional to the flow of DFID resources. Thebaselines used in this interim report are geared mainly to DFID’s bilateral programme and focus on thepolicy’s uptake by country offices. But given that 50 percent of DFID spending is channeled throughmultilaterals (a proportion that is likely to rise), it will be equally important to measure the return to theseexpenditures.

(5) RNRA needs to give careful consideration to how best to consolidate its engagement with country offices. The test of this engagement (and an appropriate effectiveness indicator for the next evaluation) is the extent to which country offices are persuaded to pledge programme resources in support of the seven priorities of the Agriculture Policy.

For the Central Research Department

(6) Building on CRD’s new agricultural research strategy, a baseline should now be constructed inorder that progress with the more demand-driven approach can be measured: this would entail a surveyof selected countries, assessing the current level of technology used by poor and non-poor farmers anddeveloping indicators for tracking the generation of new technologies, their uptake by the differentincome groups, and the impact on productivity.

Executive Summary

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1. INTRODUCTION

Background to the 2005 Agriculture Policy Paper

1.1 In 2004, the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee reviewed DFID’s supportto agriculture, recommending that it urgently address “the damaging gap in agricultural service provision”.1 Partly in response to this, as well as pressure from the Science and Technology SelectCommittee and requests from some country offices, DFID set out to produce an agriculture policy paper.The process was as follows:

• Policy Division launched a consultation process, inviting agriculture specialists to comment on priorities for DFID.

• A number of background papers were sponsored (posted on the website of the NaturalResources Institute).

• A broad constituency from around the world was invited to comment by e-mail.

• The e-mail responses were collated by thematic moderators (not the same people whowrote the background papers), a process supervised by the Natural Resources Institute.The consultation closed on 30 September 2005.

• A draft implementation plan was prepared (see Annex V below).

• On 7 December 2005 the Secretary of State launched the Agriculture Policy.

1.2 The Agriculture Policy outlines the following seven priorities:

(i) Create policies and procedures that support agriculture

(ii) Target public spending more effectively

(iii) Tackle market failure

(iv) Fill the agricultural finance gap

(v) Spread the benefits of new technology

(vi) Improve access to land and secure property rights

(vii) Reduce distortions in international markets

These priorities are reflected in the October 2005 implementation plan (see Annex V below).

Introduction

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1 Select Committee on International Development, Seventh Report, 15 September 2004.

Who is Responsible for Implementing the Policy?

1.3 Responsibility for implementing the policy rests to a large extent with DFID’s country offices.How countries choose to apply the principles of the Agriculture Policy and balance them against otherobjectives and priorities is up to them. But a number of central teams also have a role to play. PolicyDivision’s Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture Team (RNRA) generates evidence on keydimensions of agricultural markets, public expenditure, science and technology, land, supermarkets andinformal product standards, and agriculture’s linkages with social protection. It shares lessons and support policy dialogue at country level on these issues. Policy Division’s Financial Services team pro-vides support on rural finance. The Sustainable Development Group leads work on water, infrastructureand environment. International Trade Department engages with agricultural trade and commoditiesissues. The Central Research Department promotes work on agricultural research.

Evaluation Purpose

1.4 This evaluation responds to a request from the Renewable Natural Resources and Agricultureteam (RNRA) for assistance in assessing implementation of the 2005 agriculture policy. This is an interim evaluation: little more than twelve months after the policy paper was issued it is too early to essaya comprehensive review of results - the October 2005 implementation plan for the agriculture policystates that a full evaluation will be conducted three years after the paper was issued (that is, around 2008).One of the main purposes of this interim report is to illustrate various baseline measures that could befurther developed by RNRA and which the more complete evaluation could refer back to. No attemptwas made to include a baseline in the Agriculture Policy paper - there are no benchmarks in terms ofspending and staffing, no indicators by which progress may ultimately be measured and no quantitativetargets (although the October 2005 implementation plan does include programme descriptions fromwhich a partial list of indicators may be derived).

Evaluation Approach

1.5 In line with the policy paper’s focus, the evaluation will address those aspects of DFID’s programme which promote agriculture’s role as a source of growth and a means of poverty reduction.This precludes a comprehensive evaluation of DFID’s work on Rural Livelihoods, although the parts ofthat programme bearing on crop and livestock production will be addressed.

1.6 The evaluation is organized around two of the standard OECD-DAC criteria - relevance andeffectiveness. Relevance is assessed by considering the consistency between, on the one hand, theAgriculture Policy and the broader corporate agenda; and, on the other hand, engagement with debatesin the development community about the approaches to agriculture. Effectiveness aims to address DFID’scapacity to carry out the agriculture policy - based on the October 2005 implementation plan (see AnnexV below). Given the shortness of time elapsed, the focus is only partly on progress made so far; moreweight is given to considering how fit DFID was to promote the policy at the time of its launch - takinginto account spending and staffing constraints and the extent to which DFID pays attention to agriculture.

1.7 No attempt is made to assess the other OECD-DAC evaluation criteria. Efficiency might beaddressed by considering the timeliness of implementation; but, again, the shortness of elapsed timemakes this inappropriate. Sustainability and impact are not tackled for the same reason: it is too early tomake a reasonable assessment.

Introduction

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1.8 Evaluation Department has recently committed to take account of gender issues in all of its studies. This evaluation will examine how the various initiatives attached to the seven implementationplan priorities take into account the special needs of women. This is necessarily a limited exercise focusing on relevance (does the policy set out the right agenda) rather than effectiveness (did it do whatit said it would).

Data sources

1.9 This evaluation was limited in scale. It was essentially a desk study based on document review;supplemented by phone interviews and a questionnaire survey. There were no country visits; and nodetailed reviews of individual country programmes - which is where the impact of the policy must ultimately be assessed. To the extent that they are relevant to this evaluation focus, the findings of the2006 National Audit Office study on rural poverty are reported here.

Introduction

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2 THE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK

2.1 Table 1 shows how the two evaluation criteria were used to generate a set of questions; and themethods used to answer those questions. Annex II below contains a fuller exposition of the methods usedfor addressing the evaluation questions.

Limitations of the Evaluation

2.2 The scope for assessing effectiveness is limited by the absence of baseline measures, targets andbudgetary commitments. Although they are now mandatory, up to now it has not been uncommon forpolicy papers to lack this apparatus. The evaluation tackled this deficit by retrofitting seven baselines (seeAnnex 1 below). These baselines are illustrative - they are not intended to be definitive and they needfurther refinement. Also, they are mainly input and output focused - thought needs to be given to developing appropriate outcome measures. The next step is for DFID’s Renewable Natural Resources andAgriculture team to draw up a complete set of baselines in readiness for the more comprehensive 2008evaluation.

2.3 The response to the staff questionnaire was poor. In November 2006, the questionnaire was sentby e-mail attachment to two groups of DFID staff: those in country offices and those in central policyunits. In all, 147 persons received the questionnaire. 27 persons replied, a response rate of 18 percent.Given this low return any attempt to break down responses by staff group would not yield significantresults and the overall findings need to be treated with caution. For illustrative purposes, responses tosome of the questions are shown in Annex III below; and the questionnaire itself is reproduced at AnnexIV.

The Evaluation Framework

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Table 1 Framework for the Agriculture Policy Evaluation

The Evaluation Framework

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EVALUATIONCRITERIA

RELEVANCE(Are the objectives

right?)

EFFECTIVENESS(Have the objectivesbeen accomplished -or are they likely tobe accomplished?)

EVALUATIONQUESTIONS (EQS)

1. How relevant is the Policy to DFID’smission?

2. Are staff members persuaded of therelevance of agriculture to DFID’s mission?

3. How consistent is the Policy with theoutcomes of the consultation process?

4. How appropriate is the Policy in thelight of development research findingsand wider knowledge?

5. How gender-sensitive is the Policy?

6. Did the consultation process achieveits objectives?

7. To what extent has agriculture beenprioritized in DFID’s corporate agenda?

8. Are the principles of the Policyreflected in country programmes?

9. Are the principles of the Policyreflected in DFID’s work with muiltilaterals?

10. What steps has RNRA taken to promote the Policy with CountryOffices?

11. Which of the 7 priority initiatives inthe Policy have made most progress?

12. What are the constraints on implementation of the Policy?

HOW THE QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED

Review the White Paper, DFID’s Public Service Agreementand Directors’ Delivery Plans

• Through a questionnaire survey of DFID staff incountry offices and central departments - not justLivelihoods advisers

• Review staff responses reported in the 2006 NAORural Poverty study

Interview persons who took part in the consultation.

Review the literature, particularly the background papersproduced for the policy paper consultation.

Interview persons who helped develop the Policy.Analyse the content of the Policy from a gender perspective.

Interview persons who took part in the consultation.

Compare corporate policy statements (White Paper, PSA,DDPs) issued before and after the Agriculture Policy waspublished to see if there was any change

• Review recent Country Assistance Plans• Analyse any breaks in trend concerning number and

type of DFID programmes (including budget support and SWAps); and content of PovertyReduction Strategy Papers

• Analyse any breaks in trend concerning the contentand volume of DFID spending through multilaterals

• Review evidence that DFID has influenced the policy of multilaterals

Interview RNRA staffReview findings from questionnaire survey of staff in country offices

Interview RNRA staffReview findings from questionnaire survey of staff

Analyse trends in DFID spending on agriculture comparedto other sectors/themesAnalyse trend in number and deployment of DFID staffInterview staff about their perceptions of, evidence for, existence of constraints

3 RELEVANCE

[In the following sections, “EQs” refer to the Evaluation Questions outlined in Table 1 above]

EQ1 How relevant is the Policy to DFID’s mission?

3.1 It is not hard to make a case for the relevance of the agriculture paper to DFID’s agenda. DFID’soverriding purpose is to reduce poverty. Around three-quarters of the poor live in rural areas and themajority of these people are in some way engaged in agriculture. Two-thirds of the world’s poor will stilllive in rural areas in 2015.

3.2 It is perhaps striking therefore that the third white paper (issued in 2006) did not devote substantial space to agriculture. The overall emphasis was on improving governance. The favoured interventions concerned water and sanitation and climate change. Another important strategy-settingevent in 2006 was the Asia 2015 conference. This also was largely silent on the role of agriculture. TheNational Audit Office recently concluded that DFID’s main priorities remain in the social and governance sectors coupled with macro-economic and public financial management work. On the otherhand, both the 2006 White Paper and Asia 2015 emphasized the importance of broad-based growthprocesses and it could be argued that, implicitly, this is consistent with giving priority to agriculture.

EQ2 Are staff members persuaded of the relevance of agriculture to DFID’s mission?

3.3 According to the National Audit Office survey of DFID country offices and regional teams,many staff members acknowledge the centrality of agriculture to poverty reduction:

“Agriculture and rural livelihoods is considered to be the most important sector for tackling ruralpoverty, being ranked first by 35 percent of respondents. Governance and economic policy follow closely behind, being ranked first by 27 and 23 percent of respondents respectively.Education is considered less important being ranked fourth or lower by 58 percent of respondents”.2

Responses to the questionnaire sent out for this evaluation - although not statistically significant - areconsistent with the NAO’s findings.

