Draft Proposal on
Impact Assessment of Urban Agriculture Research and Development in
Nairobi
By William Omoto
Department of Research Development
Nairobi Kenya
1. INTRODUCTION
Background
Kenya’s leading development challenges today include alleviation of
poverty and environmental management in the context of rapid population
growth and urbanization. Kenya’s population was 28.6 million people in
1999 and is expected to reach 43 million in the year 2020. According to the
government statistics, the national level of absolute poverty increased from
44% in 1992 to 56% in 2002 (GoK 2002). Nairobi has registered the highest
rate of urbanization (4.5%) with a population of 2.2m in 2000 projected to
reach 3.2m in the year 2010. About 50% of people in Nairobi live below the
absolute poverty line of Ksh. 2 648. As the urbanization trend continues,
urban environments are deteriorating. Most of the urban poor are
concentrated in the informal settlements where there are no infrastructure
and services to address environmental problems and are engaged in urban
agriculture. One of the biggest policy challenges today is the inclusion of
environmental policy into urban policy. UPA can be an integral part of a set
of policies for sustainable urban environmental management. Urban AF can
play an especially vital role in waste management by transforming waste
into food and fuel. Waste management approaches in place include waste
collecting, sorting, treatment and recycling at the community level in
corporation with local organizations. A national study of six Kenya towns
including Nairobi revealed that 29 per cent of all urban households
cultivated food crops while 17 per cent kept livestock (Lee-Smith et al,
1987). Urban agriculture is widespread and long established activity in
Nairobi, however, it is still undervalued and resisted by public officials.
Urban and peri-urban agriculture encompasses the production of food and
non-food plants and animal husbandry both within and in the peri-urban
areas. The benefits of UA include: potential to provide cheap, fresh and
nutritious food; less need for packaging, storage and transportation of food;
reduces the cost of waste collection, treatment and disposal as well as open
public space maintenance and environmental protection; potential to create
agricultural jobs and incomes and; non-market access to food for poor
consumers. Environmental benefits of urban agriculture include improved
hydrological functioning through soil and water conservation, micro-climate
improvements, avoided costs of disposal of the recycled urban wastes
(wastewater and solid waste), improved biodiversity, and greater
recreational and aesthetic values of green space. Despite the benefits of UA,
the risks of injury to health and environmental pollution are greater than
those for rural agriculture for two reasons: the urban farming systems are
more intensive, and their proximity to dense human population makes
mistakes or failures more costly and risky: Thus UPA system must be
designed more carefully and monitored more stringently. However UA is
illegal in most towns in Kenya. Where it exists, in spite of the law, it is
unregulated and its safety therefore not assured.
The risks of urban agriculture include, environmental and health risks from
inappropriate agricultural practices. In urban areas the control needs to be
more stringent because farming is in close proximity to dense human
activities. However enforcement may be easier to carry out because the
activities are not dispersed in remote areas and are more accessible to
hygiene specialists. However, authorities have usually responded to these
problems by prohibiting the farming activity rather than trying to resolve
them. Banning UA is not effective solution to potential problems. In Nairobi
and Kenya in general, there is urgent need to integrate UA into urban
management and planning policy. More logical policies are needed on the
type and location of cultivation and livestock that are permitted. Regulations
are needed to control which crops are grown where and which farming
methods are used. Currently, UPA does not come under the exclusive
agenda of any ministry or government agency. Therefore it falls between the
cracks. There is need to develop or strengthen the institutional capacity to
manage and regulate UPA among the central government, local authorities,
research institutions, NGOs, CBOs and farmers associations.
In Kenya, urban agriculture is widespread and a well-established practice but not
officially accepted by the central and local government officials. Yet a lot of
research has been carried out during the past three decades in Nairobi. In the
context of growing advocacy for policy support in favor of urban agriculture
research while public resources are shrinking it is necessary to provide
assessment of the contribution of urban agriculture research to sustainable urban
development. This information is currently lacking in Kenya. Therefore,
systematic monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment and channeling the
generated information to relevant decision makers will be required to support
official acceptance of urban agriculture as well as to justify funding for urban
agriculture research and development geared towards improvement of urban
environment.
