SAGA Briefing Report
November, 2003

• Qualitative Methods and SAGA: Community Studies Meeting, April 2002.
  While SAGA’s methodological and disciplinary center of gravity is very clearly quantitative and economic, the original proposal recognized the value of a limited broadening out from this base to take in qualitative methods and other social sciences. We therefore held a brief workshop to discuss the way forward on integrating qualitative techniques and other social science disciplines into our research and technical assistance.

• Design of the SAGA-Ghana Research Program, October 2002.
  A Workshop was held in Accra in October 2002, with a range of stakeholders and, in consultation with the USAID mission, it was agreed to pursue four lines of enquiry: (1) a volume of papers, primarily written by locally based Ghanaians, on “Understanding Poverty in Ghana”; (ii) launching a project on collecting and analyzing panel data sets for Ghana at the community level; (iii) building bridges between quantitative and qualitative analyses of poverty; and (iv) analyses of land tenure issues in Ghana.
  
  
• Qual-Quant Workshop, May 2003.
  The disconnect between qualitative and quantitative approaches to poverty analysis in Ghana is quite marked. We began to address this problem, at the workshop attended by approximately 30 participants, including economists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, and statisticians. Participants came from academia, think tanks, government, NGO”s, and donor groups. Under the SAGA project ISSER will take the lead in forming interdisciplinary teams to address many issues that were highlighted as being best addressed by qual-quant analysis—and in seeking funding for these studies in the Qual-Quant tradition.
  
  
• Workshop on Panel Data Sets for Ghana, February 2003.
  There is a glaring gap in data on poverty in Ghana—the lack of panel data sets that allow us to do serious analysis of poverty dynamics. Ghana simply does not have the household panel data sets that are essential before a whole host of dynamic questions — on risk, on poverty, on health and nutrition, on informal insurance, etc − can be answered. We therefore set for ourselves the task of developing a comprehensive research proposal that will develop, for the first time, such a data set and such analyses, for Ghana at Yale, which included ISSER and several global leaders in the area of poverty dynamics.
  
  
• Understanding Poverty, January 2004.
  The first drafts of the commissioned papers (see VI. Research Output) will be presented for discussion at a workshop held at ISSER, where they will receive comments from peer reviewers.
  
  
• Support for the new Network on the Economy of Ghana (NEG), July 2004.
  This meeting will be the first conference of a new “Network on the Economy of Ghana.” The Network will be based at ISSER and will use new technology and webbased links to the fullest. It will produce a journal, published and managed electronically. Thus, the ISSER-Cornell and SAGA-Ghana processes have now led to a Ghana-wide process, based at ISSER, which has the possibility of transforming economic analysis networks on Ghana.

• Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Method of Poverty Analysis in Kenya, 2004.
  This workshop will be co-organized by IPAR and Cornell and co-sponsored by the World Bank, aims to develop and promote the use of mixed methods of poverty analysis within the Kenyan research community. At present there is, however, little understanding of or experience with the method. The objective of the workshop is to familiarize the policy research community (both producers and end-users in donor and operational agencies and government) with these techniques.
  
  
• Reducing Risk and Vulnerability in Rural Kenya, 2005.
  The following sub-themes will be covered at this workshop: (i) The role of producer organizations in reducing smallholder vulnerability; (ii) Agricultural marketing systems, price volatility and vulnerability of smallholder producers and poor consumers; (iii) Improving factor market access to reduce rural vulnerability; (iv) Safety nets in marginal areas.
  
  
• Empowering the Rural Poor, July-August 2004.
  The three sub-themes of this workshop will be: (i) The role of producer organizations in enhancing smallholder market participation; (ii) Decentralization and participation; (iii) Community groups and networks.

• SAGA Participatory Planning Workshop, March 2003.
  This meeting was organized by Cornell University and our SAGA partner, the Centre d’Etudes Economique (CEE). Attending from Cornell were Christopher Barrett, David Stifel and Bart Minten. The purpose of the workshop was to define the SAGA research agenda and the participation of various government agencies and stakeholders in the SAGA program.
  
  
• Workshop on our Health Services, Facilities and Users Surveys, 2004.
  This workshop will focus on disseminating and discussing the findings of the health services and users surveys discussed elsewhere in this report.

• DPRU Conference on Poverty and Policy in South Africa, October 2004.
  We have begun planning for a major conference on poverty and policy in South Africa. Some of the papers prepared for the project noted in the research output section of this report will be presented at the conference, but the conference will have a wider catchment of scholars from inside and outside South Africa. It will raise DPRU’s profile as South Africa’s premier institution for poverty analysis.

• Poverty in Uganda: What We Know, and What We Don't, March 2004.
  With the expectation that most, if not all, of our underway research projects will be completed by the conference, Cornell and EPRC are planning a conference for early in 2004, to be held in Kampala, at which authors will present their papers. This will be accompanied by a briefing of shorter duration for policy-makers to discuss the recommendations and relevance of the research.

• Identifying Policy Needs in Education, May 2002.
  Cornell University, CREA and the Ministry of Education organized this conference with the support of UNESCO and UNICEF to identify information needs for policymakers in Senegal charged with re-designing the countries education strategy.
  
  
• Dissemination Workshops on Informing Education Policy, 2004.
  CREA, Cornell University-USAID, INRA, the World Bank, UNICEF and the Ministry of Education are collaboratively planning two large conferences with a broad range of stakeholders, researchers, and policy-makers in the next year to disseminate the research results from our recently fielded surveys.

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