World Bank’s Rural Development Endeavors in Ethiopia: Some Preliminary Notes Sources
and Methods
Introduction
This paper relates to the nature of data sources collected and the research method (s) employed to
address the problems of a research project on the topic mentioned above. It attempts to illustrate
the potential of primary and secondary data to achieve the research objectives and what proper
research method (s) needs to be used for that purpose. However, considering that the research is
in its early stage, the position adopted now and discussed in this work does not prevent enriching
data sources and revising the assumptions as the research progresses.
Primary Data: Sources, Methods and Their Relevance
As an empirical historical study, the research heavily relies on examining, analyzing and
synthesizing archival and oral data. The researcher has undertaken field visits to the study area
and researched in local, national archives and at the World Bank Group Archive in Washington
DC which proved valuable to obtain extensive written and oral sources relevant for the research
topic. The field visits were carried out in three of the seven Woredas (districts) of Wolayta
Awraja (province) where Wolamo Agricultural Development Unit (WADU) was implemented
(namely, Soddo, Bolloso and Humbo), and in Hawassa, the capital city of the Southern Nations
Nationalities and People’s Regional State during the month of April 2014.
Along with hired motorbike riders and a translator I conducted three group and eight individual
interviews in seven villages. Informants were selected to solicit various perspectives and to
corroborate archival materials and vice versa. The respondents included farmers, retired local
government bureaucrats, former project officials, field agents and their assistants, student
activists of the late 1960s, businessmen and ethnic leaders.
There was no one criterion used to select informants. At the initial stage of the interview process
informants were selected randomly. Sometimes the researcher followed suggestions of local
sources and spent time with people whom the society knew as “good story tellers”. Often, such
interviews served as bridges to identify and locate potential informants pertinent to the research
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subject. At other times, respondents were selected by simply walking into areas where the project
was implemented. In due course, the researcher began to limit the selection process to relevant
people as interviews raised particular issues. Such an approach helped to balance the number of
informants selected from each group mentioned above.
Before actual interviews, background information on the likes and dislikes of informants and
their experience with WADU was gathered. This helped to avoid inconveniences 1 during the
interview process and to formulate focused questions that took into account the individual’s
vocation, age, the number of service years with WADU and area of expertise. Although the
specific questions addressed to each informant varied, there were a total of ten to fifteen openended questions that guided the whole interview process. The central points covered by these
questions included:

The degree of local participation in deciding the content and implementation of WADU
and the knowledge, technical, financial and political prerequisites that farmers were
expected to meet in order to benefit from the development intervention

Direct and indirect benefits from one's participation in the programme

Continuities and changes in the allocation of land and labor for production purposes,

The type (s) of crops that the project encouraged and the consequences on the
consumption needs of the local population

Adaptability of fertilizers, new variety seeds and cattle breeds to local conditions,

The sustainability of WADU activities

Interface between formal project documents and informal power order, and the
translation of WADU activities on the ground

Compatibility between national development goals with people’s aspirations and needs in
the local context

The extent to which the grand objective of IRDs, “growth with redistribution”, was
materialized through WADU