The purpose of the study is to assess the impact past investments in urban
agriculture research and experimental development (R&D) activities in Kenya.
The specific objectives are to:
1) Trace the evolution of urban agriculture R&D activities in Kenya;
2) Describe and understand the current status of urban agriculture R&D in
Kenya;
3) Evaluate the effects of urban agriculture R&D on institutional capacity
development (organization, policy, personnel, and public attitude) in
Nairobi City over the period 1970-2003;
4) Identify and define priority issues to be addressed by future urban
agriculture R&D activities and
5) Suggest recommendations for institutional arrangements and policy
changes required for future development of urban agriculture in Kenya.
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction
The meaning of the term impact and the various aspects of a
comprehensive impact assessment of a typical agricultural research and
development program are outlined in this section. The various techniques
and methods used to assess the different types of impact also discussed. The
terms “impact evaluation” and “impact assessment” are used
interchangeably. Impact refers to the broad, long-term economic, social and
environmental effects resulting from research. Such effects may be
anticipated or unanticipated, and positive or negative, at the level of the
individual or the organization. Such effects generally involve changes in
both cognition and behavior. Evaluation is the judging, appraising, or
determining the worth, value or quality of research, in terms of its relevance,
effectiveness, efficiency, and impact. Agricultural research generates many
types of outputs. These include technologies embodied in a physical object
(e.g., improved seeds), management tools and practices, information, and
improved human resources. These outputs affect the environment of
research institutes (through training and partnership building) and research
clientele (through technologies and information generated), which ultimately
impact the indicators of research goals.
There are three broad categories of impact that form part of a comprehensive
impact assessment (Anderson and Herdt, 1990; Anandajayasekeram et al.,
1996). The first is the direct outcome of the research activities. The second,
the intermediate impact is concerned with the organizational strategies and
methods used by researchers, and other actors in conducting more effective
technology development and transfer. The third is referred to as people level
impact. The people level impact can be economic, socio-economic, sociocultural, and/or environmental. The various effects considered in a
comprehensive impact assessment of any R&D activities are summarized in
Figure 1.
The term impact in the context of R&D activities includes both the direct
product of research as well as the people level impact. People level impact
refers to the effect of the technology on the ultimate users or target group for
which the technology was developed. Impact begins to occur when there is a
behavioral change among the potential users. The people level impact deals
with the actual adoption of the research output and subsequent effects on
production, income, environment and/or whatever the development objective
may be. The people level impact of any R&D program cannot be achieved
without accomplishing the intended direct product of research. Therefore, in
any comprehensive impact assessment, there is a need to differentiate
between the research results and the contribution of the research results to
development, and both aspects should be addressed simultaneously. These
aspects are briefly described in the following sections. Due to infancy stages
of urban agriculture research and data problems, this study will place more
emphasis on the institutional impact assessment.
The purpose of impact assessments of agricultural research activities
depends on when the assessment is done. Impact assessments can be
undertaken before initiating the research (ex-ante) or after the completion of
the research activity (ex-post) including the technology transfer. The
purpose of conducting impact assessments before undertaking research is to
assist research managers in planning and priority setting. Specifically: to
study the economic impact of a proposed research program; to formulate
research priorities by examining the relative benefits of different research
programs; and to identify the optimal combination of activities for the
research program. Similarly, there are several reason for conducting the
assessment after completion of the research program. These include: to study
the impact in terms of both direct products of research and people level
impact; to provide feed-back to the scientists and the system including
policy makers; for accountability purposes including establishing the
credibility of the public sector research; and as justification for increased
allocation of research resources.