EQ3 How faithful is the Policy to the outcome of the consultation process?

3.4 The summary of the internet consultation that preceded the writing of the policy paper outlines18 areas for action - but this list was not referred to in the Agriculture Policy document. There is little inthe policy paper on roads - which, as the International Food Policy Research Institute has shown, have acritical role in promoting agricultural growth. But other DFID teams are working on infrastructure.

3.5 Some of the DFID staff interviewed suggested that there were gaps in the Agriculture Policypaper: agricultural extension and sustainable farming were among the lacunae mentioned. One seniorstaff member noted that the policy paper: (a) mentions natural resource depletion but does not suggestappropriate interventions to tackle it; (b) is naïve on political and social exclusion issues; and (c) explains

Relevance

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2 NAO Rural Poverty report, Additional information, Staff Survey Results (draft 4 December 2006) The NAO writes: “Wesurveyed all twenty-five of the Department’s country offices in Public Service Agreement countries plus the Africa and AsiaRegional teams. We received 26 responses – a response rate of 96 percent”.

the difference between farmers with the greatest potential to raise productivity and those without assets- but misses farmers in between these two groups.

EQ4 How appropriate is the Policy in the light of development research findings and wider knowledge?

3.6 Recent research has found that agriculture has a key role to play in overall economic growth andpoverty reduction. Growth of the agriculture sector has more of an economy-wide impact on povertyreduction than other sectors. Recent IFPRI studies show that poverty reduction elasticities of agricultural growth are bigger than those from urban growth when an economy-wide model is used andboth redistribution and aggregate growth effects are considered. This is because agricultural growth alsotrickles down to other sectors through growth linkages, in addition to the fact that a large share of thepoor are engaged in agriculture.3

3.7 Ahluwalia was the first to formally model the relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction, finding that in India, after the Green Revolution, the correlation between agricultural growth and rural poverty became much stronger and more statistically significant.4 After thisseminal work a consensus began to emerge in the literature on the poverty-reducing impacts of agricultural growth. Other studies reached similar conclusions. Using state level data from India, Dattand Ravallion found that there was a strong negative relationship between farm yield and rural poverty.Short-run elasticity of various measures of poverty to farm yield ranged from –0.18 to -0.41 and therange of long-run elasticity of –0.88 to –1.93 was substantially larger for the same measures.5 Fan,Hazell, and Thorat obtained a poverty reduction elasticity of agricultural productivity growth of -0.25after considering all direct and indirect impacts of growth on poverty reduction and after controlling forall other investments.6

3.8 Similar to India, there is strong evidence of a growth effect on poverty in rural China, where thenumber of poor declined from 260 million in 1978 to 26 million in 2004. The most rapid reductionoccurred during the initial phase of rural reforms from 1978 to 1984, which was highly correlated withagricultural growth due to institutional and policy changes in agricultural production. However, between1984 and 1989 rural poverty began to rise and is attributed to stagnation of agricultural growth duringthis period. The Chinese evidence convincingly shows that whenever agricultural growth is strong, thereis rapid poverty reduction, and whenever agricultural growth is lacking, poverty reduction is slow. Fan,Zhang, and Zhang (2004) estimated the poverty elasticity of agricultural growth of –1.50.7 This elasticity is much bigger than that of India. This is largely because land is equally distributed in Chinaand even the very poor have access to land, while in India many of the poor are landless laborers. Thisstrongly suggests that more equal distribution of production assets will lead to more poverty reductiongiven the same rate of growth.

Relevance

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3 Shenggen Fan and Joanna Brzeska, “How can government promote pro-poor agricultural growth? Synthesis of IFPRI casestudies”, unpublished manuscript, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, 2006. 4 M.S. Ahluwalia, “Rural Poverty and Agricultural Performance in India”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3.1978.5 G. Datt and M. Ravallion, “Farm Productivity and Rural Poverty in India”, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4,1998.6 Among the total impact of agricultural productivity growth, the direct impact through higher farm income accounted for70 percent, higher wages for 8.6 percent, better non-farm employment for 14 percent, and lower food price for 16 percent.(S. Fan, P. Hazell, and S. Thorat, “Government Spending, Agricultural Growth and Poverty in Rural India”, AmericanJournal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 82, No. 4, 2000.7 Among the total impact of agricultural growth, direct impact of growth from higher farm income accounted for 81 percent,rural nonfarm wages for 4 percent, and rural nonfarm employment for 15 percent. The price effect induced by agriculturalgrowth is insignificant (S. Fan, L. Zhang, and X. Zhang, “Reforms, Investment and Poverty in Rural China”, EconomicDevelopment and Cultural Change, Vol. 52, No. 2, 2004.

3.9 Not only is agricultural growth highly relevant to poverty reduction, there is also compelling evidence that public investment in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology is oneof the most effective ways of combating poverty. Table 2, derived from research by IFPRI, illustrates thehigh return to investment in agriculture research and development, compared to other government interventions, focusing on two countries with a substantial DFID programme. According to IFPRI, thispattern is repeated in many other countries.8

Table 2 Returns to Government Investment

(a) India, State-level Analysis

Returns in Rupee No. of Poor ReducedPer Rupee Spending Per Million Rupee Spending

Agriculture R&D 13.45 84.5

Irrigation 1.36 9.7

Roads 5.31 123.8

Education 1.39 41.0

Power 0.26 3.8

Soil and Water Conservation 0.96 22.6

Health 0.84 25.5

Anti-poverty Programs 1.09 17.8

Notes: Marginal returns are calculated in 1993.

(b) Uganda

Investment Central East North West Uganda

Benefit–cost ratio

Agricultural R&D 12.49 10.77 11.77 14.74 12.38

Education 2.05 3.51 2.10 3.80 2.72

Feeder Roads 6.03 8.74 4.88 9.19 7.16

Murram Roads n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.

Tarmac Roads n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.

Health 1.37 0.92 0.37 0.96 0.90

Number of poor people reduced per million shillings

Agricultural R&D 21.75 66.31 175.52 48.91 58.39

Education 3.57 21.60 31.38 12.62 12.81

Feeder Roads 10.51 53.85 72.82 30.49 33.77

Murram Roads 4.08 11.88 14.80 9.77 9.70

Tarmac Roads 2.59 13.12 62.92 9.39 9.73

Health 2.60 6.15 5.95 3.46 4.60

Note: n.s. indicates statistically insignificant.Source: Shenggen Fan and Joanna Brzeska (2006)

Relevance

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8 Shenggen Fan and Joanna Brzeska, “How can government promote pro-poor agricultural growth? Synthesis of IFPRI casestudies”, unpublished ``manuscript, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, 2006.

EQ5 How gender-sensitive is the Policy?

3.10 This question considers whether the Agriculture Policy paper is in line with the Secretary ofState’s commitment to mainstream gender concerns in all DFID’s work. The Agriculture Policy paperrecognizes that both women and men play critical roles in agriculture and that gender inequality is detrimental to agricultural growth, emphasizing issues such as access to resources (e.g. land rights), division of labour, producer incentives and control of profits. The paper highlights the importance oftackling gender-based constraints to agricultural development up front, (e.g. paragraph 21 and Box 1.4).It includes references throughout to gender dimensions. For example, it emphasises the importance ofbasic staple foods (often grown by women) over cash crops (often grown by men). According to theRNRA team, the policy reflects comments and recommendations made by a gender specialist proofreader during the drafting process. Overall, the policy is relevant to DFID’s gender policy.

3.11 The seven priorities outlined in the implementation plan include the following gender highlights.The inception report for DFID’s programme on agricultural growth and social protection (Priority 1)will investigate how to make social protection interventions more gender sensitive. Household interviewswill investigate how social protection measures influence gender relations and how this in turn affectshousehold investment decisions. DFID is helping to ensure that national social protection frameworksand instruments account for women’s household and agricultural needs in their design. For example,pilot cash transfer programmes in Zambia and Ethiopia have targeted female household members whoare active in food production.

3.12 The supermarkets initiative (Priority 3) will work with UK food retailers to maximise the development impacts of their procurement from Africa, recognising that this industry and its growingmarket has created substantial new employment opportunities for women in Kenya. The aim is to workalong the supply chain to examine the impact of supermarket standards on the participants in the industry.

3.13 DFID encourages stronger and more inclusive financial sectors (Priority 4), which address theunequal access to financial services experienced by women and men. For example, the Kashf Foundationin Pakistan (a not-for-profit microfinance institution serving poor women) plans to extend its outreachfrom 75,000 to 300,000 women in the next five years with support from DFID. DFID supports organisations that champion access to finance for women such as the Women’s World Banking network(WWB) and Africa - an African microfinance investment fund 92 percent of whose clients are women.DFID is also exploring the capacity of microfinance institutions and commercial banks to increase therural outreach of social programmes (including cash transfers) that benefit poor women and their families. A programme funded by the DFID-supported Financial Sector Deepening Trust in Kenya haslaunched a pilot in partnership with Unicef to distribute social protection benefits to families with thesupport of local financial institutions.

3.14 DFID promotes women’s access to technology (Priority 5) by supporting the work of the AfricanAgricultural Technology Foundation and programmes such as Seeds of Development. These initiativesaim to make improved technologies available through networks of small local seed dealers that are moreeasily accessed by women.

3.15 The policy and research programme has investigated gender dimensions of access to land(Priority 6) in China, Ethiopia, Uganda, and India, demonstrating how more secure tenure (for example, through certification) has improved women’s land rights and their ability to make good economic decisions.

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3.16 There are two areas that - according to RNRA - do not lend themselves to gender-sensitive interventions and are not the subject of particular initiatives: targeting public spending (Priority 2) andreducing distortions in international markets (Priority 7).

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4 EFFECTIVENESS

EQ6 Did the consultation process achieve its objective?

4.1 With respect to preparation of the Agriculture Policy, various DFID staff rated the process andthe content favourably. (But the majority of those interviewed had some hand in the policy paper so maybe partial). Preparation was very inclusive: NGOs, the private sector, research institutions, internationaldevelopment organisations and governments made contributions to an E-forum moderated by theNatural Resources Institute. 560 people registered for the consultation, including 99 from Sub-SaharanAfrica and 64 from South Asia. Much thought went into the technical prerequisites for the consultation:for example, it was taken into account that participants in many developing countries would not have broadband capacity, limiting the scope for document download. DFID staff acknowledged the thoroughness of the preparation process - the soundness of the background papers that were commissioned, the usefulness of hiring external experts as moderators of the internet consultation.

EQ7 To what extent has agriculture been prioritized in DFID’s corporate agenda?

