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How development organizations, NGOs, and governments can best allocate scarce resources to those in need has long been debated. As opposed to universal allocation of resources, a more targeted approach attempts to minimize program costs while maximizing benefits among those with the greatest need or market opportunity. Drawing on literature from several sectors,this brief presents two categories of beneficiary targeting in the development context: administrative targeting and self-targeting. The paper includes a brief overview of targeting and segmentation in development, a summary of reasons for targeting, theoretical and practical critiques of targeting, and a discussion of targeting methods in research and practice, including examples from the literature. Implementation examples cited in this body of research include food aid program targeting by self-reported household income in Egypt; fertilizer use in low-potential zones of Uganda; and seven strategic initiatives to improve drought and disease resistance in crops in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. We find that beneficiary segmentation has several theoretical advantages. Improved targeting may increase the efficiency and equity of organizational and program efforts and help better match interventions to recipient preferences, increasing the likelihood of adoption and participation. Development organizations may improve the focus of both their strategic priorities and budgets through customized targeting methods. However, concerns exist regarding the accuracy, reliability, cost, and time-constraints of targeting methodologies. Creating valid and reliable target groups with implementation potential remains a significant challenge.
How development organizations, NGOs, and governments can best allocate scarce resources to those in need has long been debated. As opposed to universal allocation of resources, a more targeted approach attempts to minimize program costs while maximizing benefits among those with the greatest need or market opportunity. Many international development organizations strategically target clients based on geographic location (e.g., community, region, country) or socio-economic indicators, such as the World Bank’s “$1 a day” poverty line. Drawing on literature from several sectors, this brief presents additional methods of beneficiary targeting that international development organizations might consider. We find that beneficiary targeting/segmentation has the potential to make organizational and program efforts more equitable and efficient. With limited resources, smaller organizations have tended to use single robust indicators or simple heuristics, whereas agribusinesses and private sector firms have used more data-intensive marketing tools to position their products. Technological innovation and better access to data have made targeting more prevalent and potentially more affordable in agricultural development. However, creating valid and reliable target segments remains the most significant challenge.
In recent years, product supply chains for agricultural goods have become increasingly globalized. As a result, greater numbers of smallholder farmers in South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) participate in global supply chains, many of them through contract farming (CF). CF is an arrangement between a farmer and a processing or marketing firm for the production and supply of agricultural products, often at predetermined prices. This literature review finds empirical evidence that demonstrates that the economic and social benefits of CF for smallholder farmers are mixed. A number of studies suggest that CF may improve farmer productivity, reduce production risk and transaction costs, and increase farmer incomes. However, critics caution that CF may undermine farmers’ relative bargaining power and increase health, environmental, and financial risk through exposure to monopsonistic markets, weak contract environments, and unfamiliar agricultural technologies. There is consensus across the literature that CF has the best outcomes for farmers when farmers have more bargaining power to negotiate the terms of the contract. In reviewing the literature on CF, we find a number of challenges to comparing studies and evaluating outcomes across contracts. This literature review summarizes empirical findings and analyses regarding contract models and best practices to increase farmers’ bargaining power and decrease contract default.
Introducing technology that is designed to be physically appropriate and valuable to women farmers can increase yields and raise income. But gender issues for agricultural technology projects in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are extremely complex. The EPAR series on Gender and Cropping in SSA offers examples of how these issues can affect crop production and adoption of agricultural technologies at each point in the crop cycle for eight crops (cassava, cotton, maize, millet, rice, sorghum, wheat, and yam). This executive summary highlights innovative opportunities for interventions that consider these dimensions of gender. We encourage readers to consult the crop specific briefs for more details. We find that involving both men and women in the development, testing, and dissemination of agricultural technology has been shown to be successful in helping both benefit. Nevertheless, a consistent finding throughout the Gender and Cropping in SSA series is that maximum benefits from technological innovations cannot be realized when upstream factors like education, power, and land tenure heavily influence outcomes. Addressing these more basic upstream causes of gender inequality may be even more important in helping households increase productivity and maximize the benefits of technological interventions.
A widely quoted estimate is that women produce 70 to 80 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) food. Increasing farmer productivity in SSA therefore requires understanding how these women make planting, harvesting, and other decisions that affect the production, consumption, and marketing of their crops. This brief provides an overview of the gender cropping series highlighting similar themes from the various crops studied, presenting an overarching summary of the findings and conclusion of the individual literature reviews. The studies reviewed suggest that differential preferences and access to assets by men and women can affect adoption levels and the benefits that accrue to men and women. Findings show that women have less secure access to credit, land, inputs, extension, and markets. Similarly, women’s multi-faceted role in household management gives rise to preferences that may very well be different from those of men. Participatory Breeding and Participatory Varietal Selection are two methods shown to be successful in developing technology that is more appropriate and more likely to avoid unintended consequences. Regularly collecting gender-disaggregated statistics can also result in a greater understanding of how technology has affected both men and women. Agricultural technology has the potential to enhance both men’s and women’s welfare and productivity, but unless gender is sufficiently integrated into every step of the development and dissemination process, efforts will only achieve a fraction of their total possible benefit.