Direct Product of Research - Effectiveness Analysis
The most commonly used approach for assessing the direct product of
research is known as effectiveness analysis. A useful starting point for
effectiveness analysis is the logical framework of the project. The logical
framework permits the assessment of the degree to which the research
activities have made changes in the desired direction. The logical
framework itself is a simple matrix that provides a structure for one to
specify the components of a program/ activity and the logical linkages
between the set of means (inputs and activities) and the set of ends (outputs).
This logical framework makes the impact assessment process transparent by
explicitly stating the underlying assumptions of the analysis.
The effectiveness analysis is a simple comparison of these targets to actual
or observed performance of the project. Three sets of comparisons are
identified in the literature: “before” and “after” comparison (also called
historical comparison); “with” and “without” comparison; and “target” vs.
“achievement” comparison. The most useful comparison is target vs.
achieved. The targets need not be completely achieved for the project to be
deemed effective. The movement in the direction of the desired target is
evidence of project effectiveness.
Impact of Intermediate Product(s)
The link between the intermediate product and the ultimate economic benefit
is not clear and, therefore, tends to be ignored in most impact assessment
studies. The evaluation of the intermediate product is made difficult by the
fact that the benefits of these products are not easy to quantify. Thus, most
studies acknowledge the fact that having the institutional capacity
development is of paramount importance. These studies, however, do not
include the benefits in the assessment of the impact. The costs that are easy
to quantify are usually included. Thus, the assessment of the intermediate
product has been a tricky issue. The practice has been to trace the changes
in institutional capacity over time using either simple trend analysis or
comparisons. This requires baseline information on these indicators and
careful monitoring. The results from these analyses can be incorporated in
the quantitative analysis through a multi-criteria analysis.
Economic Impact
Economic impact measures the combined production and income effects
associated with a set of R&D activities. The economic impact can be
assessed through what is known as an "efficiency analysis" which compares
the cost and the benefits of the project in a systematic manner
(Anandajayasekeram et al. al. 1997). The economic impact assessment
studies range in scope and depth of evaluation from partial impact studies to
comprehensive assessment of economic impacts. One popular type of partial
impact assessment is adoption studies that look at the effects of new
technology such as the spread of modern plant varieties on farm productivity
and farmers’ welfare. Omiti et al (1999) describes adoption and diffusion
studies undertaken in the Eastern and Central Africa region. Economic
impact assessments of the more comprehensive types look beyond mere
yield and crop intensities to the wider economic effects of the adoption of
new technology. These studies generally estimate the economic benefits
produced by research in relation to associated costs and estimate a rate of
return to research investments. Economic studies include studies that
estimate economic benefits and measure economic rates of return. The
literature on economic impact studies also includes a wide range of levels of
impact analysis, from aggregate, national level to program and project level.
The econometric approach of estimating research productivity and the total
factor productivity analysis are best suited at the very aggregate-level of
impact assessment. On the other hand, the economic surplus and cost-benefit
studies are most suitable at the level of individual research program
(Evenson 1999a). In assessing the economic impacts, research is treated as
an investment and rates of return (ROR) are then estimated for this
investment. ROR summarizes the benefits and costs, and income from the
activity in a single number which can be easily compared with the cost of
obtaining funds or rates of return obtained from alternative investments.
There are two broad approaches to estimate ROR. The econometric
approach which often uses a production function (regression approach), or
the total factor productivity approach to estimate the marginal rates of return
(MRR). The MRR calculates the returns to the last dollar invested in each
component through econometric estimation. The estimation of MRR
requires good quality time series data that in most developing countries are
difficult to obtain. The other approach is the surplus approach which uses a
benefit - cost framework to estimate the average rate of return (ARR). The
ARR takes the whole expenditure as given and calculates the rate of return
to the global set of expenditures. The ARR indicates whether or not the
entire investment package was successful, but not whether the allocation of
resources between investment components was optimal (Oehmke et al.,
1992)
Recently, several authors and organizations have highlighted the limitations
of using economic efficiency as the principal criterion for assessing impacts.
