SAGA
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Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-8931
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saga@cornell.edu
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SAGA PROGRESS REPORT (12/05-12/06)
&
UPCOMING WORKPLAN (11/06-11/07)
III. INSTITUTION BUILDING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
A principal goal of SAGA is to strengthen the capacity of the SISERA institutions to
conduct high quality research, to do outreach that raises their profile and among national and
international policy makers, and to engage in policy dialogue. We believe that building up such
local capacity is the only sustainable way to affect the policy dialogue through research. With
SAGA support, our partner institutes have produced numerous research papers. They have also
organized major national and international conferences; have bid for and won research grants
that expand their research resources beyond SAGA’s contribution; and have made significant
contributions to the national policy dialogue. The names of our major partners are provided at the SAGA website. Here we highlight several illustrative examples.
From Ghana
- We have continued our strong partnership with ISSER, focusing on policy outreach and
engagement through conferences, workshops, and policy seminars. One of the main
objectives of Cornell’s collaboration with ISSER under the SAGA project has been to
help build the capacity of ISSER and to raise its Africa-wide profile, for it, in turn, to
build capacity in Ghana on economic and social analysis. Three important markers for
this objective are (i) ISSER’s hosting of the Ghana at Half Century conference in July,
2004; (ii) ISSER’s hosting of the Shared Growth in Africa conference in July, 2005; and (iii) the founding of the
Economy of Ghana Network (EGN), which will be managed from ISSER, in July, 2005
(http://www.egnghana.org/). All three of these activities have been supported through the Cornell-SAGA project.
The Economy of Ghana Network provides a platform for disseminating research findings
and discussing their policy relevance. It seeks to make easily accessible to a wider
audience the findings of all the research being carried out on the socio-economic
development of Ghana from the different parts of the globe. One of its objectives is to
help capacity building in institutions outside of the concentration of institutions in the
capital city, Accra. In particular, it is well recognized that capacity is lacking in the North
of the country. The already poor state of academic and analytical infrastructure in the
country is exacerbated by the fact that most conferences and events are held in the capital
city, with the result that renowned Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian scholars do not visit and
tend not to interact with academics and analysts based in Northern institutions.
In pursuit of the capacity building objective of EGN, ISSER and Cornell held this year a
“Northern Roadshow” for the Northern Region, Upper East Region and Upper West
Region of Ghana. (See http://www.saga.cornell.edu/saga/gh0906/ghana0906.html). We
took a group of persons from ISSER and the Economics Department at the University of
Ghana as well as international resource persons from outside Ghana, to the North for
discussions at local academic institutions. ISSER’s annual State of the Ghana Economy
report was launched for the first time in Tamale in the Northern Region, by the Northern
Regional Minister. The team also interacted with the Upper East Regional Minister and
with the Faculty and students of the University of Development Studies.
From South Africa
There have been three major activities:
- First, we completed the book Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited
by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. The volume was published in 2006 by HSRC Press,
a respected South African publisher. The Table of Contents for this volume can be found
in Appendix IV.
- Second, Ravi Kanbur and Steve Younger helped to plan a poverty training workshop
organized by the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape
Town, a SISERA partner institution, for National Treasury in South Africa. They also
participated as guest lecturers in the four-day workshop. A variety of issues were
covered, ranging from the theory and proactive of the measurement of poverty and
inequality, to labor market and trade-related poverty issues and social security. The
workshop was attended by staff who work on these issues from National Treasury and the
Presidency. In addition, a roundtable discussion on a social security system for South
Africa was attended by officials from these departments, as well as Statistics South
Africa and the Department of Social Development, among others. A workshop program
is attached in Appendix V.
- Third, selecting, refereeing, and editing papers for the Cornell/DPRU/TIPS conference on
Macro-Micro Linkages in African Growth and Development, for a special issue of the
Journal of African Economies, published in December 2006.
(http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol15/issue4/index.dtl)
- Work was completed on a study which focuses on Grade 12 pass rates across all Grade
12-offering schools in an attempt at providing some estimates on the determinants of
these pass rates in the post-apartheid period − through relying conceptually and
empirically on a production function approach. With co-financing for our South African
colleagues from SISERA and AERC, this involved three South African collaborators
from DPRU visiting Cornell. The final paper was presented by our South African
colleagues at the AERC Dissemination Conference on Poverty, Income Distribution and
Labour Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, October 12-13, 2006, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
From Uganda
- SAGA supported a competition for young Ugandan researchers wanting to do research
indicated by the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development’s
(MOFPED’s) Poverty Research Guide. We received 27 proposals, of which we accepted
four:
- Sebaggala, Richard, and John Kikabi, “Wage Determination and Wage
Discrimination in Uganda”
- Nadiope, Moses, Thomas Bwire, and Lazarus Mukasa, “The Determinants
of Low Retention Rates in Primary Schools in Uganda: An Econometric
Analysis”
- Akankunda, Denis, “An Assessment of the Causal Relationship Between
HIV/AIDS and Poverty in Uganda”
- Okumu Ibrahim, Alex Nakajjo, Doreen Isoke, “Socioeconomic and
Institutional Determinants of Primary School Dropout: The Logistic
Model Analysis”
All authors have recently submitted their first drafts, which will be presented at a
workshop in Kampala and revised according to comments received.
