SAGA Progress Report - Technical Assistance

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SAGA Progress Report
October, 2003

III. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Technical assistance under SAGA has included three types of activities: formal training workshops, support to SISERA’s research competition, and support to individual SISERA institutes in proposal preparation, planning research projects, and executing those projects.

Workshops

Ravi Kanbur, Paul Cichello, and Stephen Younger worked with the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) of the University of Capetown (UCT) to offer a two-week training course in poverty and inequality analysis for faculty and staff from the historically disadvantages institutions (HDI’s) in South Africa. The workshop was held at UCT from June 23 to July 4, 2003. The course covered both theoretical and empirical aspects of poverty and inequality analysis, with daily hands-on training with Stata software in UCT’s computer lab.

The immediate results of this workshop have been good on two fronts. First, participants’ feedback was quite positive, with great demand for follow-on courses. (See attached summary of the course evaluation.) Second, word of the workshop’s success spread quickly in South Africa, leading to demand from two other institutions for similar workshops. The Department for Social Development (DSD), the government department that handles all the country’s income transfer schemes, has asked DPRU and Cornell to run a poverty and inequality workshop for its staff, with emphasis on empirical analysis. We have tentatively scheduled this workshop for March 23-April 2, 2004, in Pretoria. The Southern Africa office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has expressed interest in such workshops for researchers in government and universities at other sites in southern Africa. Talks are continuing on the feasibility of such workshops.

In addition, participants gained an appreciation for the importance and the utility of household survey data. Since release of existing data has become a political issue in South Africa, adding a new group of university researchers to those lobbying for open access is a positive development. This is particularly important in the South African context since all but two of the workshop’s participants were black African or of mixed race, while most existing poverty researchers in South Africa are white.

In August, Christopher Barrett and Stephen Younger both made presentations at a workshop on "Analytical Tools for Poverty Research" at the International Association of Agricultural Economists meetings in Durban, South Africa, with support from SAGA. The workshop was very well-attended and, because the meetings were held in Africa this year, the majority of participants were African scholars.

SISERA Proposal Review

As per the mode of operation described in last year’s report, Stephen Younger continues to pre-screen proposals submitted to SISERA’s research competition. This includes recommendations to improve proposals, where appropriate, and suggestions for international experts to "coach" proposals through the preparation and review process. To date, we have reviewed 44 proposals, three of which SISERA has funded, with two of the three being multi-year projects.

Support to Research at SISERA Institutes and other African Institutions

In Ghana, Ravi Kanbur helped to organize a meeting at ISSER to discuss the dramatic disconnect between quantitative and qualitative appraisals of poverty in Ghana. Participants from Ghanaian academia, civil society, and government highlighted resolution of this disconnect as a priority for research. But it was also recognized that we are some way away from being able to conduct joint analysis using the two methodologies in a complementary framework. A first step would be for the two sides to come together for a dialogue to establish common ground and methodological basis for designing a joint project. It is for this reason that ISSER organized a second meeting in Accra on May 21-22, 2003. The participants included leading analysts in the two traditions from inside and outside Ghana, from academia, civil society, and government. Participants discussed studies on Ghana conducted in the two traditions to better appreciate each other’s perspectives. Beyond this, participants made proposals towards designing specific studies to assess poverty in ways that attempt to combine qualitative and quantitative methods in complementary fashion. This workshop will serve as a model for similar meetings in other African countries. (See Planned Activities, below.)

In Senegal, Leopold Sarr spent 6 months at Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée (CREA) assisting in the design and implementation of the household, community, and school surveys. He provided overall supervision of the effort and worked closely with a range of technical staff from CREA on all aspects of the work, ranging from logistic planning and questionnaire design, to financial management.

In Madagascar, David Sahn, Peter Glick, and Bart Minten worked with CEE and the Ministry of Health to design, conduct, and analyze the health facilities survey and user survey discussed above. Also in Madagascar, Cornell staff worked with INSTAT and the Ministry of Education to prepare a proposal to study the impact of community, school, and household factors in determining demand for education. This proposal has subsequently been submitted for funding to the World Bank.

In Uganda, Stephen Younger continues to provide support to young professionals at EPRC who are carrying out SAGA-related research. Projects include an analysis of poverty changes in Uganda (Ashie Mukunge and Ibrahim Kasirye), demand for health care services (Sarah Ssewanyana), tax incidence (Margaret Banga), and agricultural commercialization and poverty (Godfrey Bahiigwa).

Planned Activities

Further Workshops in South Africa

As noted above, the Cornell/DPRU workshop in South Africa generated much demand for similar workshops at other institutions, and further training of the HDI staff that participated in the first workshop. Given the limited funds available for TA activities under SAGA, and a presumed desire to be equitable in the allocation of those funds, further funding from SAGA for TA activities in South Africa seems unlikely. Nevertheless, other funding may be possible, in collaboration with SAGA. Funding for a workshop at DSD has been committed, and funding from UNDP for similar workshops elsewhere in southern Africa looks promising. In both cases, SAGA’s financial contribution would be minimal. Funding for further training of the first workshop’s participants, however, is uncertain.

Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Workshops

Initial consultations with SISERA directors revealed great interest in the simultaneous use of qualitative and quantitative methods for poverty analysis. Fortunately, Cornell is at the forefront of this emerging field. (See, e.g., Kanbur, ed., 2003, Q-Squared: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods of Poverty Appraisal. Delhi: Permanent Black.) After consultations with SISERA, we recently sent invitations to SISERA institute directors to participate in a series of workshops on this topic. The first workshops will be in-country, bringing together qualitative and quantitative researchers to compare and contrast (amicably!) their methods and findings on poverty. Cornell will provide at least one expert to facilitate these discussions. The ISSER workshop mentioned above is a model for this meeting. The goal is to complete these workshops by mid-2004. Then, following the international conference on Qual/Quant to be held in Toronto in June, 2004, SAGA will organize a continent-wide methodology workshop, bringing together one or two qualitative and quantitative researchers from each in-country workshop and a group of international practitioners. The goal of this meeting will be to foster research proposals that use qualitative and quantitative together in poverty analysis.

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