As Shaxson (1999) argues, while economic efficiency indicators may
provide guidance on where to invest, they do not help in clarifying how to
invest. In other words, economic assessment can help identify areas of
efficient and effective research investment but has little to say on the
methods for achieving research efficiency and effectiveness.
Socio-Cultural Impact
Socio-cultural impacts assessment (SIA) include the effects of research on
the attitude, beliefs, resource distribution, status of women, income
distribution, nutritional implications, institutional implications etc of the
community. These can be assessed through socio-economic surveys and
careful monitoring. While SIA is normally undertaken within the relevant
national environmental policy framework, it is not restricted to this, and SIA
as a process and methodology has the potential to contribute greatly to the
planning process of other types of development projects (Burdge and
Vanclay 1996). For agricultural research, it can assist in the process of
evaluation of alternatives, and to help in their understanding and
management of the process of social change. However, based on a review of
available studies, it is evident that SIA has rarely been applied to agricultural
research programs. The estimates of social surplus in impact studies of
agricultural research are based on costs and benefits that are measurable in
monetary units. The social surplus methodology used in economic
assessment is amenable to estimating distributional consequences of
research, such as between consumers and producers, and between different
income groups of consumers and producers. Social impacts are important
and need to be considered along with the economic and environmental
impacts. However, conducting the economic, social and environmental
impact assessment of a research program as separate disciplinary activities
may be too burdensome. The challenge is to focus on some specific social,
economic and environmental issues and then to explore the most appropriate
methods to address them. Social Impact Assessment can enrich the impact
analysis as well as provide a clearer identification of issues for research
planning and prioritization.
Environmental Impact Assessment
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is defined as the process of
identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and
other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions
being taken and commitments made (IAIA 1998). Many countries require
environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for major development projects;
and, in fact, many countries have formal requirements in law and associated
guidelines for carrying out EIAs. At the same time, an OECD (1994) study
found that few guidelines were implemented in practice because of the lack
of human and financial resources, their general, non-specific and (often)
mechanistic nature, and their lack of relevance to the main tasks and
problems facing guideline users. The importance of EIA is increasing in
agricultural research due to the growing concerns of land degradation,
deforestation and loss of biodiversity around the world. However, there are
few examples of countries and research institutions that have formally
assessed the environmental impacts associated with agricultural research.
Environmental costs and benefits are typically not included in conventional
economic impact studies discussed above. The meta-analysis of the returns
to agricultural research done by Alston et al. (1998) found that out of more
than 1,100 research evaluation observations, only 11 had included
environmental variables in the rate of return analysis. Among other things,
there is a clear lack of adequate data on which to base EIA.
Institutional Impact
Institutional impact consists of changes in organizational structures, methods
of conducting scientific research, and the availability and allocation of
research resources. Most of the ongoing research and development impact
studies address the people level impact forgetting institutional impacts.
Increasing agricultural productivity, whilst strengthening local institutions,
has long been an important goal of agricultural research. Organizations play
an important role in meeting this goal by improving technologies and
knowledge base of the biological, social, economic and political factors that
govern the performance of an agricultural system, and by strengthening local
institutions’ capacity and performance. While research projects themselves
are often subjected to rigorous appraisals from an economic, social and
environmental perspectives, research methods and institutional aspects of a
research organization tend to escape any kind of impact analysis. The impact
assessment work discussed above focuses on the impact evaluation of the
“technological” outputs of research organizations in the form of new
techniques, methods, information and practices of agricultural systems.
Institutional impact assessment involves the evaluation of the performance
of a research organization in non-technological research activities such as
training, networking, development of methodologies, and advisory services
in the areas of research and other policies, organization and management.
Assessment of the institutional impacts of such activities should therefore be
an integral part of the overall impact assessment and research evaluation
efforts. There has been little methodological and practical work in the area
of institutional impact assessment of agricultural research (Goldsmith 1993).