- EPRC completed its report, “Strengthening the understanding of the dynamics of poverty
in Northern Uganda,” with support from Steve Younger. Results were presented at a
conference in Kampala hosted by the Bank of Uganda and the World Bank in March,
2006. SAGA-funded research provided the basis for presentations on poverty reduction,
vulnerability, and progress toward the MDGs.
SISERA Research Support
Steve Younger participated in the final meeting of the SISERA research competition held
in January, 2006 in Dakar. Authors presented their research results and planned final revisions
with input from Steve and other technical advisors.
III. 1 The Small Grants Program*
As of date, the Small Grants Program (www.saga.cau.edu) of SAGA has awarded
26 individuals with research grants: seventeen (17) students (8 females) and 9 faculties (2
females). All the recipients of the grant were based in one of the member research institutes of
the Secretariat for Institutional Support for Economic Research in Africa (SISERA) during their
field research period.
Currently, all the awardees, except one, have completed their field research with the SISERA
institutions, and returned to their home institutions.
The SISERA institutions participated in hosting these awardees include:
- Economic Policy Research Center, Uganda
- Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, Ghana
- Economic and Social Research Foundation, Tanzania
- Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches en Economie et Gestion, Cameroun
- Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, Kenya
- Centre de Recherche Economique Appliquéé, Senegal
- Institute of Economic and Social Research, Zambia
- National Institute of Economic Policy, South Africa
- Groupe de recherché en economie appliquéé et théorique, Mali
- African Institute of Applied Economics, Nigeria
- Botswana Institute for Developmental Policy Analysis, Botswana
- Centre d’Orientation et de Recherche en Compétitivité, en Economie et en Décision
Organisationnelle, Benin
- Centre d’Etudes de Documentation et de Recherche Economique et Sociale, Burkina
Faso
- Development Policy Research Unit, South Africa
Progress/Activities
We are happy to report that the Small Grants Program of SAGA has been successful in
attracting a larger and more diverse pool of applicants. This was due to two factors: (1) the
program has been publicized by previous recipients and SAGA members, and (2) our direct
advertising through:
- Letter/Grant Announcement to Department Chairs and Graduate Coordinators to at least
two universities in every state in the country. And, in some cases, to individuals that
have been in contact with us in previous years;
- Various issues of the American Economic/Agricultural Economics Associations
Newsletter;
- Distribution of flyers and presentations at various professional annual meetings such as
the Allied Social Sciences Association, African Studies, etc.
As a result, we had attracted over 30 proposals for each of the three funding years. However, due
to funding limitation we could only select and fund 25 projects (26 PIs).
The deliverables/outputs from these collaborative research efforts included:
- Dissemination of research results through exit seminars at the host institutions, and
papers/reports and publications
- Continued collaboration/communication between the U.S.-based principal researcher and
both senior and junior researchers at the host institution
- Creating databases for the host institution
- Completion of Ph.D. degrees and subsequent publications
During this reporting period, our main task has been, as in the past, to ensure a successful
research experience for both the awardees and the hosting institutions. We remained in close
contact with all the awardees while carrying out their field research as well as with those
returned and still completing their final reports on their projects. All but one of the recent
recipients have completed their field research and returned to their home institutions (Appendix
VI).
In summary, we have devoted a significant amount of the project time on backstopping
not only while they were in the field but also to follow up on their deliverables and distribution
of project outputs after they have returned.
Follow ups/outputs:
As of this reporting date, all PhD candidate awardees, except one, have completed their
degree requirements. And, all awardees have presented their works at various professional
forums and are beginning to publish their findings from their SAGA-supported research projects.
We continued to monitor their long-term collaborative research efforts with their in-country host
institutions – since this is the major interest of the Small Grants Program of SAGA.
Future Tasks (if funds are forthcoming):
- Continue coordinating the collaborative field research efforts between the awardees and
the host SISERA institutions
- Process and coordinate the return of all awardees including completing any and all
financial matters with the awardees
- Follow up and assemble all final reports and other papers from all awardees
- Hope to conduct/complete follow up surveys with the Awardees and their respective host
institutions (i.e., using the survey instrument developed in previous years)
Update the website appropriately, and advertise the Small Grants Program for the next
competitive research grants awards.
*Note: We did not support any project this past funding cycle (2006/2007) due to lack of funding.
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