SAGA Progress Report

SAGA
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SAGA Progress Report
October, 2002

II. RESEARCH
2. Kenya

By African standards, Kenya enjoys relative abundance of good quality primary data for economic analysis and of skilled researchers doing rigorous, policy-relevant research. SAGA seeks to exploit this comparative advantage through a decentralized design that draws in work from several able economic research institutions in Kenya. The program is also targeted toward informing debate on high profile policy questions highlighted in the new Kenya Rural Development Strategy (KRDS) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) processes in the aftermath of impending national elections. The PRSP has identified agricultural and rural development as Kenya’s number one priority for poverty alleviation and economic growth. The KRDS has emphasized problems of risk and vulnerability, market access, and smallholder empowerment as central to agricultural and rural development. USAID-Kenya is actively addressing these issues through its own program of work (under mission SOs 6 and 7). Toward those ends, the SAGA-Kenya research program is organized as a set of subsidiary research projects conducted by a consortium of research institutions around two core, interrelated themes: "Reducing risk and vulnerability in rural Kenya" and "Empowering the rural poor."

While the exact details remain under discussion within the team, with plans to consult with the broader SAGA team and USAID-Washington, the broad contours of the SAGA-Kenya workplan are emerging as follows. Under the theme "Reducing risk and vulnerability in rural Kenya," the team will pursue interrelated sub-projects on the following sub-themes:

The role of producer organizations in reducing smallholder vulnerability: Led by Tegemeo, this sub-project will analyze the impact of producer organizations on smallholder market access and vulnerability to income shocks, price and yield volatility, identifying what organizational functions prove most effective and how these are most efficiently and reliably provided, especially to poorer smallholders.
Agricultural marketing systems, price volatility, and vulnerability of smallholder producers and poor consumers: Led by KIPPRA, this sub-project will study changing marketing systems and household strategies for coping with market risk, seeking in particular to explain and identify effective strategies to reverse the apparent widespread retreat toward subsistence production by many smallholders.
Improving factor market access to reduce rural vulnerability: Led by the University of Nairobi’s Department of Agricultural Economics, this sub-project will focus in particular on rural land and finance markets, and how increasing land pressure and conflict and the changing shape of liberalizing financial sectors affect smallholders’ security of access to land.
Safety nets in marginal areas: Led by Cornell and Clark Atlanta University (CAU), with collaboration from Syracuse University (all with non-SAGA funding), this subproject will focus on the interrelationship between public safety nets such as food aid and livestock destocking/restocking programs, and private assistance schemes based on social insurance mechanisms, informal lending and altruistic transfers, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas especially prone to climate, conflict, and market shocks.

Under the theme "Empowering the rural poor," the team will pursue interrelated sub-projects on the following sub-themes:

The role of producer organizations in enhancing smallholder market participation: Led by Tegemeo, this sub-project will identify appropriate institutional frameworks for producer organizations so as to enhance small farmers’ participation and efficiency in input and output markets.
Decentralization and participation: Led by IPAR, this sub-project will focus on social funds in the education and health sectors, examining the level, scope, nature and quality of popular participation in decentralized allocation mechanisms, fiscal accountability under these arrangements, and the factors that determine the capacity and effectiveness of the poor participating in and benefiting from these programs.
Community groups and networks: Led by Cornell (with non-SAGA funding), this sub-project will study social networks and community groups and their effects on risk-taking, technology adoption, and livelihood strategy choice in rural communities.

Each sub-project will deliver policy briefs and at least one publishable conference paper. Tentatively, we plan two major policy conferences based on this work for July, 2004, subsequently summarizing key findings in two published volumes. The team remains quite interested in pursuing related policy research on health shocks and on insecurity related to crime and political violence. However, these topics would require considerably more primary data collection and existing resources are insufficient to cover these topics well. The team will explore add-on possibilities with USAID-Kenya and USAID-REDSO that might allow incorporation of these topics as well, perhaps with a lag.

Institutional linkages/collaborators

Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR); Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA); Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development; the University of Nairobi Department of Agricultural Economics (Kabete campus); Clark Atlanta University; Syracuse University.

As Kenya’s lone SISERA member institute, IPAR will be "first among equals" and coordinate the SAGA-Kenya program, serving as host or co-host for prospective SAGA small grant awardees, primary contact point for communications between the Cornell and Kenya teams, and the logistical coordinator for SAGA events in Kenya. IPAR will receive a small subcontract for these functions. IPAR, KIPPRA, Tegemeo, and the University of Nairobi will each receive a separate subcontract from Cornell for research under SAGA-Kenya, based on which institution leads a given sub-project, many of which will be jointly staffed.

Activities over previous six months

The emerging research program that SAGA is pursuing in Kenya has been developed collaboratively over the past six months through repeated consultations, both in Kenya and via email and by telephone, between Cornell, Clark Atlanta, IPAR, KIPPRA, Tegemeo, the University of Nairobi, USAID-Kenya, and USAID-REDSO. Initial meetings in January in Nairobi between SAGA-Kenya team leader Chris Barrett and Kenyan partners were followed by electronic discussions and exchanges of draft concept notes. Following Kenya’s selection as a core country under SAGA in late March, further electronic deliberations ensued, supplemented by a group meeting in Nairobi run by Mesfin Bezuneh (Clark Atlanta), and culminating in a series of two intensive team meetings in June in Nairobi co-chaired by John Omiti (IPAR) and Chris Barrett (Cornell) at which the principals from each of the organizations jointly established a general workplan. Each institution has since drafted a concept note, terms of reference and budget for its portion of the broader workplan. These have been reviewed by Cornell and Clark Atlanta, comments offered, and they are presently being revised by the Kenya partner institutions. Mesfin Bezuneh traveled to Kenya again in September, during which time he held further consultations with the SAGA-Kenya team on research design and timing.

Activities anticipated over the next six months

We expect to have final terms of reference agreed upon with Kenyan partners and initial funding disbursed, enabling the research to begin before the end of the calendar year. In-country research partners will commence their specific field research and data analysis activities at that time. Chris Barrett will travel again to Kenya in January to consult with the Kenya-based team. In the meantime, we are in regular contact via email.

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