This includes the impact an agricultural research organization has on
capacity building, human resources development, and performance of other
institutions. However, recently there has been interest to evaluate the
institutional impacts. ISNAR, for example, has undertaken a major effort in
this area and generated several studies and results that illustrate the
conceptual and analytical methods of institutional impact assessment
(Horton and Borges-Andrade 1999, Horton and Mackay 1998, Mackay et al.
1998, Mackay and Debela 1998). IFPRI has also recently undertaken several
case studies to document the institutional impacts of its policy research and
capacity building activities ( Ryan forthcoming, Babu forthcoming,
Paarlberg 1999). The concrete results and impacts of institutional
development can be difficult to see and may take time to emerge. However,
information, generated from institutional impact assessment has the great
potential to lead to better, more effective actions and institutional
performance of a research system.
3. METHODOLOGY
Most authors agree that urban agriculture is a new discipline and requires
adaptation of existing methods used in impact assessment of rural
agriculture research. Secondary date will be collected from published and
gray literature in the libraries and the Internet in order to trace the evolution
of urban agriculture in Kenya.
Field survey using structured questionnaires and informal interviews will be
used to collect information on the past, on-going and planed activities in
Urban agriculture in Nairobi. Existing projects report will be used to identify
the cost of inputs in the previous research carried out in Nairobi.
The change in Knowledge, attitude, skills and aspiration of individuals or
groups towards urban agriculture will be used to measure the changes in
views, opinion, behavior and feelings in measuring social impacts.
Institutional impact will be measured in terms of changes in policy,
institutional structure, networking and achievements in human capacity
building.
4. REFERENCES
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returns redux: A meta-analysis of the returns to agricultural R&D. EPTD
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Alston, J.M., Norton, G.W. and P.G. Pardey. 1995. Science Under
Scarcity. Principles and Practice for Agricultural Research Evaluation and
Priority Setting. Cornell University Press and ISNAR. Ithaca.
Anandajayasekeram, P. and D. R. Martella. 1999. Evaluation of
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Anandajayasekeram, P., D. Martella and M. Rukuni 1996. A training
manual on R & D Evaluation and Impact Assessment of Investments in
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Botswana, 1996.
Babu, S. 2000. Impact of policy research on resource allocation and food
security: A case study of IFPRI’s research in Bangladesh. IFPRI Impact
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Burdge, R.J. and F. Vanclay. 1996. “Social Impact Assessment: A
contribution to the state of the art series”, Impact Assessment, 14: 59-86.
Evenson, R.E. 1999. “Economic impacts of agricultural research and
extension” In: B.L. Gaardner and G.C. Rausseeeer (eds.) Handbook of
agricultural economics, Elsevier Science.
Goldsmith, A. 1993. “Institutional development in national agricultural
research: Issues for impact assessment” Public Administration and
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Statistics, Nairobi.
Government of Kenya (2001). Population and Housing Census. Central
Bureau of Statistics, Nairobi.
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Horton, D. and J. Borges-Andrade. 1999. Evaluation of agricultural
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Horton, D. and R. Mackay. 1998. Assessing the institutional impact of
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URL: ttp://iaia.ext.nodak.edu/iaia/principles/
Lee-Smith, D., M. Manundu, D. Lamba and P.K. Kuria (1987). Urban
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assessment of agricultural research in the ASARECA region. Paper prepared
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and Central Africa, Entebbe, Uganda, November 16-19,1999.
Paarlberg, R.L. 1999. External impact assessment of IFPRI’s 2020 Vision
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Shaxson, L. 1999. Indicating the Exit: Towards an Holistic Framework for
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Costa Rica.
Figure 1: Comprehensive Impact Assessment
Comprehensive
Assessment
Intermediate
Impact
Institutio
nal
Changes
Impact
Direct Product of Research
Changes
in
the
Enabling
Environm
ent
Economic
Impact
Direct Effects
Source: Anandajayasekeram et al. 1996
People
Impact
Social/Cult
ural Impact
Spill-Over
Effects
Level
Environmen
tal Impact