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Explore research options for sustainable intensification in Africa to address poverty, nutrition, and ecosystem stability. Design rigorous studies with appropriate controls and counterfactuals to assess impacts and scalability. Utilize global best practices like RCTs and leverage partnerships for effective implementation.
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Research design and opportunities for evaluation USAID Feed the Future Africa RISING (Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation) Monitoring & Evaluation Expert Meeting, September 5-7, 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
What are options for SI poverty, nutrition, ecosystem stability? • What are processes/mechanisms for integrating & delivering SI innovations? • How improve livelihoods out of poverty/improve nutrition? • How upscale/disseminate integrated innovations for SI beyond AR area? Research questions
Need rigorous research design (hypotheses, parameters, puzzle, analytical methods, data collection) + appropriate counterfactuals/controls for confounding factors • Need to move away from on-farm plot-level randomized trials to design that allows farmers to select into adoption • Can use quasi-experimental and experimental (RCTs) Motivation
Need global best practice: RCTs “gold standard” • Need IPGs: internationally generalizable lessons: scalability • Need to leverage public-private-civil society partnerships funded by USAID already on the ground • Need to link supply and demand side experimentation Motivation
National Level Regional Level Agglomeration District No intervention Platforms: SI innovations “Counterfactual” Obs. unit Village Village Village Village Village No TF1 TF2 intervention Trials design: Random placement Response variable dependent on the trials hypothesis Response variable dependent on the trials hypothesis Degree of intervention/ method Limited/observation Limited/observation (RQ3) Some/exploration (RQ2 and 3) High/e.g., Fisher or classical experimentation: Mother-Baby; RCTS (RQ1) No intervention
Consumers Exports Consumers Subsistence households Consumption Supermarkets/ stores Distribution Market retailers Processing Processors/ manufacturers Storers Export centers Central collectors Trade Firms’ buyers Agents/brokers Local collectors On-farm production Farmers Breeders, foundation, certified and farmer seed; fertilizer; inoculants; agrochemicals; extension Inputs Channel 1 Subsistence production & consumption Channel 2 Fresh grains unprocessed Channel 4 Dried grains export Channel 5 Dried grains processed Channel 3 Dried grains unprocessed
Trials design: Demand-side: Encouragement • Use encouragement as an instrumental variable for adoption • Random extension of credit to some farmers, randomized price subsidies through coupon distribution • Randomized Mother-Baby trials
Trials design: Supply-side: Introduce to entire villages mimicking markets • Sell innovations at the market price • Choose villages without innovations and randomly choose subset of villages to sell innovations • Randomized offer of production and marketing contracts to entire treatment villages
Trials design: Supply-side: Introduce to entire villages mimicking markets
Offer some randomly selected groups of households in different settings at multiple sites the same technologies and delivery mechanisms • GIS-based meta-analysis of the effects of the interventions • GIS-based prediction of effects of subsequent implementation of the program Scalability