Policy Brief Issue 25 THE IMPACT OF STRENGTHENING AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES: EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA GENDER INNOVATION LAB The Gender Innovation Authors: Niklas Buehren, Markus Goldstein, Ezequiel Molina, and Julia Vaillant Lab (GIL) conducts impact evaluations of development KEY MESSAGES interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to generate • Extension services have been implemented on a large scale evidence on how to close in developing countries for decades. However, there is little the gender gap in earnings, evidence on their impact on the productivity and welfare of productivity, assets and agency. The GIL team is farmers. Our study aims to begin to fill this evidence gap with the goal of currently working on over identifying and encouraging the uptake of best practices for the delivery 50 impact evaluations in 21 of extension services by governments. countries with the aim of building an evidence base • Our findings suggest that strengthening extension services to with lessons for the region. make them more responsive to the needs of farmers can induce a switch to more commercial, market-oriented agriculture. Indeed, The impact objective of GIL is increasing take-up of effective we find that the Rural Capacity Building Project (RCBP) had a positive policies by governments, impact on economic participation in the household, land area cultivated development organizations and adoption of marketable crops. and the private sector in order to address the underlying • Female-headed households seem to have benefited equally causes of gender inequality from the extension services project but it did not contribute in Africa, particularly in terms to reducing the gender gap in agricultural outcomes as their of women’s economic and social empowerment. The lab initial levels of wealth and consumption, as well as labor and capital aims to do this by producing endowments were lower. and delivering a new body of • Additional research is required to identify extension services evidence and developing a compelling narrative, geared designs that contribute to closing the gender gap, by addressing towards policymakers, on what more specifically the challenges faced by women in areas such as labor works and what does not work and capital endowment. in promoting gender equality. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab Agriculture accounts for 85 percent of employment HERE’S WHAT WE DID and 46 percent of GDP in Ethiopia and is dominated by The World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab launched smallholder farming. Although there has been growth in an experiment within the context of the RCBP project, to production since 2000, most of the growth has come assess the assumption that providing extension services from increases in the area cultivated rather than an to farmers would help them enhance their farming intensification of production. Yields have thus remained practices, leading to increased productivity and welfare. low by international standards. Various models of In particular, the study analyzed whether the RCBP extension services programs have been developed to improved women’s access to knowledge and information increase agricultural productivity in many countries. on agricultural technologies. Agricultural extension services are designed to “extend” research-based knowledge to the rural sector, providing We used a panel dataset collected among farming assistance and training to farmers to enhance their households in both project and non-project kebeles farming practices, and in turn increase their productivity between 2009 and 2012 to evaluate the impact of the and improve their welfare. However, research on RCBP. The sample included 1,485 households spread the impact of such programs on yield growth is not across four major regions. conclusive, and has run into challenges in assessing the relationship between extension services and increased HERE’S WHAT WE FOUND productivity. The RCBP increased economic participation in Moreover, participation of women in agriculture in Ethiopia the household, land area cultivated and adoption is substantial, with estimates lying between 29 percent of marketable crops, suggesting that access and 45.5 percent of agricultural labor. However, access to extension helped farmers switch to more to extension agents is significantly lower for women as commercial, market-oriented agriculture. It compared to men. Improving their access to knowledge appears the training provided by extension agents could and information on agricultural technologies may lift one have encouraged farmers to devote more resources to of the barriers to women’s economic empowerment in agriculture, by investing in land, better technology and Ethiopia. marketable crops with a longer maturation period. Land area, irrigation and tree farming increased in areas where THE PROGRAM RCBP was implemented. While overall productivity did not improve as a result of RCBP, the farming and selling In 2006, the Ethiopian government’s Rural Capacity of marketable crops increased significantly. Building Project (RCBP) was designed and implemented with the objective of strengthening agricultural services The number of people in the household contributing and systems and making them more responsive to the to income increased in RCBP areas, with more needs of smallholder farmers. The extension system relied work undertaken off farm. This could be the result on a network of professionally trained extension workers of the adoption of market-oriented agriculture that may called Development Agents (DA) who were deployed in require work in areas such as marketing and processing. Farmer Training Centers (FTC). The RCBP supported capacity building at the woreda, regional, and federal The main impacts of the program, adoption of levels of the agricultural extension system. The RCBP marketable crop farming and increased labor was implemented in 10 regions, 127 woredas, 635 force participation, benefited male and female- kebeles and 2,500 FTCs in the country. The program headed households equally. However, the RCBP aimed to mainstream gender in all aspects of the did not help to close the gender gap. As female heads extension system to increase female participation. of households were initially worse off in all dimensions (wealth and consumption, labor and capital endowment, access to extension services and farming advice in general), they were still worse off after RCBP. After an initial surge in the use of extension services, households that received RCBP increasingly gained advice from sources outside of the government system, such as NGOs. It is possible that after initially getting a set of useful information from extension agents, households graduated to other sources once they had exhausted the knowledge that the public extension system could provide. Initially wealthier households benefited from RCBP significantly more than poorer households, in terms of non-food consumption and level of assets. The project encouraged investments, with wealthier households being able to invest in the land, by expanding irrigation use and higher quality crop farming, while poorer households invested in cheaper or more liquid assets, such as livestock. NEXT STEPS Next steps should include the piloting and evaluation of new, more innovative approaches to extension aimed at decreasing the gender gap in access to extension services and productivity. This could be undertaken by more specifically targeting the constraints faced by women initially, and testing different modes of delivery services. For example, as wealthier households have larger or better quality networks that they can turn to for advice on agricultural technology, leveling the playing field for poorer households, notably female farmers, may require revising the design of extension services to include partnerships with other actors such as NGOs to ensure improved access to social learning opportunities. Similarly, more rigorous evidence is needed on whether the presence of female messengers improve learning of agricultural techniques by female farmers. Simple steps such as hiring female agents could not only improve communication to women farmers, but also better meet their informational needs. For more information on this study, see the Policy Research Working Paper: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/27976 FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Markus Goldstein mgoldstein@worldbank.org Rachel Coleman rcoleman1@worldbank.org 1818 H St NW This work has also been funded in part by The Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), a World Bank Group multi- Washington, DC 20433 USA donor trust fund expanding evidence, knowledge and data needed to identify and address key gaps between men and women to deliver better development solutions that boost prosperity and increase opportunity for all. The UFGE has received generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States. The first draft of this policy brief was released in April 2018.