SAGA Progress Report

SAGA
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SAGA Progress Report
April, 2003

I. RESEARCH
2. Kenya

The Kenya research program 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 towards 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." The SAGA-Kenya team will begin releasing policy briefs and will convene major policy conferences around these two themes in summer 2004, subsequently summarizing key findings in two published volumes.

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, 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 (both on 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 (on 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.

We have now reached agreements with IPAR, KIPPRA and Tegemeo on their work plans, and they have begun their work on the two core themes of the SAGA-Kenya program: "Reducing Risk and Vulnerability in Rural Kenya" and "Empowering the Rural Poor." IPAR’s work program is entitled "Enhancing Access, Accountability and Empowerment for the Poor through Decentralization and Participation", Tegemeo’s is "A Study of Producer Organisations in the Liberalised Kenyan Economy", and KIPPRA’s is looking at "Effects of Market Price Volatility on Production Patterns and Apparent Retreat Into Subsistence Farming By Kenyan Smallholders." The University of Nairobi’s Department of Agricultural Economics is still expected to be involved, but we continue to discuss and revise their work plan with them. This process has taken considerable input in research design and coaching of proposal development.

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, according to which institution leads a given sub-project, many of which will be jointly staffed.

Finally, at the urging and with the assistance of the SAGA team, the Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development, which is affiliated with Egerton University, has begun the process of affiliating with SISERA.

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