SAGA Progress Report - Briefing Report, November 2003

SAGA
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saga@cornell.edu

SAGA Briefing Report
November, 2003

I. PREFACE

In October 2001, USAID and Cornell and Clark Atlanta Universities signed the SAGA Cooperative Agreement. The program of work covers five years, with $6 million contributed by USAID and $2.2 million by Cornell and Clark Atlanta Universities. Shortly after signing, work began to identify a set of core countries in which to concentrate the research component of SAGA. Consultations with USAID missions culminated in May 2002,when countries were selected based on the scoring of the proposals and responses from the missions that had expressed an interest in SAGA. Subsequent to the selection of SAGA countries, a process of consultation with USAID missions, SISERA partner institutions, government officials, and stakeholders commenced, with the intent of defining the research priorities that would best respond to, and promote evidence-based policy formulation. This process was completed in the end of 2002, enabling the research component of SAGA to commence in early 2003. We are now nearly one year into the research process. This briefing is designed to consolidate information in the four more detailed semi-annual progress reports that have been submitted by Cornell and Clark Atlanta Universities to USAID, and thus, give an overview of our progress to date, and plans over the next year.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Strategies and Analysis for Growth and Access (SAGA), a project of Cornell and Clark Atlanta Universities, funded by a cooperative agreement with USAID, brings together key personnel with extensive experience in Africa as researchers, teachers, policy makers, and consultants, to offer a different approach. We believe that macroeconomic reforms are only part of the basis for growth and poverty reduction—what is missing is a “bottom-up perspective.” We are focusing on the capabilities of individuals, households, and communities—their productivities, their vulnerabilities, their institutions, and their environment.

Our project differs from typical research projects in that both the research and the technical assistance components are demand driven, responding directly to needs and interests of our African colleagues. We seek considerable input from African policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers in developing the activities of this project. SAGA’s goals are to conduct high quality, policy relevant, research and to increase African capacity to produce such research on key issues affecting economic growth and improved living standards in Africa. Our four main objectives are to:

Conduct policy oriented research on economic growth equity and poverty alleviation;
Strengthen selected African economic research institutes;
Expand the pool of highly trained African economists; and,
Facilitate linkages between U.S. and African researchers.

SAGA is divided into 3 major components:

Research:
The research component of SAGA has 4 broad themes: (1) schooling, education and human capital; (2) health and nutrition; (3) risk, vulnerability, and poverty dynamics; and, (4) empowerment and institutions. Our aim is to understand better the economic, social, institutional, and natural constraints that keep Africa’s poor from prospering in the context of growth-oriented reforms.

Technical assistance:
We are providing technical assistance to SISERA partner institutes on a demand-driven basis on research methods, proposal preparation, and generating science based information for policy making.

Competitive grants program:
We provide opportunities for researchers, including Ph.D. students and faculty from U.S. universities to development partnerships with African researchers and research institutions by financing their collaborative research in Africa.

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