4.2 The summary of the E-forum notes that DFID’s current Public Service Agreement (PSA) exertsauthority on aid management instruments and DFID’s policy over the period 2003-06. The PSA statesas a primary objective the eradication of poverty and extreme hunger in developing countries throughachieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. But the PSA makes no mention of theelimination of hunger anywhere else in the document. While hunger appears to hold as much importance as poverty eradication, it appears to have been given no priority in DFID’s medium-termstrategy. Furthermore, the word ‘agriculture’ is not included in the PSA and its relevance in alleviatingpoverty and affecting key indicators is only implied indirectly.

4.3 There is no indication that regional Directors’ Delivery Plans have changed to give more priority to agriculture since the Policy Paper was issued in December 2005. In 2006, neither the thirdWhite Paper nor the high-profile Asia 2015 symposium prioritized agriculture. One NGO, at least, isnot persuaded that DFID has shifted its stance on agriculture: in October 2006, a letter from Farm Africato the Secretary of State criticized DFID for not increasing its work on African agriculture, and for ignoring agriculture in countries (e.g. Tanzania) where it occupies a major place in the economy.

EQ8 Are the principles of the Policy reflected in country programmes?

4.4 Answering this question involves a consideration of perceived trends toward reform in clientcountries, the share that agriculture represents of government budgets, the content of country strategydocuments, and the level of DFID spending on agriculture in the main country programmes.

4.5 None of those interviewed for this evaluation (Annex VII) were able to name countries where theagriculture policy agenda had moved significantly ahead. From here forward Baselines A to C (Annex I)may be used to track spending on agriculture for the main country programmes; but this input measurewill need to be supplemented by monitoring of the content and outcome of selected country programmes.

4.6 Signatories of the 2003 Maputo Declaration pledged to increase agriculture spending to 10 percent of all government spending. There is a long way to go. A recent OECD study found that in Sub-Saharan Africa public spending on agriculture averaged 3 to 4 percent of the overall budget. InRwanda, between 2002 and 2006, the proportion of budgeted public expenditure allotted to agriculture

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varied between 2.9 percent and 4.5 percent per year. (Ethiopia is an outlier, committing 16 percent ofgovernment spending to agriculture).

4.7 Many staff commented that (multi-party, country-led) Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers tendto be biased toward the social sectors, containing little on measures to promote broad-based growth. Thismay have been true for the first generation of PRSPs but it was not the case for those reviewed for thisevaluation: 87 percent of countries with a PRSP contained substantial commitments to promote agriculture (Table 3). Within the limited scope of this evaluation it was not possible to assess to whatextent governments had honoured these commitments (and in many cases too little time had elapsed topermit a fair assessment). But this level of commitment is a valid baseline measure, indicating that thereis at least the potential to promote agriculture.

4.8 Based on an analysis of document content, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers give more coverage to agriculture than DFID’s Country Assistance Plans: the proportion of country strategies withagriculture coverage is 87 percent for PRSPs and 56 percent for CAPs (Table 3). This disparity may bebecause:

• DFID is leaving agriculture support to other donors

• DFID is moving away from focused agriculture projects to programmes and policy dialoguewith some agriculture content (although in practice this is likely to be a very small part ofthe whole)

4.9 With respect to DFID’s 50 largest country programmes, 18 projects explicitly coded as agriculture started in the three-calendar-year period 2003-2005, which is the baseline used by this evaluation (Annex I, Baseline B). Of these, 6 involved a commitment of over GBP 1 million. There ismoderate correlation between total programme commitments per country and agriculture commitments(0.68). But some of DFID’s largest country programmes - India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ugandaand Ghana - made no new agriculture commitments in the baseline period. Most of the projects eithersupported policy reform or livelihoods. (The same pattern holds for Baseline C - which shows all agriculture project interventions operational in September 2006).

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Table 3 Scores for Agriculture Coverage: (a) By Country; (b) By Instrument

Country CAP PRSP PRBS and/or Other Staff/5 Govt. SCORE(In descending Coverage/1 Coverage/2 SWAp Operational Spending (a)order of total Coverage/3 Coverage/4 on Ag/Total Bycommitment Govt. Countryvolume, Spending/62003-2005)

Significant Significant PRBS and/or Any 2 or more 5.0% or Number oragriculture agriculture SWAp with agriculture country more of “X”s/6

coverage in coverage in agriculture operations office staff government (or, ifCAP PRSP coverage, starting in mapped to spending there are

actual or 2003-2005, agriculture devoted to “Na”s, 6potential and/or agriculture less the

operational number ofin 2006 “Na”s)

India X Na X - X X 80%

Tanzania - X X - - Na 40%

Bangladesh - X - - X - 33%

Uganda X X X - 50%

Ghana X X X X - - 66%

Iraq - Na - - - - 0%

Afghanistan Na X X X - Na 75%

Malawi X X - X X X 83%

Mozambique - X X Na 40%

Zambia X X - X X 66%

Pakistan - - - - - Na 0%

Kenya X - - X X - 50%

Ethiopia X X X X - - 66%

China - Na - X - X 40%

South Africa Na Na - - X Na 33%

Sierra Leone Na X X - - Na 50%

Rwanda X X X X X Na 100%

Nigeria X X - X X - 66%

Sudan Na Na - - - Na 0%

Nepal X X - - X X 66%

SCORE (b) 56% 87% 45% 45% 45% 42%By Instrument

Number of “X”s/20 (or, if there are “Na”s, 20 less the number of “Na”s)

Na =Not available or Not Applicable/1 Source: Baseline E (Annex I)/2 Source: Baseline E (Annex I)/3 Source: Baseline D (Annex I)/4 Source: Baselines B and C (Annex I)/5 Source: Baseline F (Annex I)/6 Source: Baseline E (Annex I)

4.10 A typology of countries emerges from the analysis (Table 4). Taking into account the variousinstruments and means of influence - country strategies, programmes, projects, staff, government spending - four countries show the biggest potential (India, Afghanistan, Malawi, Rwanda). The natureof the potential varies substantially between them. In India, it is based on CAP content, the large number of specialized advisers and the major share of government spending devoted to agriculture -rather than the size of commitments. In Afghanistan, it is PRSP coverage and commitments that carrythe day.

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Table 4 Typology of Countries Based on Level of Agriculture Coverage

BIG SECTOR SMALL SECTORAg Value Added/GDP Ag Value Added/GDP

=20% or more =under 20%

No Coverage Sudan, Pakistan Iraq(Score 0%)

Low Coverage Bangladesh, Tanzania, South Africa(Score 1% to 49%) Mozambique China

Medium Coverage Uganda, Ghana, Zambia(Score 50% to 66% Kenya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone,

Nigeria, Nepal

High Coverage India, Afghanistan,(67% to 100%) Malawi, Rwanda

Source: Table 3 above

4.11 At the other extreme, are countries with a much lower potential for agricultural development.Some of these have a relatively small agricultural sector (see Table 4) so low coverage may be justifiable.But it is a puzzle why Pakistan - with the eleventh largest DFID programme and with 22 percent of GDPderived from agriculture - should attract a rating of zero for agriculture coverage.

4.12 The difficulty of assigning an aggregate score to country programmes should not be underestimated. For example, although this evaluation rates Malawi as one of the most strongly placedcountries, the recent National Audit Office study found that spending on rural livelihoods had increasedbut there is no dedicated livelihoods adviser in the counry office. A contrary picture is presented byUganda where DFID spending on agriculture is low but advisory leverage is substantial. According toNAO, the country programme does not currently support the agriculture sector directly. But because ofits support to the general government budget an adviser with expertise in agriculture has been able toinfluence policy by chairing the joint government-donor sector working group. Such work can add valueto a country programme’s impact without major operational spending.9 (But, on the other hand, it doesentail an administrative cost - which may be hard to accommodate in today’s climate of headcountrestraint).

4.13 In some countries, DFID may not appear to have an operational presence with respect to agriculture; yet it may actually play a significant role in the sector policy dialogue. Cambodia is a case inpoint. In this country, DFID has made no recent commitments in terms of operations with an agriculture code (Annex I, Baseline B): using this measure, DFID’s role is invisible. In Cambodia, mostof the land is part of the National Forest Estate which has been subdivided into timber concessions, landconcessions (for conversion into large-scale cash crop production) and conservation areas. Unclear landownership and access rights, poor infrastructure and very weak government service delivery are important impediments to future development of local communities. These issues are not agriculture-specific but they have a direct bearing on farmer productivity and welfare. A joint DANIDA/DFID team is tackling all but the infrastructure problems, using an approach that relies on:(i) an effective community voice (ii) government investments and improved, decentralised, services covering land, forestry and fisheries; (iii) improved donor coordination, aiming to reduce transactions

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9 This was cited in a background report for the National Audit Office, Rural Poverty study (published March 2007).

costs and increase transparency by bringing more resources on-budget. Programme oversight by technical working groups on land, forestry and fisheries generates ideas that can feed into the policy dialogue.10 Spending by DFID is limited (this is a DANIDA-financed project) and none of it is attributed to agriculture.

EQ9 Are the principles of the Policy reflected in DFID’s work with muiltilaterals?

4.14 The Policy emphasizes the importance of agricultural research for boosting productivity andgrowth and this is reflected in the £40 million that DFID spends each year on this area. One-half ofDFID’s annual agriculture research budget - or £20 million - is channeled directly to the multilateralConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Because DFID is the third largestcontributor to CGIAR (after USAID and the World Bank) it has significant leverage. In its funding allocations to research centres within the CGIAR, DFID has now started to link part of its funding toperformance for the first time using a star rating system.

4.15 The Policy pays particular attention to strengthening land rights. RNRA is mid-way through athree-year programme with the World Bank that is developing policy options for improving land administration and access to land for poor people in Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Indiaand Cambodia.

4.16 The Policy also stresses the importance of supporting free trade in farm produce. This agenda isbrought to bear through DFID’s allocation of £1.6 million to the UN’s Food and AgricultureOrganisation, entailing a three-year Memorandum of Understanding running from May 2004 to May2007. Rather than working through country offices, the approach centres on targeting agriculture andtrade ministries. Through the programme with DFID, FAO has produced and disseminated 14 tradepolicy briefs, which have been used, for example, by African governments in need of empirical evidenceand arguments to strengthen their hand in global trade rounds.

4.17 Attempts to influence multilateral partners include RNRA’s support to preparation of the WorldBank’s 2008 World Development Report whose theme is agriculture; this included showcasing best practice DFID interventions, indicating how the principles of sound agriculture policy are being put intopractice. There is a marked congruence between the priorities of DFID’s 2005 agriculture paper and theemerging policy focus of the World Development Report.

EQ10 What steps has RNRA taken to promote the Policy with country offices?

4.18 The RNRA team plays a facilitating role, working mainly with those country offices wheredemand for support has been communicated through livelihoods advisers. The scope for the RNRA teamto approach heads of country offices directly is limited. This constraint is faced by all sectors in DFIDand is not peculiar to agriculture. Since about 2003 DFID’s emphasis on country-led approaches hastended to preclude “sector lobbying” by Palace Street staff. (Initiatives with strong ministerial and top-management backing are another matter - in this respect agriculture appears, at the moment, to beless well placed than water and sanitation and the HIV/AIDS initiatives).