Estimates suggest that women grow 70-80 percent of Africa’s food crops, which may constrain their involvement in cash crop production, if food crop production places additional demands their time, resources and labor. There is little evidence regarding women’s motivations or decisions to grow cash versus food crops. Similarly, the policy literature on cotton production and markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) does not explicitly address the issue of gender, further limiting the information available on the impact of cotton production on women. This brief provides an overview of the role of women in cotton production, and provides a framework for analyzing barriers to women and technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle. We find that women are typically not the primary cultivators of cotton, and that cotton production is a household cultivation strategy, especially in West and Central Africa. Cotton cultivation often provides access to fertilizers, pesticides and extension services that are otherwise unavailable to households. Women have benefitted from household cotton income when they have input in intra-household resource allocation decisions or when they are able to grow cotton on personal plots and have control over the income it generates. Women also benefit from cotton when it offers them the opportunity to engage in paid labor. The data suggests, however, that cotton cultivation can negatively impact women when it increases their unpaid agricultural labor burden or exposes them to harmful chemicals.
On July 10, 2009 at the Italy G8 summit, attendees issued a joint statement pledging to contribute $20 billion towards agricultural development and food security in the developing world over the next three years. This research brief notes the status of the contributions made to the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative and whether any of the $20 billion will be allocated to agricultural research. We conclude that no declarations have been made as of September 2009 on how much of the $20 billion will be allocated to agricultural research, and which types of research will be funded by the initiative.
Yam is a major staple in West and Central Africa and an important supplementary food in East Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), virtually all yams are produced for human consumption, with women responsible for processing yams for consumption. This brief provides an overview of the role of women in yam production, and provides a framework for analyzing barriers to women and technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle. We find that though yam was traditionally considered a man’s crop, it is clear that women farmers contribute greatly to yam cultivation, especially during weeding, harvesting, and processing. Propagation of improved varieties with resistance to pests and diseases like yam mosaic disease has great potential to benefit women farmers. Increased yields and lower post-harvest losses will increase household food security. However, because yams extract high amounts of nutrients from the soil, soil and land management techniques are necessary to ensure future gains in yield. Women’s groups serve as potential venues for dissemination of new yam cultivation and processing technologies. Additionally, women’s groups can undertake new propagation techniques as income generating activities. Women farmers need increased extension efforts to fully benefit from technology improvements.
The millets, a group of small-seeded grasses indigenous to Africa, are an extremely important staple food in resource-poor regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Millet requires few inputs, suffers less from insect pests and disease than other grains, and can tolerate areas even too hot and dry for sorghum. These characteristics make millet an essential component of food security and risk management strategies for many Africans, though both consumption and production per capita of millet has declined in the last 20 years as farmers have shifted toward maize and rice production. This brief provides an overview of the role of women in millet production, and provides a framework for analyzing barriers to women and technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle. We find that the shift away from millet may result in poorer nutrition and increased time burden for women where they must find alternatives to millet fuel, but that little is known about these consequences. Investing in improved varieties that account for both men’s and women’s preferences, introducing labor-saving technology, and increasing market access all have the potential to increase millet’s production and consumption on the continent.
Sorghum grows well in arid and semi-arid agroecological zones and is thus one of the most important cereals in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Both men and women cultivate sorghum primarily for household consumption, though women are nearly exclusively responsible for post-harvest production of the grain, including brewing and selling sorghum beer. This brief provides an overview of the role of women in sorghum production, and provides a framework for analyzing barriers to women and technology’s impact on women throughout the cropping cycle. We find that improved sorghum varieties have the potential to greatly increase sorghum yields in SSA by alleviating cultivation threats from striga, pests, and drought. Because women farmers are the primary cultivators of sorghum, they stand to benefit most from these improved varieties. However, low adoption rates of new technologies suggest that more resources need to be dedicated to extension efforts and informal seed distribution networks that include women farmers. Post-harvest processing of sorghum is both time and labor intensive and is causing many women farmers to transition to maize or rice. Finally, increased demand for sorghum as a biofuel stock may not translate into gains for women farmers as expected, because women farmers tend to lack input resources, and women farmers often lose control over crops as they transition to cash crops.