SAGA Progress Report-2004-Annex-Research-Technical Assistance

SAGA
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SAGA PROGRESS REPORT (12/03-12/04) &
UPCOMING WORKPLAN (1/05-12/05)

ANNEX

III. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE (TA)

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

Kenya

In March, 2004, Chris Barrett co-led a SAGA workshop on the integration of qualitative and quantitative poverty methods. The workshop was hosted by KIPPRA, with about 50 participants from government ministries, the Central Bureau of Statistics, ILRI, ICRAF, Tegemeo, IPAR, KIPPRA, the University of Nairobi, and Kenyatta University. David Nalo, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Planning and National Development, gave the keynote address. The workshop received local radio and newspaper coverage. John Omiti and Walter Odhiambo are preparing a workshop proceedings volume.

East Africa

As it turns out, not everyone interested in combining qualitative and quantitative methods resides at Cornell! The East African Poverty Analysis and Data Initiative (PADI) at the World Bank contacted SAGA in January, 2004 about the possibility of a training workshop for East African participants. Because we, too, had planned such a workshop, we agreed to collaborate. In the end, SAGA did not contribute to the funding of this workshop because of our budget crisis, but we did send frequent collaborator Paul Shaffer as a resource person.

South Africa

SAGA’s June, 2003 training workshop at the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) of the University of Capetown (UCT) led to demand for further such workshops in South Africa. In March, 2004, Ravi Kanbur, Paul Cichello, Ching-Mei Chen, and Stephen Younger worked with the DPRU to offer a two-week training course in poverty and inequality analysis for the Department of Social Development (DSD), the government agency charged with design and management of most of South Africa’s transfer payments. The workshop was held in Pretoria at the government’s information technology training center. The course covered both theoretical and empirical aspects of poverty and inequality analysis, with daily hands-on training with Stata software in a computer lab.

As with our previous workshop, participants’ feedback was quite positive, with great demand for follow-on courses. Managers from the DSD also expressed interest in the possibility of collaborative research to analyze the data that they collect as part of their transfer payment schemes. Staff at DPRU agreed to a series of discussions about possible topics.

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 52 proposals, eight of which SISERA has funded, with two being multi-year projects.

In January, 2004, Stephen Younger attended the first meeting of researchers supported by SISERA’s SAGA grants. Most researchers have only recently received their funds, so progress is limited to date. But the two-day meeting allowed plenty of time for discussions of proposed topics and methods.

Note that this activity will now cease due to SISERA’s demise.

Support to Research at SISERA Institutes and other African Institutions

Ghana

In Ghana, SAGA funded the participation of Andrew McKay and Paul Schaffer as resource persons for the Ghana at the Half Century Conference. McKay has also helped design the panel household survey that is a major part of ISSER’s future SAGA research effort. In addition, as part of SAGA’s focus on qualitative and quantitative methods, Ellen Bortei-Doku and Laura Poswell (from DPRU in South Africa) participated in a major international conference on this topic in Toronto in May.

Kenya

In Kenya, as local authors progress in their research and in particular, as they revise papers prepared for the workshop discussed above, Cornell-based faculty and graduate students Chris Barrett, John McPeak, Andrew Mude, Heidi Hogset, and David Amudavi have provided comments on drafts and suggestions for revisions. As future work begins, Cornell staff are also assisting with new survey designs and other research methods for IPAR, Tegemeo, the University of Nairobi, and KIPPRA.

Madagascar

In Madagascar Mamisoa Razakamanantsoa, a researcher at the Institut National de la Statistique (INSTAT), visited Cornell in November to work with Peter Glick and David Sahn on the preparation of analysis files for a national health survey. Formal and informal training was provided in this area, in addition to the preparation of preliminary descriptive statistics from the surveys.

In preparation for the upcoming national education survey, five Malagasy researchers visited Cornell in February and March of 2004: Tahina Razafindramary, Arsène Ravelo, and Voahangy Rahelimanantsoa from the Ministry of Education, and Tiaray Razafimanantena and Harivelo Rajemison from INSTAT.

Bart Minten and Christelle Dumas provided technical assistance on the development of a program of education research, including training for and design and implemention of the major education survey that is part of SAGA’s research program in Madagascar. This included hosting a weeklong workshop to train enumerators, supervisors and other key personnel involved in the effort. In addition, Bart Minten continues to work with INSTAT and FOFIFA on a wide range of issues such as training in assessing the benefits of public provided services and the impact of user fees.

Senegal

Leopold Sarr continued to provide technical assistance to CREA in Senegal to assist in the cleaning of the data and the preparation of analysis files from the education survey in that country. This involved several trips to Dakar, and interaction with a broad range of technical staff and policy-makers.

Tanzania

Stephen Younger brought together Joachim de Weerdt, a young Belgian researcher, and researchers at ESRF. Joachim is doing a follow-up survey of the people interviewed in the famous Kagera HIV/AIDS surveys of ten years ago. He has generated sufficient funds to carry out the survey, but not to fund analysis of it. By putting him in contact with ESRF, with whom he has worked before, we hope to bring about a joint proposal to SISERA’s research competition that would analyze some aspects of this very exciting new survey.

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

The demise of SISERA has caused us to rethink our technical assistance activities, for two reasons. First, SISERA has co-financed most of our workshops, especially the costs of participant travel and maintenance. (This is not completely offset by the fact that we no longer need to dedicate time to reviewing SISERA research proposals.) Loss of that source of funding implies a reduced level of TA activity. Second, SISERA has been our main point of contact for marketing SAGA technical assistance to its affiliated research institutions. The SAGA TA program has been a demand-driven effort, as planned in our proposal. Nevertheless, we have found that with the exception of DPRU in South Africa, it is easy for SISERA directors to lose sight of the fact that they can come to Cornell and Clark-Atlanta for technical assistance. Thus, regular contact with the directors via SISERA has been quite helpful.

Both of these considerations may lead to SAGA TA to focus less on workshops and more on long-term support to research activities at the economic research institutions themselves, including research activities that are funded by SAGA. This could include more long-term stays at such institutes by Cornell and Clark-Atlanta researchers, as well as greater support to institute staff doing SAGA research without a Cornell or Clark- Atlanta co-author. This latter activity will take on increasing importance as research papers come on line and are revised.

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