4.19 The alternative to lobbying country heads is three-fold: first, to opportunistically focus on thoseoffices where there is already sign of a commitment to the agriculture policy agenda; second, to influencetop management and ministers, so that appropriate messages to country office heads are channelled fromabove; and thirdly, to work with other donors and civil society representatives, partly in order that theymay exert some in-country “lateral pressure” on DFID offices.

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10 Yvan Biot, Appraisal of the Natural Resources and Livelihoods Programme, Cambodia, 14 December 2005.

4.20 With respect to the first approach, the RNRA team has a list of staff in certain country officesthat it regards as key interlocutors; these are not limited to livelihoods advisers (see Annex I, Baseline F).It has begun to track the number and the timeliness of responses to e-mail from country offices requesting advice from the team.

4.21 Second, the RNRA team has developed a communications strategy, with a monthly calendar ofevents, including agriculture-relevant interventions by the Secretary of State for which appropriate briefing material can be supplied. This is backed up by a Communications Handbook (released inNovember 2006) and special communications training for RNRA staff, both aimed at enhancing theteam’s capacity for advocacy with senior management.

4.22 Third, the attempt to influence other partners includes the important initiative with the multilaterals referred to above (see paragraphs 4.14 to 4.17).

EQ11 Which of the 7 priority initiatives in the Policy have made most progress?

4.23 Annex V shows the results for each initiative, mapped against the objectives and indicators contained in the October 2005 implementation plan. “Results” is broadly defined, ranging from inputs(for example, evidence of commitment to the policy by country programmes - expressed in pledges offunding), outputs (disbursement rates), and outcomes.

4.24 Starting with outcomes, the following evidence was found by the evaluation:

• DFID has done innovative work with supermarkets in the UK and South Africa, aiming toincrease access by African producers to high-value export markets.

• Through the medium of a multi-donor challenge fund (FIRST), DFID has made a contribution to developing rural financial markets in several countries. A keyword search ofthe FIRST database shows that it has helped strengthen agricultural finance in Kenya, LaoPDR, Poland and seven countries of the Former Soviet Union. FIRST initiatives were amongthose cited as best practice in a background paper prepared by Evaluation Department forthe 2008 World Development Report.

• In partnership with the World Bank, the RNRA team has strengthened the advocacy for landrights and land administration in client countries. Overall, DFID has £50 million of commitments on land, spread across 16 countries. For example, in Ethiopia, DFID co-funded the Ethiopian Economics Association to survey small farmers’ perceptions of the current land rights situation. This information was used to lobby effectively for greater public dialogue on the issue. Certification and formalization of leasehold markets were suggested. In the draft Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper the need for continued reforms toimprove land tenure security is specifically mentioned.

• The Seeds for Development programme, a small business initiative sponsored by CornellUniversity and supported by DFID, was awarded a Tuskegee University prize in December2006, based partly on its success in expanding the number of small, African seed companiesthat are participating. The programme was launched in 2003 with 10 companies in fivecountries; it now has 25 companies in eight countries.

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• Through its programme with DFID, FAO produced and disseminated an influential tradepolicy brief on cotton. At a World Trade Organization meeting in Hong Kong, representatives from four West African countries worked together, using data from the brief,to build a case against the United States’ position, pointing to the adverse impact of US subsidies on the world cotton market.

4.25 In terms of outputs, Table 5 shows that RNRA disbursement rates have been particularly high fortrade and land initiatives; by comparison, technology transfer and social protection have lagged.

Table 5 Disbursement Progress of RNRA Initiatives (Up to 31 December 2006)

Big Spenders Small SpendersExpected Spending Expected Spending £300,000 or more Less than £300,000

Hares Ag & Trade Policy (FAO) (72%) World Development StandardsActual spending (100%)70% or more of Expected Achieving Pro-Poor Growth (71%) Small Producer Standards

(Supermarkets) (86%)

Tortoises African Agriculture Technology Land Policies (75%)Actual spending Foundation (53%) Seeds of Development (55%)under 70% of Expected Ag Growth & Social

Protection (24%)

Government Promotion ofAg Growth (24%)

Source: Annex 1, Baseline G

Note: Figures in parentheses refer to actual as a percent of expected disbursement. Expected disbursement is the budgeted amount, divided by the number of months allocated for the programme, multiplied by the number of monthselapsed between the start of the programme and 31 December 2006.

4.26 Finally, with respect to inputs, the most important sign of a boost is the 2006 White Paper’s commitment to double the budget for all research by 2008, including that devoted to agriculture. (TheCommonwealth Development Corporation no longer invests in agriculture research helping to build thecase for increased funding by DFID). In addition, RNRA has had some success in persuading countryoffices to pledge part of their programme resources to initiatives that support the Policy; Annex V belowindicates which country offices are collaborating in this respect.

4.27 Of the seven priorities in the Policy, there is one area of relative weakness. Progress in developingand disseminating agricultural research - particularly in Africa - has been less than expected. As part ofits agriculture research remit, DFID monitors progress of the Comprehensive African AgricultureDevelopment Programme (sponsored by the African Union). CAADP was set up in 2003 but implementation has been delayed, despite several rounds of talks. There is not yet evidence that this initiative has led to increased uptake of improved technologies by African farmers. About one-half of

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CGIAR resources are channeled to Africa. Compared to the massive impact on Asian agriculture of theCGIAR-sponsored development of high-yielding varieties (Green Revolution), there is no prospect so farof a similarly quick fix for African agriculture.

4.28 Also, concern has been voiced about weak dissemination of research results. According to therecent NAO report:

“DFID research aims to reach a wide range of audiences. But DFID country teams and some non-governmental organisations are still dissatisfied with the dissemination of central research to themselves,to policy makers and to the poor. One organisation we surveyed commented “DFID identifies criticalareas to commission research for topical policy debates… but does not adequately disseminate the findings… or discuss how to use the research to influence”. Only two of the 25 country teams we surveyed were content with how research was disseminated to developing country policy makers,although as research is often disseminated by others country teams may not always be aware thatresearch was funded by DFID”.11

4.29 Finally, there is a possible lacuna in the Agriculture Policy. Spreading the benefits of new technology implies a role for agricultural extension as well as research. Several of the people interviewednoted that extension was largely overlooked by the 2005 policy paper and subsequent implementationplan.

4.30 On the other hand, prospects seem to be good for increasing the efficiency of resource use in agricultural research. As outlined in the new agricultural research strategy, the procedure for allocatingresearch funds is now more competitive and demand-driven than it used to be: DFID subject-matterspecialists no longer drive the research agenda - a marked change from the strategy that prevailed in1995-2005. The shift from a largely supply-driven programme to one that is more demand-led aims toencourage greater uptake in developing countries.

EQ12 What are the constraints on implementation of the Policy?

4.31 The evaluation found evidence of the following constraints:

• low priority given to agriculture in the government budgets of country clients

• downward trend in spending on agriculture

• erosion of staff advisory capacity

• tension between DFID’s top-down and country-driven mandates

• adverse impact of change in the predominant type of aid instrument

Government priorities

4.32 Implementing the 2005 agriculture policy will ultimately hinge on persuading developing country governments - particularly in Africa - to devote a larger share of government spending to agriculture. The 2003 Maputo Declaration contained a pledge by African governments to raise

11 National Audit Office, Department for International Development: Tackling Rural Poverty in Developing Countries, March2007, p. 23.

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12 “Public Spending in Developing Countries: Trends, Determination and Impact”, IFPRI, unpublished manuscript, 2006. 13 Shenggen Fan and Joanna Brzeska, “How can government promote pro-poor agricultural growth? Synthesis of IFPRI casestudies”, unpublished manuscript, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, 2006.

agriculture’s share of public spending to 10 percent. This would represent a significant reversal of pasttrends (Figure 1; and Annex VI). Also low is the ratio of public spending on the sector to sector GDP. InAfrica, agriculture expenditure averaged 5 percent to 7 percent of agricultural GDP between 1980 and2002; for Asia the proportion was 9 percent to 11 percent.12

Figure 1

4.33 Among all types of agricultural expenditures, agricultural research and development is the mostcrucial to growth in agricultural and food production (see evidence cited in paragraph 3.9 and Table 2above). Agricultural research and development (R&D) expenditures as a percentage of agricultural GDPsaw a relatively stable increase in the last three decades. For example, in 2000, the share of agriculturalR&D expenditure in agricultural GDP in Africa and Asia was between 0.5–0.9 percent, and LatinAmerica’s share was 0.98 percent. But these rates are low compared to the 2–3 percent of sector GDPspent in developed countries.13 It is the less-developed countries more than the developed countries thatneed this level of spending.

4.34 Low spending levels constrain institutional capacity building and the delivery of public goodsvital to the sector. If DFID can increase the agriculture content of its budget support operations it maybe able to ease this constraint. In 2005-06, DFID spent 25 per cent of its bilateral funding throughbudget support and other programme-based approaches, and by 2007-08 will increase that proportionto 50 per cent of bilateral programmes.

Spending

4.35 In absolute terms, DFID bilateral spending on agriculture has more than halved in the last tenyears, falling from £48 million in 1996-97 to £17 million in 2005-06. As a proportion of total bilateral

spending agriculture’s share fell from 5 percent to 1 percent over this period (Figure 2). (By comparison,over the same period, the World Bank’s annual commitments to agriculture amounted to US$1.9 billionin both FY97 and FY06 - although between these dates there was a trough, with the lowest point in FY00(US$0.9 billion). In most years Asia has claimed a larger share of DFID’s spending on agriculture thanAfrica (Figure 3).

Figure 2

Figure 3

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4.36 DFID’s record on agriculture is not atypical: between 1980 and 2002 spending on agriculture byall bilateral agencies fell by 39 percent. The decline in multilateral spending was even steeper (Table 6).Most of the cutback occurred in the 1990s. Between 1980 and 2002 official development assistance toagriculture from all sources fell by 65 percent; but total official development assistance rose by 65 percent.14

4.37 There has been a shift in support away from aid to support the productive sectors towards aid tothe social sectors. At first blush, the Millennium Development Goals appear to support this trendbecause, although they are keyed to overall poverty reduction, they primarily target health and education.A more careful reading will acknowledge that education and health outcomes are contingent on actionsin a number of sectors: poorly nourished children who drink dirty water and lack easy road access toschools are not likely to be successful pupils.

Table 6 Official Development Assistance to Agriculture by Bilateral and Multilateral Agencies(in billions of 2002 US dollars)

1980 2002 Change

Bilateral 2.8 1.7 -39%

Multilateral 3.4 0.5 -85%

Total 6.2 2.2 -65%

Source: OECD (2004), cited in “Official Development Assistance to Agriculture”, a paper prepared by DFID’s NaturalResources and Agriculture team in November 2004. This uses the OECD definition of agriculture which includes agriculture sector policy, institutional capacity building, crop and livestock production, and agricultural credit; and excludesforestry, fishery and rural development. See Baseline A in Annex I below for more detail.