Consequences of WADU activities on social relations,
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Experience has it that in some rural areas people do not want to talk about the number of cattle and the amount of
land they own. Others are not comfortable to give exact figures of their children.
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
The place of ideology in the design and implementation of the programme (specifically
addressed to local elites)
In addition to the above specific set of questions and gathering information on what happened
and when, efforts were made to get an idea about what people felt to be part of the history of the
development project and their impressions and thoughts about development in general. Decisions
regarding the time and places of interviews were largely left to the discretion of the informants.
Most interviews lasted from about an hour to an hour and half. Some interviews lasted only for
fifteen to twenty minutes and provided specific information on subjects that respondents were in
positions to answer. Other interviews were much more detailed, lasting up to two hours and
involving intermittent meetings across a range of periods. The adoption of either a formal or
informal interview approach depended largely on the time and place of a particular interview.
There were some difficulties that the researcher encountered during the process of the interview.
The time of the researcher’s arrival coincided with the season when farmers prepared their field
for sowing, April 2014. Generally farmers were half-hearted to sit and spend long hours for
formal interviews. There were times when the researcher conducted informal interviews while
helping informants in their gardens. Sometimes respondents were bold in their demands for what
they would get in return. There was a general sense of fatigue and unwillingness to participate in
interviews for which they were not remunerated.
Many informants were reluctant to discuss political issues (or issues which they felt were
political), presumably due to fears of repercussions. Others tried to overrate the policies and
practices of the current government by tarnishing everything of the past. Language barrier
presented another challenge during the interview process. Although all of my informants did
understand Amharic, some of them had difficulties in expressing their feeling in Amharic with
absolute clarity. Therefore, I had to employ a research assistant who served as an interpreter.
Few respondents were not willing to get recorded on tapes or videos. During such circumstances,
reminiscences were documented by thorough note taking. Yet, there was a also time when an
informant asked (some days after his interview) for the deletion of his recorded voice due to
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fears of antagonizing his neighbors. The other major difficulty was getting women respondents
for one-on-one interviews.
The process of transcribing and organizing the oral information into themes that would serve as
building blocks of the dissertation has begun. The major themes developed based, but not
exclusively, on oral information are the following.

Farmers as rational decision makers- this theme was organized based on sources that
show the extent of rational/irrational responses by local farmers towards:
o Adopting modern agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, improved
varieties of crops and livestock
o Financial cost-benefit analysis that underpins farmers’ willingness or reluctance
to participate in WADU activities
o Readiness to take risks in taking credits and replacing traditional agricultural
practices with modern techniques of farming
o Decisions to switch from, and alternate between, the production of food and cash
crops
o Hypothesizing the social and economic benefits and costs of participating in
WADU initiated cooperatives

Benefits gained from participating in WADU development activities
o Increased productivity of crops and livestock products resulting in significant net
annual income
o Economic opportunity and freedom of choice for resettlers
o Getting access to land ownership and be a man (fulfilling social obligations)
o Lasting skill and knowhow local people gained from participating in WADU
activities
o Non-quantifiable benefits gained from some of the infrastructural and institutional
works of the project such as the installation of water supply pipes, construction of
roads, health, educational centers and financial facilities
o Tax contributions of the package programme to the public budget
o The cultivation of participatory skills
o Consolidation of government control in the region
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
Damages farmers (or local population in general) suffered from participating in WADU
activities due to:
o Consequences of failure to meet debt obligations
o Poor adaptability of new inputs, crop varieties and animal breeds to the local
environment and their effects on the environment
o Poor employment of modern agricultural inputs and agronomic practices
o Dislocation from worthy traditional agricultural practices and disintegration of
social bonds
o Increased subordination of women to men due to ill-considered assumptions
o Disproportionate distribution of benefits due to an imbalance in the preexisting
land ownership structure
o Increased inter-group conflicts
o Eviction from farmlands
o Introduction of new cultural practices that led to the decimation of local values

Managerial efficiency involved in implementing WADU initiatives
o Degree of professional support provided to farmers to make proper use of modern
agricultural inputs and agronomic practices and their sustainability
o Competence to proactively address challenges and reduce risks to farmers
o Enhancing agriculture and industry linkages to increase benefits accrued from
improved productivity

Changes in the state’s ideology and the operation of WADU
o Budgetary and institutional implications, and impacts on development activities
The most important quality of oral data was that it allows vital insights that could hardly be
obtained from archival documents that reflect only the institutional perspective of WADU
officials and government bureaucrats. For instance, while project documents give details about
project plans, goals, the varied inputs introduced, the implementation process and outcomes of
specific project activities, little can be said about its historical importance unless viewed in light
of what people experienced in real terms. Because official WADU documents contain very
detailed statistical information about the type of development activities in each locality and the
results obtained thereof, the researcher will attempt to corroborate claims of WADU plans and
final reports with oral evidence and vice versa. Calibrating oral data with archival evidence is
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necessary since oral testimonies could either be influenced or distorted due to lapses of memory
or due to the experience of an informant after an event. Important issues identified to triangulate
oral testimony with archival evidence include the following:

