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Integrated Research Funding
Most of the IFAD supported projects in west Africa have included some funding for agricultural research. Cassava was identified in the early 1980s as a priority smallholder crop which could improve household food security, and this was supported through research in Nigeria and Ghana. In Nigeria IFAD funded a cassava multiplication programme as part of a larger WB funded Multi-State Agricultural Development Programme, whilst in Ghana cassava was included in the crop development activities of VORADEP and supported (as the National Roots and Tuber Crop Improvement Programme (NRTCIP)) by means of a separate component in the Smallholder Rehabilitation and Development Programme (SRDP).
These initiatives have been successful in making available improved varieties and have directly assisted IFAD target groups. An important factor of their success has been the method of co-ordinating research activities in regional and in-country research centres.
In Ghana, knowledge available at IITA in Nigeria was linked with local research stations; during a four year programme of intensive field testing new varieties were produced with three times the yields of existing local varieties. Biological control was simultaneously developed for some of the major cassava predators. For this programme project funding was used for on-farm trials and demonstrations and the funding of local research, and this was fully supported by a contract with IITA, which was separately funded by IFAD. The CPE concluded that the existence of a well-defined and clear legal framework between IFAD, IITA and the GOG, was a vital element in the success of the programme. The MTE of SRDP (198-GH), whilst agreeing that the cassava development programme had been successful, commented that it lacked connections with downstream activities, in that participatory farmer experiments were needed to prove the varieties and make them acceptable. The Ghana CPE also concluded that the multiplication, dissemination and distribution of new varieties had been slow, preventing smallholders nation-wide from fully reaping the benefits of the technology developed.
In Nigeria, the I.E. of the Cassava Multiplication Programme (177-NR) found that the programme had significantly contributed to the rapid expansion of cassava production and had played a part in reducing rural poverty. However, the I.E. also commented that target groups can rarely be pulled out of poverty by a single commodity approach.
- Partnerships between regional research centres, local research centres and specific projects, can provide a viable mechanism for the development or adaptation of improved technology or control mechanisms. In this case funding needs to be adequately co-ordinated to ensure the timely implementation of programme activities, and this requires a well-defined legal framework.
- The commissioning of targeted research through a project can serve to focus the research organisation on the practicalities of implementing the proposed solutions. This could also provide better feedback to the research organisation on the financial realities from the farmers viewpoint; this consideration will affect adoption rates for the new technology.
- Research activities on their own will not have an optimal impact unless all the downstream constraints to making the technology available are considered and removed. Hence the research needs to be adequately demonstrated on farmers fields, whilst seed multiplication and distribution, adequate publicity, and support for storage, marketing and processing are all resolved.
References:
1. Ghana - Country Portfolio Evaluation, CPE96 CESGH96E, IFAD, 1996.
2. Ghana - Smallholder Rehabilitation and Development Programme, 198-GH%R198GHAE, Mid-Term Evaluation, 1990.
3. Nigeria - The IFAD Cassava Multiplication Programme, part of Multi-state Agricultural Development Project, 177-NR%R177NRBE, Interim Evaluation, 1994.