4.38 Why has there been a decline in the resources that DFID - along with other donors and clientgovernments - devote to agriculture? The following are contributory factors:15

• the long-term fall in food prices, which has induced complacency about agriculture

• the high transaction costs and the perception that investing in agriculture is more risky andcomplex compared to other sectors

• the introduction of market-based approaches; these have reduced the field for public investment (thereby limiting what donors may fund)

• greater emphasis on supporting health and education, sectors that bear more directly on theMillennium Development Goals than agriculture

4.39 These factors driving real resource decline must be distinguished from the apparent declinereflected in aid statistics. Some aspects of agriculture are now camouflaged by the more diffuse area ofrural livelihoods, making it harder to assess how large the real decline has been.

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14 A similar message is conveyed in a recent report on aid from OECD-DAC countries. “Over the last 15 years education andhealth have received a steady 15% of aid…Aid to production, including agriculture, has halved since 1990 to only 6%”(OECD-DAC, Development Cooperation Report 2006, February 2007 [pages unnumbered].15 “Official Development Assistance to Agriculture”, a working paper produced for the agriculture policy consultation byDFID’s Natural Resource and Agriculture team, November 2004, p. 4.

Staffing

4.40 The fall in spending has been matched by a decline in numbers of staff mapped to agriculture.According to the National Audit Office, in recent years the growth of advisory skills has been concentrated in the economic and governance cadres (Figure 4). The number of advisers from thosecadres traditionally most associated with agriculture - livelihoods, environment, enterprise and infrastructure - decreased both in country offices and across the Department.16 NAO found that country teams expected livelihoods to continue to decline more than any other cadre, with large expected cuts also in infrastructure.

Figure 4 Changes in the size of advisory groups between 2003 and 2005

Source: Scutt,F. 2005 ‘Analysis of current trends in DFID advisory posts’ (Cited in National Audit Office,Department for International Development: Tackling Rural Poverty in Developing Countries, March 2007, p. 26)

4.41 Of the 20 largest country programmes, 9 offices have two or more advisers mapped to agriculture (Table 3 above). However, this may disguise some doubling up - increasingly, livelihoods staffare required to assume responsibility for other areas in addition to agriculture (for example, infrastructure). India is the best staffed country, with six livelihoods advisers. Taking all the countryoffices together, two-thirds of the staff mapped to agriculture belong to the Rural Livelihoods profession;the other one-third have a different professional affiliation - many are economists (Baseline G, Annex I).

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16 National Audit Office, Department for International Development: Tackling Rural Poverty in Developing Countries, March2007, p. 32

Tension between Top-Down and Country-Driven Mandates

4.42 This was a recurring theme in the interviews with staff. In recent years DFID has stressed theimportance of the country-led development agenda. Country offices have acquired more power as a consequence. Heads of country office and programme managers may resist policy guidelines when theseare seen to be directives imposed from above. They are particularly resistant to perceived “axe grinding”by sector specialists, arguing that this is supply-driven, out of line with the emphasis on allowing priorities to be identified by countries. Box 1 gives a flavour of the type of this challenge this representsto a sector specialist sympathetic to the Agriculture Policy.

Box 1. The View of a DFID Livelihoods Adviser in a Country Office

“Country offices respond to in-country incentives and top management directives. None of these currently signalcountry offices to engage with agriculture. Top management has not sent positive signals about engaging with agriculture. Nor have Ministers sent any signals”.

“And in-country Ministry of Agriculture is weak institutionally, a poor communicator and notoriously poor at negotiating with Finance and Planning. Not surprising that its voice is weakly heard by DFID. It is often segmented(fisheries, forestry etc) which further weakens its voice”.

“The new agendas relating to agriculture - trade, input subsidies, food quality, relative roles of state and private sector- are complex and poorly understood within country. [This] again weakens incentive for DFID to engage - as DFIDshies away from complexity”.

“Although Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers may give priority in many countries to agriculture, this does not neces-sarily shape priority for DFID engagement although the new White Paper may tip the balance a bit towards growth-related sectors”.

“In-country DFID staff travel less outside capital cities (again lack of incentives, and sometimes bureaucratic disincentives). This means that [they] run the danger of interpreting through urban-biased lens. A field and reality-based perspective drives our priorities less than internal spin”.

(E-mail, dated 18 February 2007, sent to Evaluation Department in response to a request to country office LivelihoodsAdvisers for comment on the first draft of this study).

Influence of Type of Aid Instrument

4.43 There is a widespread perception that DFID’s switch from projects to programmes has reducedthe scope for supporting agriculture; partly because programme interlocutors (e.g. the Ministry ofFinance) are less interested in funding agriculture than the line ministries that projects typically targeted. The summary of the E-forum invited DFID to reconsider its current strong emphasis on budgetary support as a vehicle for promoting agriculture.

4.44 This evaluation found that, in September 2006, for DFID as a whole, 39 budget support interventions were operational (Annex I, Baseline DI). Of these 28 percent included some mention ofsupport to agriculture policy reform. Again, this captures potential rather than actual support: the next,more comprehensive evaluation will need to assess whether the promise was realized. But this will be adifficult task. There is no easy way to establish what proportion of the funds in a budget support operation may be attributed to agriculture.

4.45 There were many more sector-wide approach operations than instances of budget support: of theformer, 62 were operational in September 2006. But only 5 percent of these had agriculture content

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(Annex I, Baseline D). Compared to other sectors, agriculture lends itself less readily to SWAps. To beginthere with there is no consensus about the parts of the sector that lend themselves to public sector investment. The diffuseness of the sector, the plurality of interests and the multiplicity of potential interlocutors make it difficult to apply the SWAp concept in practice.17 One interviewee noted, “SWApsin agriculture are no joke - it’s hard to agree what needs funding. Water - ‘taps and toilets’ - is a mucheasier sell”. There is no consensus about what constitutes the public good element in agriculture.

Effectiveness

26

17 Alison Evans, Lidia Cabral, and Dan Vadnjal, “Sector-Wide Approaches in Agriculture and Rural Development (Phase I)”,draft, April 2006, p. 13.

5 CONCLUSIONS, RATINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Conclusions

5.1 By way of conclusion, the evaluators would like to emphasize the following findings. First, of thefifty largest country programs, only 10 made new commitments to agriculture projects in CY2003-2005(see Annex I, Baseline B below). This needs to be qualified. Some additional projects may have had agriculture content but were not coded as agricultural (for example, certain infrastructure projects). A fullassay of agriculture projects would entail checking the contents of project memoranda - a task that wasbeyond the means of this interim evaluation. Also, the number cited does not include budget supportand sector-wide approach operations which may have some bearing on agriculture policy and sectorcapacity building. A review of these non-project operations found that 28 percent of budget support intervention and 5 percent of SWAps had at least a potential bearing on the agricultural sector.

5.2 Second, based on a content analysis of strategy documents - Country Assistance Plans andPoverty Reduction Strategy Papers - the commitment to support agriculture was greater than perceivedby many of those interviewed for this evaluation. For example, it is not the case that the current batch ofPRSPs focuses almost exclusively on the social sectors: 87 percent of the PRSPs reviewed for this evaluation contained substantial sections on promoting agriculture. (To what extent this translates intoa flow of resources from the exchequer was beyond the scope of this evaluation to determine).

5.3 Third, there are several countries where agriculture represents a significant share of the economybut DFID does not intervene. In most of these cases, statements in the PRSP indicate that agriculture isa priority for the country; but the onus rests with other partners. In some cases (e.g. Uganda, Cambodia),DFID spends next to nothing directly on agriculture but keeps a foothold in the policy dialogue, working closely with other donors. In one case – Pakistan - agriculture is barely mentioned by the CAPand the PRSP even through sector value added accounts for 22 percent of GDP. The countries with thelargest “coverage” of agriculture - meaning strategy emphasis and operational commitments - are India,Afghanistan, Malawi and Rwanda (see Table 4 above). What is generally missing is a clear articulation inCAPs of the rationale for supporting or - as is more usually the case - not supporting agriculture.

5.4 Fourth, one-half of DFID spending on agriculture is now channeled through multilaterals, a significantly higher proportion than for DFID spending overall - for which the figure is 40 percent (seeTable 6 above and Annex I, Baseline A below). Among the multilaterals, the Consultative Group forInternational Agricultural Research has received the largest increase in DFID spending. The multilateralshare will probably continue to grow given pressures to reduce staff, these having hit agriculture morethan other areas of DFID intervention. With fewer specialist staff DFID will rely more on other partners to promote agriculture.

5.5 Fifth, any assessment of the implementation of the 2005 policy paper must take into accountrecent spending and staffing trends which seriously challenge DFID’s capacity to sponsor a strategy ofagriculture-led growth. Spending on agriculture has halved over the last decade and there has been a dropin the number of advisory staff with the requisite technical skills.

Ratings

5.6 This interim evaluation proposes the following ratings (Table 7). The relevance of the agriculturepolicy is rated high. First, the priorities identified in the policy paper (outlined in Annex V below) arefully consistent with DFID’s commitment to poverty reduction, as enunciated in the 2006 White Paper.The agriculture policy emphasizes the centrality of broad-based economic growth to poverty reduction,

Conclusions, Ratings and Recommendations

27

a position that is strongly supported by the research evidence (some of which is reviewed in this report).Second, in preparing the paper DFID sponsored a lengthy consultation with academic experts and civilsociety representatives and the policy embodies most of the recommendations that emerged from thatprocess. Also, the agriculture policy paper is sensitive to the gender issues recently mainstreamed inDFID’s work.

Table 7 Ratings

High Substantial Moderate Negligible Not Rated

Relevance X

Effectiveness/1 X

Efficiency X

Impact X

Sustainability X

/1 InterimNote. See paragraphs 1.6 to 1.7 above for a statement on the evaluation criteria.

5.7 The effectiveness of policy implementation - a measure of whether stated objectives have, or arelikely to be, realized - is rated moderate. This is only a provisional assessment, and is based only partly onimplementation achievements (given the shortness of the time elapsed since the policy was issued); it alsotakes into account an assessment of disposing factors which bear on the likelihood that the policy will beimplemented.

5.8 The rating of moderate effectiveness balances two countervailing considerations, one highly positive and the other less so. On the positive side, the consultation process that led up to the policypaper was very sound, see paragraph 5.3 below: both intellectually substantive (there was a discussionaround several excellent background papers) and inclusive (many people participated in the e-forum,with several contributions from developing countries). Equally positive, the DFID team charged withleading on the policy (Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture) has launched important initiativescorresponding to each of the seven priorities in the October 2005 implementation plan, some of theseinvolving work by members of the RNRA team, some (agriculture research, agriculture finance) involving appropriate coordination with other DFID units.