Supervision and evaluation of the development project as per the provisions of its
directives

Measurements used to gauge the extent to which development activities were performed
according to plans and the budget allotted for them

Preparing contracts and rendering legal advisory service as per the request of farmers to
make them aware of their rights and duties

Reactions of the host community and government authorities to the development
intervention

The willingness of project officials to consider issues and concerns of farmers regarding
project activities and to make adjustments accordingly

Provision of research based market information to farmers regularly (for example
information on the timing and price of crop sales)

Consulting people throughout the project area on plans, activities and problems of the
development intervention

Eligibility requirements to benefit from the credit scheme

Consequences of default to repay debts

Changes in farmers’ attitudes towards project activities in time and space

Liaising with local authorities and ministerial offices to overcome problems

Liaising with other rural development projects in the region to share experiences

Conducting surveys to identify and control pests and weeds that harm crop productivity

Conducting trials and observations for the development of disease resistant and more
productive crop species and grass and fodder varieties

Continuous repair and maintenance of WADU facilities

The design and construction of ground and surface water supplies (household wells,
small earth dams and pipe water) in all settlement areas

Controlling erosion on sub- catchment and catchment basis in all of the seven Woredas of
the Awraja.
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
Fostering afforestation campaigns by establishing more than 14 nursery sites

Introduction and adaptability of improved cattle breeds and cultigens

Advising farmers on increasing crop production methods and cultivation techniques as
required

Providing a two months training to farmers on agricultural topics and the medium of
instruction

Providing farmers’ wives with training on crop management, leadership, gardening,
milking, poultry keeping, nutrition, hygiene, childcare, home improvement and literacy

Field crop trial results for different new variety seeds- differences between the local seed
varieties and those imported from outside in terms of yields

Demonstrating improved cultural practices of coffee planting to coffee growing farmers

Conducting household visits to advise and encourage participant farmers

Transmission of radio programmes sponsored by WADU on a range of topics targeting
women and other interested listeners

Establishing demonstration sites of gardens and vegetables
The exploratory field visits in the aforementioned cities
(particularly in Soddo) produced
immense archival evidence crucial to reconstruct major aspects of WADU’s experience. With
proper internal and external source criticism techniques, the documents gathered seem reliable to
offer rich and fresh data to answer the basic research questions of the project with adequate
detail. Among other things, documents bear clear statistical data on the following issues:

There are documents very crucial to write the social, economic and demographic
conditions of the study area that need to be documented as a background of the study.
Such documents will be used to reconstruct the overall profile of the study area focusing
on aspects that have positive and negative bearings on the performance of WADU. These
include the agro-ecological features of each district, family size, age and sex composition
of households, religious practices, marital status, inter and intra ethnic interactions,
traditional labour sharing arrangements, money lending practices from relatives, birth and
death rates, mobility, literacy, institutional membership, land and labour productivity,
animal and animal products consumed, major crops grown, land distribution and
production relations, causes of crop damage and traditional agronomic practices.
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
Recurrent and capital costs of the project for each year- major recurrent expense include
expatriate and local staff salaries, medical and clothing allowances. Figures indicating the
amount of salary paid to expatriate and local staff helps to explore how far WADU’s
money benefitted the local people (through creating job opportunities). Capital budget
expenditures show the type, amount and cost of equipment purchased and the amount of
money invested on local infrastructural developments. Capital costs indicate how much
of the money invested by the Bank went back to the developed nations in the form of
payments for purchased goods such as NCR machine, water development machineries,
transport vehicles, tractors, spare parts etc. The reports are highly useful to appreciate the
degree of attention given to the various development components or divisions of WADU
during each reporting season. They also shed light on instances of budget diversion by
the national government to pursue goals which were not included in the project
agreement. In short, financial reports portray almost a complete picture of financial
planning and expenditure. Hence, the researcher would produce an aggregate financial
information that shows how the money obtained from the World Bank by way of loan
was deployed and the relative benefits of WADU to different stakeholders. This is
important to examine the relative weight given to actual development activities that need
to be understood to objectively assess the causes for the success and failure of WADU
components.

