SAGA
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Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-8931
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saga@cornell.edu
|
SAGA PROGRESS REPORT (12/04-12/05)
&
UPCOMING WORKPLAN (11/05-11/06)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
SAGA is now beginning its fifth year, chronologically. Due to funding shortfalls,
however, we are still at a level of spending that is consistent with an amount envisaged for 2.5
years of the project. Thus, in terms of the overall level of effort, we are only slightly more than
halfway into the activities envisaged in the overall Cooperative Agreement. Despite our
disappointment with the severe cut-back in funding, we continue to engage in a wide range of
activities and have made significant strides toward SAGA’s objectives of high quality poverty
research, institution strengthening, and policy outreach. This report familiarizes and informs
USAID and others about our progress and plans.
In research, 208 papers have been prepared under SAGA, many of which uncover
surprising findings that will alter the way policy makers need to think about key issues.
(Additionally, we have posted the proceedings, Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for
Poverty Analysis, from the workshop held March 11, 2004, in Nairobi, Kenya.) For example:
- Conditional on a child’s level of schooling, having better educated parents or enjoying
the advantages of being in a wealthier household have only modest or inconsistent
(across tests) benefits for academic performance. Therefore, efforts to enroll and keep in
school children from less advantaged backgrounds will contribute significantly to closing
not just schooling gaps themselves but also the substantial skill gaps that exist between
them and more affluent children.
- Education among women is generally associated with lowering at-risk behaviors. Among
men, however, we often find just the opposite case for age at first sex, abstinence, and
number of partners — that education increases behaviors that are associated with high risk
of HIV/AIDS infection. However, this is not the case with condoms, where education,
even among men, is associated with higher use of condoms.
- Income and asset dynamics in western and northern Kenya exhibit patterns consistent
with the notion of a poverty trap. Nonlinear asset and welfare dynamics create critical
thresholds, points at which safety nets become especially important to guard against
shocks that could make people permanently poor and to induce rural people to manage
risk without severely compromising expected income growth. Health and mortality
shocks appear the most common explanations for households falling into chronic poverty,
a result consistent with what we find in Uganda.
- Unemployment in South Africa at the end of the period stands at a staggering 41.8% and
is concentrated among African, female, poorly educated, and young workers, although
increasingly, even those with high levels of education are suffering. Almost nine in ten
unemployed individuals have been unemployed for more than three years or have never
had a job at all.
SAGA is building capacity in partner institutions to conduct high quality research, to raise funding for research, and to raise their national and international profiles. Prominent
examples are:
- The “Shared Growth in Africa” conference, held in Accra on July 21-22, 2005, was
hosted by ISSER, as part of our institution building strategy, to raise ISSER’s profile
from national to regional prominence.
- Funding was obtained from ACBF for the Economy of Ghana Network. Also, building
their capacity to organize, manage and raise funding for Pan-African conferences (Accra,
July 2005; Cape Town, October 2004).
SAGA researchers and our partner institutions are reaching out to promote the maximum
level of policy impact in a variety of ways:
- In the month of September, there were 21,164 hits on the SAGA website and 5,880
downloads of PDF files. In the period January-September, 2005, the SAGA website
registered 225,516 hits, and there were 50,132 downloads of SAGA publications. This is
more than double the number of hits registered for all of 2004 (101,088).
- We have held 20 policy-oriented conferences and workshops, and we regularly engage
policy-makers and stakeholders directly in our effort to promote evidence-based policy
making. This is illustrated by:
- SAGA co-hosted a major regional education conference that included participation of
the Minister of Education, the Rector of the University of Dakar, and other high level
officials from Government and academia to discuss challenges in the education
sector.
- Conferences held in Ghana and South Africa involved policy makers: Imraan Rasool,
Premier of Western Cape, and Alan Hirsch of the President’s Office at the “Micro-
Macro Linkages” conference, Cape Town, October 2004; Deputy Finance Minister,
Chief Economist for Africa of the World Bank, and Head of USAID-Ghana at the
“Shared Growth in Africa” conference, Accra, July 2005.
The SAGA teams are also working hard to promote and foster engagement with our
partners at USAID through a variety of mechanisms. For example:
- Cornell researchers and their colleagues presented nine policy seminars are USAID in
Washington during the last year.
- SAGA researchers recently held a workshop at the USAID mission in Kampala
highlighting the key results of SAGA research in Uganda. This was followed by a
meeting at USAID to discuss how EPRC and Cornell might support analysis of the Sero
survey, a DHS-like survey carried out by Macro International that collected blood
samples to identify HIV status.
As we look to the future and the severe budgetary cuts to SAGA, we have only modest
expectations in terms of accomplishments and activities for the next year. Our hope is that some
funds will be identified to allow us to not lose momentum and avoid the draconian cuts in
activities that seem inevitable at this juncture.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
II.
11.1
11.1.1
11.1.2
11.2
11.2.1
11.2.2
11.2.3
11.3
11.3.1
11.3.2
11.3.3
11.3.4
11.4
III.
111.1
IV.
IV.1
IV.2
IV.3
V.
VI.
VII.
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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
RESEARCH
Schooling, Education, and Human Capital
Schooling Attainment and Cognitive Ability
Community Schools
Health
Institutional Analysis and Health Delivery Systems
HIV/AIDS
Non-Income Measures of Well-Being and Poverty
Empowerment and Institutions
Q-Squared
Labor Market Institutions
Access to Social Services
Land Tenure
Risk, Vulnerability and Poverty Dynamics
INSTITUTION BUILDING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
The Small Grants Program
POVERTY OUTREACH
SAGA Website
Conferences and Workshops
Direct Engagement of Policy Makers
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
LEVERAGE
USAID MISSIONS
APPENDIX I: Special issue for World Development (forthcoming 2006)Q-Squared in Practice: Experiences of Combining Qualitative and
Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis
APPENDIX II:
Table 1: SAGA Competitive Research Grants –
Final Awardees
(2005-2006)
APPENDIX III:
Table 2: SAGA Competitive Research Grants –
Short List
(2005-2006)
APPENDIX IV:
Table 3: Proposals submitted under the Competitive Research Grants Program (2005-2006)
APPENDIX V:
Table 4: Follow ups/Outputs of the Competitive Research Grants Program (2005-2006)
APPENDIX VI:
SAGA Website Statistics
APPENDIX VII:
SHARED GROWTH IN AFRICA - Survey of Workshop Participants
APPENDIX VIII:
EMPOWERING THE RURAL POOR AND REDUCING THEIR RISK AND VULNERABILITY - Survey of Workshop Participants
APPENDIX IX:
POVERTY IN UGANDA: TRENDS, DIMENSIONS, AND POLICY - Survey of Workshop Participants
APPENDIX X:
SAGA PUBLICATIONS 12/01/04-11/08/05
APPENDIX XI:
SAGA RESEARCH IN PRINT
APPENDIX XII:
SAGA CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS
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