5.9 Less positive is the lack of a clear pathway from the policy to uptake by countries. Respondingto the priorities identified in the implementation plan (particularly the first) hinges on action by DFIDcountry offices. Many of the heads of these offices show little awareness of, or commitment to the agriculture policy and the scope for the RNRA team to advocate directly with country heads is limited.This reflects the tension between centrally-developed mandates (expressed through policy papers) and thedemand-driven, country-office-led strategy that has become dominant in DFID in recent years.

Recommendations

For Top Management

5.10 There is a case to be made for top management to identify ways to improve the throughput fromthe Agriculture Policy to country programmes. The weak throughput reflects a problem that transcendsDFID’s work on agriculture: how does DFID bring centrally-driven policy guidelines to bear on locally-driven country programmes? A uniform top-down directive is not the answer: an emphasis on agriculture will not be appropriate in all countries; and it is the heads of country office who must decide

Conclusions, Ratings and Recommendations

28

the relative emphasis that DFID should give to the sector in their respective countries. But top management should require that each regional Director’s Delivery Plan make clear country offices’ responsibility for reviewing the case for supporting agriculture and, where support is deemed inappropriate,stating the reasons why this is so. This review would feed into the preparation of Country Assistance Plans.In countries where Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers prioritize agriculture, a more closely-reasonedrationale should be expected from DFID offices whose programmes do not reflect this priority.Movement in this direction presupposes commitment at the highest level within DFID to ensure thatDirector’s Delivery Plans send the right signals.

5.11 Top Management also needs to encourage countries to examine the scope for complementingbudget support with other aid instruments that more directly address the needs of small farmers and therural poor. The evaluation found that the number of budget support operations and SWAps that explicitly emphasize agriculture is very small and there is a little evidence to show how the flow of fundsfrom these operations benefit poor rural producers. In countries where budget support is the principalinstrument for DFID engagement, but where governments are failing to deliver pro-poor agriculturalgrowth, a broader suite of interventions may be called for. One of the problems is weak governmentcapacity. In some cases, projects and technical assistance may be a better vehicle for capacity buildingthan budget support because they are better adapted to mobilizing sector-specific expertise; and becausethey take longer to implement than fast-disbursing budget support - which may allow more scope for(long-term) mentoring. Top Management needs to ensure that Director’s Delivery Plans send the message thatcountry offices need to examine the scope for broadening the suite of aid instruments they deploy, complementing budget support with interventions that more directly benefit small farmers and the rural poor.

For the Renewable Natural Resources and Agriculture team

5.12 The RNRA team needs to define and formalize the baseline measures that will be used in the finalevaluation. Without setting a baseline it will be impossible to assess what progress has been made. Thisreport proposes seven baselines (see Annex I); but this is purely for illustrative purposes. RNRA needs todevote particular attention to defining suitable baselines and targets for outcomes - not tackled by thisevaluation.

5.13 For example, one outcome worth monitoring is progress with trade reform. RNRA could beginby identifying countries facing the strongest trade reform challenges - Kenya, Ghana, South Africa,Pakistan, Nicaragua are candidates - and then assess how friendly the current trade regime is to agriculture and whether government policy changes in the next few years favour agricultural growth. Forinstance, does the content of the dialogue with rich countries shows the level of sophistication displayedin the cotton debate at Hong Kong (see paragraph 4.24 above).

5.14 Developing the baseline might also include the following tasks:

• Analyzing how many operations with a bearing on agriculture are hidden behind “non-agricultural” sector codes - beginning with finance (code 7008), transport (code 7002) andtrade (code 7003).

• Verifying which budget support operations have an actual bearing on the agricultural policydialogue - this interim report only identifies those with potential bearing, based on statements in operational documents (not actions).

Conclusions, Ratings and Recommendations

29

• Clarifying the names of persons DFID-wide who have a particular responsibility for championing the agriculture policy (the list proposed in Annex 1, Baseline F may be incomplete). These people should be interviewed when the full evaluation is conducted togive an insiders’ view of implementation progress. (It might also be useful now to define acontrol group of “outsiders”).

• Taking an inventory of the agriculture-specific qualifications, training and experience ofthose listed in Baseline F. Track new persons entering and persons departing from this poolof core expertise. Record the use made of training modules prepared by the Head ofProfession.

5.15 In approaching the comprehensive evaluation scheduled for 2008, RNRA must ensure that thedesign is proportional to the flow of DFID resources. The baselines proposed in this interim report aregeared mainly to DFID’s bilateral programme and focus on the policy’s uptake by country offices. Butgiven that 50 percent of DFID spending is channeled through multilaterals (a proportion that is likely torise), it will be equally important to measure the return to these expenditures (many of which bear onthe production and dissemination of global public goods rather than country-specific outcomes). Theevaluation will need to spell out the results chain linking policies to outcomes, probing the assumptionsunderpinning each step in the chain. In terms of DFID spending, the largest multilateral initiative (andbiggest generator of public goods) is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research andthis should be a major focus of the evaluation.

5.16 RNRA needs to consolidate its efforts to engage more effectively with country offices. One wayof doing this is to build on challenge fund initiatives like that which RNRA is now using for its publicexpenditure work: inviting country offices to bid for (and match with their own resources) funds in acentral pool. An alternative and equally valid approach has been taken by the RNRA’s social protectioninitiative which, in a non-competitive way, through influencing and sound argumentation, has persuaded some country offices to commit their own resources to help advance this Agriculture Policypriority. Also, RNRA’s present arrangements for tracking responses to country office requests for technical assistance related to the themes of the agriculture policy are worth reinforcing. If these detailsare systematically logged there will be the beginnings of an evidence base for assessing implementationeffectiveness.

For the Central Research Department

5.17 Given the copious resources committed to agriculture research by DFID there is a good case fordeveloping a baseline now, one that can be referred back to when the full evaluation of the agriculturepolicy’s implementation is conducted. Setting up a baseline would entail a survey of selected countries,assessing the current level of technology used by poor and non-poor farmers and developing indicatorsfor tracking the generation of new technologies, their uptake by the different income groups, and theimpact on productivity. Just as it contracts out all the research it sponsors, so CRD also delegates responsibility for monitoring and evaluation. This leads to multiple tracking systems that are not necessarily comparable. More central oversight may be called for.

Conclusions, Ratings and Recommendations

30

ANNEX I

Baselines for Evaluating Implementation of the Policy Paper

Baseline A. DFID Bilateral vs. Multilateral Spending on Agriculture (£ ‘000)

2003 to 2004 2004 to 2005 2005 to 2006 3-Year Average

(a) Bilateral

(1) “Agriculture” 18,047 18,432 17,186

(2) Rural Livelihoods 128,652 131,434 114,807

Mean of (1)+(2) 73,350 74,933 65,997 71,427 (=50%)

(b) Multilateral 72,202 67,062 75,785 71,683 (=50%)

World Bank (IDA) 39,255 21,126 27,931

European Development Fund (EU) 8,773 9,639 8,908

African Development Fund (AfDB) 3,363 3,633 3,574

Asian Development Fund (ADB) 1,556 1,421 1,250

Food & Agriculture Organisation (UN) 6,323 6,873 4,805

International Fund for Agricultural

Development (UN) 5,299 7,899 12,002

Consultative Group on International

Agricultural Research (CGIAR) 7,633 16,471 17,315

TOTAL 148,552 141,995 141,782 143,110 (=100%)

Note to Baseline A.

With respect to bilateral spending, the agriculture numbers are taken from the SRSG database (September 2006) and usethe same definition applied to the PRISM search elsewhere: it is an aggregate of the codes “Agricultural Production”,“Agricultural Policy”, and “Livestock Policy” - a narrow interpretation of agriculture. The Rural Livelihoods numbers aretaken from Statistics on International Development 2006 (Table 19). In DFID’s coding scheme, agriculture falls under rurallivelihoods but it is not clear what percentage of livelihoods spending agriculture accounts for. For the purposes of thisevaluation a simple mean of the agriculture and livelihoods numbers was taken as an estimate of “broad” agriculturalspending. (A more comprehensive inquiry would need to examine the header sheets of each project to classify whetheror not a project had agriculture content - this was beyond the scope of the current evaluation).

With respect to multilateral spending, the numbers are derived from Statistics on International Development 2006 (Table16). The Table 16 data refer to the total DFID contribution to multilaterals, and need to be adjusted to capture the sharethat may be assumed to fund agriculture interventions. In the absence of a more precise guideline, it is assumed that DFIDfunds are allocated in the same proportion as the percentage of its total Official Development Assistance that each multi-lateral agency devotes to agriculture. These percentages are based on OECD calculations reported in the backgroundpaper “Official Development Assistance to Agriculture”, prepared by DFID’s Natural Resources and Agriculture team in2004 (posted at http://dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org/). The proportions are: World Bank/IDA (10.3%); EuropeanDevelopment Fund/EU (3.8%); African Development Fund/AfDB (10.5%); Asian Development Fund/ADB (6.5%); giventheir specific agricultural mandate it was assumed that 100% of the money DFID allocates to FAO, IFAD and CGIAR wentto agriculture.

Annexes

31

Baseline B. Number of “Agriculture”* Interventions Started in 2003-05, Excluding Budget Support and SWAps

Within each region N of Commitment Project Titlescountres are ranked Agriculture Embodied inin descending order Projects Agricultureby overall DFID Started in Project Startscommitments CY2003-05 (£’000)

AFRICA 10 23,556Tanzania - -Uganda - -Ghana - -Malawi 2 5,450 ICRISAT Support; 2004/05 Special AgricultureProgrammeMozambique - -Zambia 3 5,671 Enabling Env’ment; Private Sector Dev; Malnutrition

EmergencyKenya 1 225 Support to Agriculture Policy ReformEthiopia - -South Africa - -Sierra Leone - -Rwanda 2 700 World Bank Rural Sector Anchor; Support to

Agriculture PolicyNigeria 1 7,500 Pro-poor Growth Policy & Knowledge FacilitySudan - -Zimbabwe 1 4,010 NGO Agricultural Recovery 2Congo (Dem Rep) - -Angola - -Liberia - -Somalia - -Lesotho - -Cameroon - -ASIA 7 33,528India - -Bangladesh - -Afghanistan 3 8,870 Ag Livelihoods (2 projects); Agricultural Input SupplyPakistan - -China 2 23,988 Watershed Mgmt; Poor Rural Communities

DevelopmentNepal - -Indonesia - -Cambodia - -Sri Lanka - -Burma 2 670 Smallholder Irrigation; Reflect ProgrammeOTHER REGIONS 1 100Iraq - -Russian Federation 1 100 Rural Livelihoods Strategy DevelopmentWest Bank & Gaza - -Guyana - -Serbia & Montenegro - -Bolivia - -Ukraine - -Jamaica - -Brazil - -Jordan - -Bosnia-Herzegovina - -Romania - -Peru - -Yemen - -Kyrgyzstan - -Macedonia (FYR) - -Belize - -Egypt - -Bulgaria - -Albania - -

TOTAL 18 57,184

*“Agriculture” refers to operations coded “Agriculture Policy”, “Agricultural Production” or “Livestock Policy” in the PRISM database.