Archives also contain detailed information about conflicts of interest and complaints
submitted by WADU workers and farmers, litigations between tenants and landlords and
adjustments made to original project plans. Such rich documents written by the persons
and authorities concerned give insights about some of the major problems encountered
during the implementation process. They also depict aspects of good governance, justice,
negotiated interests, nepotism, favoritism, corruption and mismanagement on the part of
WADU officials and concerned government authorities in the area. These documents are
critical to comprehend the political economy under which the development programme
was planned and implemented.
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
The documents also provide information on the distribution of benefits across income
groups in WADU area. This helps to assess the extent to which the project was successful
in narrowing income gaps in the society, one of the major objectives of integrated rural
development programmes of the 1970s. That comprehensive rural development package
projects were implemented in relatively well-off areas, WADU’s role in regional
development imbalance could also be gleaned from evaluation reports.
From a comparative assessment of crop and livestock varieties introduced by WADU and the
crop and livestock varieties in use today in the study area, the documents help inform our inquiry
of the long-term effects of WADU on the following subjects:

Livestock species: Holstein Friesian cows and cross-breeds and impacts on gestation
period, cattle population, changes in the volume of milk yield per cow, frequency of
milking per day, milk consumption.

Poultry: the effect of imported white leghorn chicken in improving the weight of local
breeds and in increasing the number and size of eggs.

Crops: the relative productivity of food and cash crops such as maize, teff, Chillies,
cotton, and coffee under traditional and modern agronomic practices.
However, WADU reports and administrative files from Wolayta Awraja do not give a full
picture of the national and international dimensions of integrated rural development
interventions. To mitigate this gap, the researcher is trying to get access to the archives of the
Ministries of Agriculture and Interior. The archive of the Ministry of Agriculture, temporarily
inaccessible, is crucial to fetch additional data on the volume of agricultural production, types
and quantity of agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides, the process of technology
adoption, the administrative and financial challenges encountered and on the relations between
the Ministry and the WB.
Researches in the National Archive and Library Agency of Ethiopia, Ministries of Foreign
Affairs, Wolde-Meskel Tariku Memorial Archive (under the Institute of the Ethiopian Studies of
Addis Ababa University) revealed important information on aspects of state society relations in
Ethiopia before and after the outbreak of the 1974 revolution. The files include legal and
administrative documents, policy statements, materials on land administration, petitions and land
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litigation papers, correspondence between the central government and local authorities on
matters pertinent to undertake a contextual analysis of the design and implementation of WADU
and power relations in the country. They will also be used to relate the extent to which broader
economic and social development goals of the country were translated into action through
WADU and with what effects on local needs and aspirations.
The international political economy underpinning the motives, forces and processes surrounding
WADU would be studied using World Bank Group Archive in Washington DC. The researcher
visited the archive in September 2014. Archival research at the Bank led to the collection of files
general in nature, on the country’s political economy, and documents specific on the design,
implementation and performance of the Wolamo Agricultural Development Unit. The materials
include appraisal and evaluation reports on various rural development programmes financed by
the Bank, office memorandum, correspondence, hand written side notes, aide-memoire, minutes
of meetings between Ethiopian authorities and World Bank officials, outgoing and incoming
wires etc. Some of these files are declassified only recently, the last being on September 4, 2014.
This would provide fresh perspectives to examine and analyze the role of the Bank in the
economic development of Ethiopia based on the case study. Although organizing the contents of
these materials into themes is not yet completed, preliminary assessment of the data revealed
some important information on:

