AgRicuLTuRE & RuRAL DEvELOpMENT NOTES gender and governance in 56582 Agricultural Extension Services: iSSuE 53 insights from india, ghana, and Ethiopia MARcH 2010 Three out of four poor people in the developing a range of governance reforms that can help improve world live in rural areas, and most of them depend-- agricultural service provision, including democratization, directly or indirectly--on agriculture for their livelihoods. decentralization, public sector management reforms, Providing economic services, such as agricultural exten- and community-driven development. These approaches sion, is essential for using agriculture for development. have been linked with diverse efforts to make service However, such services are difficult to provide in rural provision more gender responsive. areas, because they are subject to the triple challenge of market, state, and community failure. THE WORLD BANK Because of market failures, the private sector does not AccOuNTABiLiTy provide extension services to the rural poor to the extent FRAMEWORK that is desirable. The state is not very effective in providing Understanding the accountability relations between these services either and a pervasive problem affecting this clients, service providers, and politicians is essential to is clientelism, which refers to the excessive tendency of understanding how governance reforms can improve politicians to provide public services to clients in exchange service provision. The conceptual framework devel- for political advantage. This, in turn, leads to inequality in oped in the World Development Report 2004: Making service provision, typically to the disadvantage of women Services Work for Poor People (hereafter referred to as and the poor. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) the World Bank Accountability Framework) distinguishes and communities themselves are alternative providers of three main actors: citizens/clients, politicians/policy mak- these services, but they often also fail. Furthermore, the ers, and service providers. Citizens/clients can use two perception bias that "women are not farmers" makes it "routes of accountability" to get better services, the even more challenging to provide agricultural extension long route and the short route. Holding service providers services--to women. This perception bias adds a fourth directly accountable, referred to as client power, is the challenge to the existing triple challenge. short route of accountability (e.g. targeted vouchers for Various governance reform approaches have been extension services). Exercising voice to encourage politi- adopted to improve agricultural extension service provi- cians and policy makers to interact with service provid- sion, but major knowledge gaps remain regarding what ers with the goal of improving service delivery, using works where and why. The past two decades have seen a "compact," is the long route of accountability. The World Bank Accountability Framework is the conceptual foundation of the study. The report also focused signifi- cant attention on the problem of clientelism and how it affects inequality in service provision. Knowledge gaps The World Bank Accountability Framework has been widely used and greatly advanced our understanding of different strategies that can be used to improve service provision. However, its application has focused on social services, especially health and education. It is less well understood which role short routes and long routes of accountability play in agricultural service provision and how clientelistic environments influence these relations, especially in decen- tralized settings. Knowledge gaps also exist regarding the role of political parties, which are not an explicit element of the World Bank Accountability Framework but play a major role. The literature suggests that the way in which political parties function, in both multiparty and one-party regimes, has important implications for the types of clien- Photo: © Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank THE WORLD BANK telism and elite capture that may affect agricultural and rural · It includes development agencies and advocacy NGOs as service provision. Additional knowledge gaps exist with regard a separate category because they often influence service to the gender dimension of these routes of accountability. provision. · It explicitly introduces community-based associations, THE gENDER AND which may empower citizens to interact more effectively gOvERNANcE pROjEcT with their political representatives or act as service provid- ers themselves. The Gender and Governance in Rural Services: · It includes political parties, which can play an important Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia report aims role in formulating policies and laws that influence the to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies for gender responsiveness of public service provision and in improving agricultural service delivery, with a focus on pro- selecting political candidates and at times public officials. viding more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project has been implemented in India, Ghana, cOuNTRy SpEciFic and Ethiopia. These countries were chosen to capture varia- REcOMMENDATiONS tion in important macrofactors, especially the level of eco- nomic development; various aspects of governance, such india as political system and party system; the role of women in Address the staff shortage problem: In India, the main society; and strategies adopted to promote gender equity. problem is the lack of overall capacity resulting from a past The project focused on agricultural extension as an example policy of not hiring agricultural extension providers. Because of a critical agricultural service. of this, there is almost no public capacity left for providing extension, and the private and civil society sectors have not Research Methodology filled that gap. The findings presented in this report are based on quantita- The number of agricultural extension agents can be increased tive surveys of households, community members, communi- in various ways including, hiring staff on a contract basis ty-based organizations, and service providers and on qualita- for specific programs. This is a more flexible approach, and tive case studies. one that is currently being pursued by the government of The WDR2004 framework adopted in this report disaggre- Karnataka. Other options include contracting NGOs that gates and expands the Framework in several ways: work in the agricultural sector, contracting private sector companies that can provide extension services, and establish- · It