Refers to 50 largest country programmes based on size of FY2000-01/2004-05 DFID commitments.

Annexes

32

Baseline C “Agriculture”* Interventions Operational in September 2006(excluding Budget Support and Sector-Wide Approaches)

Title Start Date Commitment Themes£ ’000s

(a) AFRICAEthiopia Support to Agricultural Census Aug 2001 452 1Namibia Sustainable Livelihoods Support Feb 2002 1,950 3Rwanda World Bank Rural Sector Anchor Aug 2003 500 1Nigeria Pro-Poor Growth Policy & Knowledge Facility Dec 2003 7,500 1Regional African Agriculture Technology Foundation Apr 2004 5,000 2Regional Investors Consultation on the FAAP Oct 2005 46 1Zambia Private Sector Development Programme Nov 2005 5,000 5Zambia Malnutrition Emergency Intervention Dec 2005 521 6Zambia Private Sector Development Programme Jan 2006 60 5Regional Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Mar 2006 5,200 1Ghana Support to Food & Agriculture Sector Harmonisation Jun 2006 500 1

(b) ASIAAfghanistan Sustainable Agricultural Livelihoods in the Hazarajat Sep 2003 3,770 3China Watershed Management Sep 2003 4,948 3Afghanistan Sustainable Livelihoods Oct 2003 2,100 3Burma Rural Smallholder Irrigation Dec 2004 430 4Burma Reflect Programme May 2005 240 1Afghanistan Agricultural Input Supply Oct 2005 3,000 4China Poor Rural Communities Development Dec 2005 19,040 3

(c) OTHER REGIONSSt Helena Drip Irrigation Dec 2003 199 4Central America Regional Unit for Technical Assistance Nov 2004 700 2

(d) CENTRAL UNITS(i) Central Research Department

Bolivia Facilitating Innovative Technology Feb 2004 1,200 2Non-Specific Regoverning Markets Jun 2004 414 1Non-Specific Pro-Poor Policy Change Jan 2005 135 1Non-Specific Regoverning Markets, Phase II Oct 2005 414 1Botswana SADC MAPP Preparation May 2006 39 1Non-Specific Traditional Knowledge Paper Jun 2006 3 2

(ii) Policy DivisionNon-Specific Secondment of Martin Smith to FAO Dec 2003 180 1Non-Specific Investment in Fairtrade Future Jan 2005 750 1Non-Specific Achieving Pro-Poor Growth Through Agriculture May 2005 750 1Non-Specific Website for Advisory Support to DFID Jan 2006 34 2Non-Specific Future of Small Farms Aug 2006 150 1

TOTAL*“Agriculture” refers to operations coded “Agriculture Policy”, “Agricultural Production” or “Livestock Policy” in the PRISM database. Themes: (1) Agriculture policy reform and government capacity building; (2) Agriculture technology and information systems; (3) Ruraldevelopment, including support to farming communities; (4) Agriculture infrastructure and input supply; (5) Private sector development;(6) Emergency interventions.

Annexes

33

Baseline D Budget Support and Sector-Wide Approaches with Agriculture Content that were Operational in September 2006

Title Start Date Commitment Sub-£ ’000s Sector

a) BUDGET SUPPORT

India Orissa Budgetary Aid Mar 2003 30,000

Mozambique Budget Support Mar 2004 80,000

Vietnam Poverty Reduction Support Credits Nov 2004 60,000

Uganda Poverty Reduction Budget Support Dec 2004 145,000

Ethiopia Support National Safety Net Mar 2005 1,000

Vietnam Poverty Reduction Budget Support Apr 2005 10,000

Tanzania Poverty Reduction Budget Support Oct 2005 395,000

Sierra Leone Budget Support Nov 2005 15,000

Ghana Poverty Reduction Budget Support Mar 2006 120,000

Rwanda Poverty Reduction Budget Support Mar 2006 93,250

Sierra Leone Budget Suport Jul 2006 10,000

Total N= 11 operations 959,250

Budget Support, Total, Operational in Sep 2006N=39 operationsOf which, 28% have Agriculture Content

b) SECTOR WIDE APPROACHES (SWAps)

Ghana Support to Rural Feeder Roads Apr 1999 28,680

Afghanistan Helmand Rural Development Programme Jun 2006 30,000

Cambodia DANIDA Natural Resource Management & Livelihoods Jul 2006 4,500

Total N= 3 operations 63,180

SWAps, All Types, Operational in Sep 2006

N=62 operations

Of which, 5% have Agriculture Content

Annexes

34

Baseline E Agriculture Coverage in Country Strategy, CY2003-2005

Country (in descending CAP Date Ag PRSP Date Ag Ag Value Govt.order of commitment volume) Coverage Coverage Added/GDP Spending

2003/05 on Ag/Total(%)/1 Govt.

Spending(%)/2

India Feb 2004 Significant — 20 15.9

Tanzania Jun 2003 Limited Jun 2005 Significant 45 Na

Bangladesh Jan 2003 Limited Oct 2005 Significant 21 3.2

Uganda Aug 2003 Limited Apr 2005 Significant 32 4.2

Ghana Jan 2003 Significant Nov 2005 Significant 38 1.0

Iraq Feb 2004 NONE — 9 Na

Afghanistan — (Mar 2006) Significant Na Na

Malawi Jan 2003 Significant (Apr 2002) Significant 38 5.2

Mozambique Apr 2003 Limited (Apr 2001) Significant 23 Na

Zambia May 2004 Significant (Mar 2002) Significant 21 5.9

Pakistan Jan 2005 Limited Dec 2003 Limited 22 Na

Kenya Jun 2004 Significant Mar 2004 Limited 27 4.6

Ethiopia Mar 2003 Significant (Jul 2002) Significant 46 4.7

China (Apr 2006) NONE — 13 7.2

South Africa — — 3 Na

Sierra Leone — Mar 2005 Significant 46 Na

Rwanda Jun 2004 Significant (Jun 2002) Significant 41 Na

Nigeria May 2005 Significant Dec 2005 Significant 22 3.3

Sudan — — 36 Na

Nepal Feb 2004 Significant May 2003 Significant 40 5.9

This refers to DFID’s 20 largest country programmes, based on FY2000-01/2004-05 commitments.Italicized items fall outside the evaluation baseline period (CY2003-2005)/1 From World Development Indicators, 2006. /2 From Fan & Saurkar, 2006 (unpublished manuscript, IFPRI). Data refer to 2002 (SeeAnnex VI below for more detail). Na Not available.

Note on Baseline E

With respect to the rating of Country Assistance Plans, “None” indicates that the CAP contained no hint of support to agriculture or to a

broader reform process likely to promote agricultural growth: this was the case for Iraq and China. “Significant” refers to CAPs in which

the statement of objectives for the UK development partnership explicitly refers to agriculture and rural livelihoods; and there is a detailed

resource allocation plan within which these themes are explicitly cited. A comparison between the CAPs for Pakistan and Kenya

illustrates the difference between the ratings, respectively, of limited and significant. The Pakistan Plan indicates a commitment to build

on the success of DFID’s sustainable livelihoods projects but there is no description of what this entails in practice, or what it signifies for

DFID spending plans: indeed, there is no resource allocation table in the Plan. The Kenya Plan contains the following forthright

statement: “Ensuring progress in agriculture and rural development will be particularly important as 80 percent of poor Kenyans live in

rural areas: we will provide technical assistance to support the implementation of the Government’s Strategy for the Revitalisation of

Agriculture”. A resource allocation table indicates that DFID Kenya will spend £2 million on agriculture and rural development in 2004/05

and 2005/06.18 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers were rated using the same principles.

Annexes

35

18 Pakistan, Country Assistance Plan, January 2005, page 8. The same source indicates a certain tentativeness in support of sector-relevantreform: “Access to land and resources are critical issues for the poor but there are no notable champions for reform,

Baseline F Number of Staff Mapped to Agriculture Policy Implementation in February 2007

No of Staff Names of Staff Subset of StaffMapped to Mapped to

Policy LiveliehoodsImplementation Profession

(Italicized names)

COUNTRY OFFICES 46 27

(a) AFRICA 24 12

DFID Ethiopia 2 Robertson, Alemu 2

DFID Ghana 2 Quaye, Masterman

DFID Kenya 2 Stubblefield, Muteshi 1

DFID Nigeria 2 Owuso-Gyamfi, Ambekemo 1

DFID Malawi 2 Kinsley, Sanchez

DFID Zimbabwe 2 T. Barrett, Manda 2

DFID Tanzania 1 Quinlan

DFID Uganda 3 Tollervey, Stone, Chittleborough 1

DFID Southern Africa 5 Croxton,J. Barrett, Ridout, Macloud, Tregutha 3

DFID Rwanda 2 Dyer, Drake 2

DFID Zambia 1 Toole

(b) ASIA 15 12

DFID South-East Asia 1 Harrison, 1

DFID India 5 Radcliffe, Lambert, Sharma, Iyer, Hamilton-Peach 5

DFID Cambodia 1 Price 1

DFID Bangladesh 4 P. Davies, Sarker, Wright, Boulter 2

DFID Afghanistan 1 Kerr 1

DFID Nepal 3 Sergeant, Morrenhof, Bampton 2

(c) AMERICAS 7 3

7 B. Davies, Spray, Symons, Zeballos,

Winthrop, Montes de Oca, Johnson 3

CENTRAL UNITS 39 23

Africa Directorate 3 A. Kidd, Raisin, Kerby 2

Asia Directorate 1 Biot 1

Head of Profession, Livelihoods 1 J. Harvey 1

Growth & Investment 14 Moberly, MacPherson, Rhein, Bradley,

Leyland, Sarch, Wang, Waites, Kelly,

Pearce, Kingsmill, Hagan, Mullard, Akintade 7

Central Research Dept. 3 Howlett, Wadsworth, Winder 2

Others 17 Arnold, Hensby, Highstead, Healey,

Phillipson, S.Kidd, Turton, Everest-Phillips,

Heard, Nasskau, Beales, Hudson, Wedgwood,

Wheatley, S. Harvey, Falconer, Shakya,

Compton 10

TOTAL 85 50

Note. This includes a list of “key interlocutors” supplied by the Natural Resources and Agriculture team. The list was amended by JimHarvey in January 2007; and further revised based on Insight directory in February. .

Annexes

36

Baseline G Spending on Priorities in Agriculture Policy Implementation Plan as of January 2007

Annexes

37

Sou

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and

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ounc

ils).

ANNEX II

Method

The approach taken to the evaluation was seven-fold.

First, the evaluators examined the research literature for evidence on the relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction. This included a review of the background papers that werewritten to inform the consultation process that preceded drafting of the policy paper.