The level of Ethiopia’s involvement in the design, preparation and implementation of the
development project. The negotiated interests between authorities of the Bank and the
government of Ethiopia during discussions to identify, prepare and decide the contents
and organizational structure of the project; site selection, budget allocation and
disbursement. This information sheds important light on donor-recipient power relations,
on the question of sovereignty and the nature and motives of development interventions.

The influence of the Bank on the development goals of the country to the extent of urging
for certain policy designs, institutional changes and administrative reforms. This indicates
the role of international development cooperation in shaping national and local processes
of change and helps to relate micro-level findings with global developments.

Daily reports on the political dynamics of the country on the eve and aftermath of the
1974 revolution and on the policy directions of the Military regime suggest:
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o The concern of the Bank to “save” the country from joining the communist camp
and therefore the place of ideology in the Bank’s development endeavors
o How WADU responded to radical shifts of state policies
o The changing discourse in the relations between the World Bank and the national
government of Ethiopia and the implications for further development cooperation

The modus operandi among WADU, other projects in the region, local bureaucrats and
ministerial offices

Financial expenditures on purchased goods and inputs, office buildings, vehicles, spare
parts and tractors, firms and companies involved in auditing, supplying goods and giving
consultancy services. These materials are important to show the balance between
administrative expenditure and actual investment for agricultural development. This is
crucial to make proper attribution to the success and failure stories of development
projects.

The credit scheme, terms and agreements on methods of budget disbursal, and purchasing
conditions from local and international firms suggest the role of the development project
in stimulating the national economy.

The perceptions of Bank authorities about the personality traits of major political figures
in the country, their efficiency and class base-These files help to disaggregate the state as
an agent of change and to shed light on the social, economic and political realms within
which individuals acted and to reconstruct the various motives and interests involved in
the design and implementation of the development project.

Successive project evaluation reports indicate the detachment of the Bank’s assumptions
from local realities and illustrate aspects of unintended consequences of the development
intervention. In addition, these files reveal the Bank’s continued reliance on input-based
solutions to development problems of the Third World despite complex social and
economic conditions across varied environments.
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Generally, pending further examination of the archival materials in our hands, there does not
seem to be a problem of oral and written sources. Besides, there are enough secondary materials
to elucidate the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the study and for comparative assessment
of WADU in light of experiences elsewhere.
Research Methods
With the help of various theoretical and empirical tools, the field data will be analyzed,
synthesized and interpreted qualitatively with relevant statistical illustration. Efforts will be made
to objectively and contextually reconstruct the history of WADU using an eclectic approach. To
this end, the gathered data will be categorized into major themes and construed to answer the
basic research questions. Hence, thematising, organizing and interpreting sources will be made
with the intent of feeding the data to answer the questions developed for the study. These lines of
inquiry in general relate to the following research questions.
I. Regarding donor-backed development projects and power relations

Were there political prerogatives (in terms of national policy and ideology) that
Ethiopian governments were forced to forsake to benefit from World Bank
development loan or aid?

Were there instances showing that WADU was planned and executed in
contravention to the wishes of the Ethiopian government and or the local population?

What institutional and bureaucratic changes were brought about in connection with
WADU? Were such changes negotiated in light of local realities or superimposed by
the World Bank?

How was the global context in which WADU was designed and implemented?

Did WB’s financial support for WADU enable the Ethiopian government to save
money on certain things that it would otherwise have had to fund, enabling it to spend
the money on something else? (This is a way in which a foreign financed project
could perhaps unintentionally enhances the options of the host government)
II. Relations, exploitation and cultural domination

Who benefitted the most from WADU: large landholders, smallholders, World Bank
employees, Ethiopian employees in the project?
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
Was there any country that was specifically favored in supplying agricultural inputs
disseminated to smallholders?