includes male/female gender signs in all boxes to indicate ing public-private partnerships. Before hiring more agricul- the gender dimension of all actors involved in service delivery. tural extension staff, states should conduct a thorough analy- · It distinguishes between public sector service providers at sis of the human resources in terms of numbers, qualification, the local level and the ministries at the national/federal or and skill mix required for improving agricultural extension. state level to which the local public sector service providers Provide better services to female farmers: While may belong. addressing the staff shortage problem, attention should be · It disaggregates political representatives at different levels given to providing better services to female farmers. In view of of local government and members of parliaments at state the positive experience in other countries (Ghana in particular), and federal levels. the strategy to hire female extension agents to better serve · It includes NGOs and private sector organizations that female farmers deserves special attention. The standing com- provide services as a separate category. mittees on agriculture and industry in the district panchayats The World Bank The Long and Short Routes of Accountability Accountability Framework National/state-level National/state-level Political representatives (NP) Ministries (NM) The state Politicians Policy makers Political Parties (PP) e of accounta Co rout bili mp ng ty ac Lo t ice Local Political Development Vo representatives (LP) Agencies/advocacy NGOs (DA) Short route Citizens/clients Providers Long route Coalitions/inclusion Client power Management Community-based Nonpoor Poor Frontline Organizations Organizations (CO) Household Short route Public Sector Members (HH) service providers (PS) Services NGO/private service providers (NG) 2003. World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People. Washington, DC: World Bank. Services Adapted from World Bank (2003). 2 Reestablish the function of agricultural extension Access to Agricultural Extension as a bridge between agricultural research, farmers, Services by gender and markets. The linkages between agricultural research and extension can be strengthened in various ways. If 30% participatory planning approaches for the introduction of Male new technologies, commodities, and farming practices are 25% Female implemented (as piloted by The Agricultural Technology 20% Management [ATMA]), extension agents may have stronger incentives to contact agricultural researchers to meet farmers' 15% needs. The establishment of governing structures that involve 10% both agricultural researchers and extension agents, as fore- seen under ATMA, can also improve the bridging function of 5% agricultural extension. 0% Form functioning farmer-based organizations (FBOs): Ethiopia india ghana Extension agents are not only limited in numbers, but they also lack the skills required to form and supervise groups. Access to Agricultural Extension Services-- Furthermore, they tend to work with better-off farmers and Findings in india, ghana, and Ethiopia male farmers. If the strategy of forming farmers' interest groups is to be pursued, appropriate investments have to be Access to extension is moderate in India and Ethiopia made in hiring qualified facilitators for group formation and and low in Ghana. In Ghana, the gender gap in access to training group representatives. Special attention needs to be extension is pronounced. paid to making farmers' interest groups inclusive in terms of Access to extension in Ethiopia varied widely across gender and caste, something that has proven to be a chal- regions, ranging from 2 percent in Afar to 54 percent in lenge in the past. Although the best strategy to improve Tigray. Also, a high level of access does not necessarily rural service provision will always depend on the specific mean the service is being used or that it is of good qual- situation, it may be promising to link agricultural service pro- vision to existing groups. Women's self-help groups may be ity. The top-down approach and with the focus on get- an option, especially for livestock-related services. However, ting model farmers to adopt fixed-technology packages, these groups should not be over loaded with too many func- extension tends to neglect poor farmers, particularly tions. Federations of community-based organizations and women. In addition, the extension system is not client agricultural producer companies are other promising options. oriented, and users have limited demand capacity. As group-based approaches place demands on farmers' time, Access to extension was lowest in ghana. Only about however, alternatives should be considered. The provision of 10­15 percent male-headed households attended extension services through Internet kiosks and cell phones group meetings organized by agricultural extension offi- deserves attention; further analysis is needed to assess the cers, with some variation across agroecological zones. gender responsiveness of these approaches. Despite the predominant role of women in Ghanaian agriculture, access of female-headed households to agri- ghana cultural extension turned out to be very low. The study indicates that access to agricultural extension is low, despite the fact that an extension agent­to­farmer ratio could also play a proactive role in mobilizing public awareness is comparatively high. The following strategies may be con- for the inclusion of gender issues in plans and policies of sidered to address these challenges: decentralized bodies and government departments. Improve the management of agricultural extension: Address the management challenges within the To improve the focus on agricultural productivity and other public sector: The management challenges, particularly outcome-related targets, should be made a part of the exten- political interference and the low use of merit-based promo- sion agents' agenda. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture tion, deserve attention. Both problems are deeply entwined could introduce awards for communities and districts that are within the general public administration, and cannot be most successful in increasing agricultural productivity at the resolved in isolation within the agricultural departments. community or district level rather than just rewarding indi- The hiring of new staff outside the civil service system offers vidual farmers. Research and extension linkage committees new opportunities for merit-based promotion and other (RELCs) at the district level are supposed to create linkages incentive systems, such as merit-based wage compensa- between research and extension, yet this strategy does not tion. The problem of political interference could be reduced seem to be sufficient. Increasing farmers' demand for new by strengthening the role of agricultural extension staff knowledge--by strengthening participatory extension plan- in improving the knowledge and skill base of the farming ning and technology development approaches, for exam- population rather than by using extension agents mainly ple-- may be a useful strategy for creating more incentives for implementing subsidized input programs. Also, a right- for extension agents to channel this demand to the research to-information approach could be used to reduce political system. In view of the low percentage of farmers who try pressure and elite capture. new technologies, it also seems useful to devise incentive 3 systems that reward extension agents for the number of male Ethiopia and female farmers who adopt new technologies. It will be Agricultural extension is a high government priority, but useful to critically review past efforts to reform the Ministry coverage of extension services across regions varies widely, of Food and Agriculture and to try reform approaches such and extension agents have limited discretion to adapt tech- as Appreciative Inquiry, which use the best values of an orga- nology packages to the context of individual communities. nization as a starting point of reform and rely on internal The gender gap in access to extension can also be improved. change agents rather than considering the organization only Some approaches to addressing these issues could include as a problem that has be resolved (usually by restructuring the following: using external consultants). Give more discretion to extension agents: To increase Increase the access of female farmers to agricultural technology adoption by more farmers, it seems useful to give extension: The following strategies could be explored: extensions agents--together with farmers--more space to · Identify and address the factors that prevent female house- experiment with technology and input packages other than hold members from attending extension-related com- those they are currently promoted. Microlevel adaptation of munity meetings, perhaps by organizing such meetings at existing packages could make new inputs and practices more times and locations that make them more accessible for credible to farmers. This is particularly important with regard female household heads. Explore the extent to which the to extension agents' work with women. Women in Agricultural Development (WIAD) units have Expand extension coverage where it is low, includ- already tried to address these problems, and identify the ing to pastoral areas: Extension coverage varies widely implementation problems WIAD officers may have faced across sites, with as few as 2 percent and as many as 54 in this respect. percent of respondents having access to extension agents. · Increase the share of female extension agents, who were Reducing these stark differences in access seems justified. found to be more effective than male extension agents in Bridge the gender gap in access to extension servic- reaching female farmers. es: The study identifies some promising ways to reduce the · Create incentives for reaching female farmers by, for exam- gender gap. One is the engagement of women's associations ple, rewarding such outreach in performance reviews. to serve as a bridge between extension workers and women farmers. External assistance may include better and more Prepare extension agents for Local Government detailed documentation on how and through which mecha- Service: One of the planned changes to strengthen the local nisms women's associations are successful in bringing exten- government system is the introduction of a Local Government sion advice to their members. Lessons learned could be taken Service, a separate category of public officials besides the civil into account in expanding and scaling up this approach. service that could include agricultural extension. It would be useful to proactively use this opportunity for increased MOviNg FORWARD accountability and to pilot test approaches by which exten- The accountability linkages for rural service provision vary sion agents, district assembly members, and district assembly widely across countries, depending on the political system staff can work together effectively under this new system. and the approach to decentralization in service provision. Reconsider the role of FBOs: FBOs have been promoted Understanding these linkages is necessary for identifying as a major strategy to deliver agricultural extension ser- entry points to make rural service provision more responsive vices more effectively. Several strategies could be pursued to gender needs. to address the challenges with this strategy that the study Many important questions require further research, experi- identified: mentation, and learning. Which mechanisms in the local governance system create political incentives in obtaining · Encourage FBOs to engage in activities that will make them better outcomes for the rural population in general and rural sustainable, such as joint agricultural marketing, agropro- women in particular? How do these mechanisms differ across cessing, joint purchasing of agricultural inputs, and joint political systems? Which mechanisms work within a (de facto) use of agricultural machinery. The experience of projects one-party system? Which mechanisms work in multiparty that already tried this strategy needs to be reviewed. systems that are subject to political competition but plagued · Analyze the problems women face in joining FBOs. with clientelism and elite capture? Future research-- includ- Promote the formation of FBOs made up only of women ing research using the data collected under this project--will (an intervention that is already in operation). have to address these questions. 1 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Legon, Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute (EEPRI), World Bank. 2010. Agriculture and Rural Development Series: Gender and Governance in Rural Services: Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia, World Bank, Washington, D.C. This ARD Note was prepared by Sonia Madhvani and Eija Pehu of the World Bank and Regina Birner of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). It is based on the report Gender and Governance in Rural Services: Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia. THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street. NW Washington, DC 20433 www.worldbank.org/rural