Second, PRISM and other databases were mined to ascertain how much DFID had recently spent onagriculture, broken down by region and - to the extent possible - by sub-sector, and by instrument (fromprojects to budget support).

Third, Human Resource’s data were analyzed in order to establish a benchmark of the number of staffmembers (primarily Advisers) with the skills needed to implement the policy paper, distinguishingbetween staff in country offices and those working in policy teams at the centre. Data from a NationalAudit Office report (2007) were cited.

Fourth, the statements of objectives contained in Director’s Delivery Plans and Country Assistance Planswere assessed for relevant agriculture content. This was supplemented by a quick review of PovertyReduction Strategy Papers issued in 2004-2006, again with a view to determining how much attentionwas being paid to agriculture as a motor of growth and broad-based poverty reduction. In countrieswhere DFID is not spending on agriculture it may nevertheless be part of a multi-donor strategy that prioritizes agriculture - with a division of labour giving DFID responsibility for spending on other sectors. Where this is the case it should be reflected in the relevant Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (forthose countries that have them).

Fifth, project implementation and completion reports were studied for evidence of DFID best practicein agriculture. This exercise had a parallel mandate aimed at generating case studies that could be candidates for inclusion in the 2008 World Development Report (“Agriculture for Development”).

Sixth, two questionnaires were sent round by e-mail, one addressed to staff in country offices and theother targeting central policy staff. Each questionnaire asked staff to assess DFID’s fitness for carryingout the agriculture policy and was keyed to the October 2006 implementation plan. The results (AnnexIII) were inconclusive.

Seventh, phone interviews were conducted with the policy staff responsible for each of the seven themesidentified in the implementation plan, the head of the Natural Resources and Agriculture team, the RuralLivelihoods Head of Profession and others (Annex 7).

Annexes

38

ANNEX III

Responses to Questionnaire

In November 2006, the questionnaire was sent by e-mail attachment to two groups of DFID staff: thosein country offices and those in central policy units. In all, 147 persons received the questionnaire. 27 persons replied, a response rate of 18 percent. Given this low return any attempt to break down responses by staff group would not yield significant results and the overall findings need to be treatedwith caution. The tables below are intended to give a flavour of the findings rather than a full report.

Relevant questionnaire items are identified in parentheses (see Annex IV for questionnaire)

Are DFID agriculture-related interventions adequate? (N=26)

Yes No Don’t Know

Social protection (Q11) xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx

Targeting public spending (Q12) xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx

Market failure (Q13) xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx x

Financial services (Q14) xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxx

Improved technologies (Q15) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx x

Land (Q16) xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxx

Agricultural exports (Q17) xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx

Does DFID commit sufficient resources to agriculture? (N=27)

Yes No Don’t Know

Budgetary (Q8) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxx

Staff (Q9) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x

Dialogue with partners sufficiently prioritizes agricultural growth? (N=27)

Yes No Don’t Know

Prioritizes xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxx

DFID strategy sufficiently prioritizes agriculture?

Yes No Don’t Know

Prioritizes (N=27) xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(“Agriculture” staff) (N=14) xxxx xxxxxxxxxx

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ANNEX IV

Questionnaire

IMPLEMENTATION OF DFID’S 2005 AGRICULTURE POLICYQuestionnaire for Staff in Country Offices

BACKGROUND

On 7 December 2005 the Secretary of State unveiled DFID’s latest Agricultural Policy Paper. While it istoo early to draw conclusions about how effectively the policy has been implemented it is important tomake a baseline assessment of how well placed DFID is to carry out the policy. This questionnaire iskeyed to the Implementation Plan that was prepared in support of the new policy. A copy of this plan isattached [SEE ANNEX IV BELOW].

Your responses to this questionnaire will be treated in absolute confidence and responses will not beattributed to you in the report of this evaluation; neither will the remarks you make in any follow-upinterview.

Please complete the questionnaire, save it as a separate file and send the file as an e-mail attachment to

john-heath@dfid.gov.uk

by Monday 20 November 2006

IDENTIFIERS

Your Name:

Your Current Post:

Country you are referring to in this questionnaire:

Your post in that country (if different from current post):

Period in that country:

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There are 11 questions below. Please place an “X” next to the most appropriate response.

QUESTIONS

1. Have you ever looked at the 2005 Agricultural Policy Paper?

YES NO

2. Have you previously seen a copy of the attached Implementation Plan - or earlier versions of thesame?

YES NO

3. Please name the persons (other than yourself) who, in your view, will have the biggest influenceover progress in implementing the 2005 policy in the reference country for this questionnaire.Please rank these persons, with Number 1 being “most influential” and, where you consider it isappropriate, include on the list persons outside DFID. You may list as many persons as you wishup to a maximum of 10.

RANK NAME ORGANIZATION POSTBy decreasing order of influence

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Note. If two or more persons share the same level of influence please renumber the ranking (e.g.1,2,2,4 or 1,2,3,4,4,4)

4. Since December 2005 has this country office been involved in preparing a new DFID strategy(CAP)?

YES NO

[If “YES”…]

4a. Were you present in the country office when these post-December 2005 preparations for thenew CAP took place?

YES NO

[If “YES”…]

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4b. Were you consulted about the content of the CAP?

YES NO

5. Does your office’s current position on DFID country strategy take agriculture sufficiently intoaccount?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

6. Does agriculture have a leading role to play as part of a broad-based strategy of economic growthin the country you are referring to?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

7. In its dialogue with development partners does the DFID office in this country give sufficientpriority to agricultural growth?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

8. Taking into account the relative importance of agriculture in DFID’s country strategy, does theoffice commit sufficient budgetary resources to agriculture?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

9. Taking into account the relative importance of agriculture in DFID’s country strategy, does theoffice commit sufficient staff resources to agriculture?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

10. How would you rate the performance of the country office in its support of agriculture?

HIGHLY SATISFACTORY

SATISFACTORY

UNSATISFACTORY

HIGHLY UNSATISFACTORY

DON’T KNOW

11. Are there interventions currently run from the country office that bear on agricultural growth(e.g. projects, programmes, policy dialogue, technical assistance)?

YES NO DON’T KNOW

[If “YES”…]

11b. Do these interventions include adequate complementary measures to enhance social protection(e.g. safety nets)? [SEE OBJECTIVE 1 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

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11c. Do these interventions sufficiently improve the targeting of public expenditures in support of pro-poor agricultural growth? [SEE OBJECTIVE 2 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

11d. Do these interventions include adequate measures to address market failure? [SEE OBJECTIVE3 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

11e. Do these interventions include adequate measures to improve the access of poor farmers to financial services? [SEE OBJECTIVE 4 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

11f. Do these interventions include adequate measures to improve the access of poor farmers toimproved technologies? [SEE OBJECTIVE 5 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

11g. Do these interventions include adequate measures to improve access to land? [SEE OBJECTIVE6 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

11h. Do these interventions include adequate measures to improve access to agricultural export markets? [SEE OBJECTIVE 7 OF IMPLEMENTATION PLAN]

YES NO DON’T KNOW

IN THE SPACE BELOW PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ELABORATE ON YOUR RESPONSES TOTHE ABOVE QUESTIONS (OR ADD OTHER COMMENTS)

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ANNEX V

Implementation Plan for Agriculture Policy Paper (October 2005)

Background and context

This paper was requested by the Secretary of State in response to concerns voiced by many, including theInternational Development Select Committee, that DFID had lost interest in agriculture and had noclear approach towards it. It renews DFID’s rationale to support agriculture, presents guiding principles,indicates what DFID needs to do differently and lays out and a menu of options for action within theframework of country-led strategies. It follows on from an initial short Policy Paper published in January2004, builds on a consultative process including an electronic forum held in the first half of 2004, andhas been informed by the Agriculture Team’s work with country programmes in Africa and Asia since2003.

Target audience

The policy paper primarily targets development professionals within DFID in order to:

• encourage DFID decision makers to reconsider agriculture’s importance to achieving PSAobjectives and to reflect this in DDPs and guidance to country offices; and

• encourage DFID programmes to reconsider agriculture’s role in achieving faster povertyreducing growth, and to reflect this in their CAPs.

Secondly, the paper will be used as a learning and influencing tool to encourage other development partners to similarly reconsider their approach and commitment to agriculture. In particular, the WorldBank and important regional processes such as the AU/NEPAD’s Comprehensive African AgriculturalDevelopment Programme.

Focus on implementation

The following tables highlight the responsibility of PD’s Agriculture Team to facilitate actions necessaryby various actors to achieve change. In response to demand, the Team will initially build on existing workand dialogue in Africa with Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda andZambia; and in Asia with Bangladesh, Afghanistan and two state programmes in India. However, theprinciples of the policy are of global relevance, and there are ongoing opportunities for other country programmes to engage in activities and share their experience.

The Team’s interaction with country offices will continue to be in partnership with regional policydepartments (APD and Asia Directorate). The Team will also draw on existing collaboration across PD,with International Trade Department and the Central Research Department to build a coherent DFIDapproach to agriculture.

Monitoring progress

The policy paper summarises many actions that are already underway. In addition to normal programmemonitoring we propose to evaluate progress against commitments within three years of the policy paperbeing published. Evaluation Department are considering the paper for independent review.

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ANNEX VI

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Annex VII

Persons Interviewed By Phone in December 2006

Derrick Akintade

Yvan Biot

Daniel Bradley

Ian Curtis

Harry Hagan

Jim Harvey

David Howlett

Laura Kelly

Andrew Kidd

Tim Leyland

Neil MacPherson

Richard Moberly

Paul Mullard

Doug Pearce

Felicity Proctor

Terri Sartch

Jonathan Wadsworth

Tim Waites

Limin Wang

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DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the British government’s fight against world poverty.

One in five people in the world today, over 1 billion people, live in poverty on lessthan one dollar a day. In an increasingly interdependent world, many problems – likeconflict, crime, pollution, and diseases such as HIV and AIDS – are caused or madeworse by poverty.

DFID supports long-term programmes to help eliminate the underlying causes ofpoverty. DFID also responds to emergencies, both natural and man-made. DFID’swork aims to reduce poverty and disease and increase the number of children inschool, as part of the internationally agreed UN ‘Millennium Development Goals’.

DFID works in partnership with governments, civil society, the private sector andresearchers. It also works with multilateral institutions, including the World Bank,United Nations agencies, and the European Commission.

DFID works directly in over 150 countries worldwide, with a budget of nearly £4 billion in 2004.

Its headquarters are in London and East Kilbride, near Glasgow.

LONDON GLASGOW

1 Palace Street Abercrombie House

London Eaglesham Road

SW1E 5HE East Kilbride

UK Glasgow

G75 8EA

UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7023 0000 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7023 0016

Website: www.dfid.gov.uk

E-mail: enquiry@dfid.gov.uk

Public Enquiry Point: 0845 300 4100

If calling from abroad: +44 1355 84 3132

ISBN: 1 86192 880 7

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