Were agricultural outputs arranged for export to specifically benefit a certain
country?

Was administration of debt carried out in the best interest of grassroots beneficiaries?

Did WADU make beneficiaries victims of Western cultural expansion?

To what extent was formal administrative structures and the exercise of power in the
informal order intertwined?
III. Development projects, motives and successes and failure stories

What sectors and sub-sectors of the economy were targeted by WADU? Why?

What were the outcomes of various development projects implemented by WADU?

Which technologies (innovations) were successfully adopted or not adopted by
smallholders and why?

What was the gap between aspiration (goals) and achievements? What explains the
gap?
IV. The discourse of development and the shaping of local and national history

Did WADU reflect the real interests or demands of the local people?

What was the nature of the interaction between WADU experts and smallholders?

Was WADU in anyway hostile to the values of different indigenous groups?

What intuitional and bureaucratic changes were introduced in connection with
WADU?

In what aspects was WADU exploited by the successive Ethiopian regimes to
perpetuate their interests and ideologies?

To what extent were WADU’s components and activities shaped by conditions on the
ground.

How did WADU respond to radical shifts of state policies and to the general change
in the nature of the state brought about by the revolution?
V. The theoretical implications of the differences and commonalities between the experiences of
WADU and other integrated rural development projects supported by bilateral aid agencies?
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
What similarities and differences exist in the motives, processes, performance and legacy
of WADU and other rural development projects undertaken in Ethiopia and other Third
world countries?

What does WADU experience tells us about criticisms advanced by post-development
scholars against donor backed development projects?

What are the policy implications of WADU experience to future development
cooperation between world financial organizations and developing countries?
Design of the Research Procedure
The qualitative research method proceeds from an empirical appraisal of WADU to that of
putting the results (experience) into broader theoretical perspectives. Using an inductive
approach, the study tries to address the research questions based on primary and secondary data
collected to study the history of WADU. Once the research questions are treated in particular
reference to the trajectories of the development project, efforts will be made to reciprocally
analyze the performance of WADU in light of similar projects in Ethiopia and when need arises
outside Ethiopia. A comparative approach is deemed crucial because my preliminary observation
suggests there are some generalizations that could be drawn from the experience of IRDs across
different ecological and climatic zones. Efforts will also be made to test the applicability of
theories of social change in local context and to evaluate the tenacity of major arguments in the
field in light of the empirical evidence. These steps, although not strictly chronological, help not
to repeat the common limitations of development research experience in Ethiopia and elsewhere.
Accordingly, efforts will be made to fill or minimize the following gaps.
•
A tendency to overlook historical events and processes when reconstructing rural
development operations in the country from liberation in 1941 to 1974 which would
undermine exposition of changes and continuities.
•
Lack of depth in analyzing center-periphery dynamics which eludes understanding of
national and international actors and processes underlying the experience of WADU.
•
Focus on the state as the center stage of analysis and a tendency to overlook local agents
of change.
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•
Little attention to comparative analysis. This reduces comprehending WADU’s
experience in light of broader perspectives about the political economy of development
cooperation between world financial institutions and developing countries.
•
Advancing sweeping generalizations from limited case studies.
•
Disproportionate focus on rural development at the expense of urban processes and
judging failures and successes of rural development interventions only based on half of
the story.
•
Use of inadequate statistical data and absence of a full account of WADU’s experience.
Unlike previous studies, this study has the opportunity to validate the authenticity of
official statistical figures by cross-checking published figures with other internal
documents of WADU, observations of the local people and with files from the World
Bank Group Archive.
Conclusion
Extensive data has been collected and more is scheduled to be secured (mainly oral sources).
There is no problem of evidence. The method adopted seems feasible and effective to bring the
research to ultimate fruition. Some scientific articles could be published as the research
progresses.
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