IFPRI Eastern Africa Food Policy Network--Introduction

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IFPRI Eastern Africa Food Policy Network

The IFPRI Eastern Africa Food Policy Network seeks to reduce poverty and improve food security in East Africa by generating policy-relevant information through collaborative research activities, improving the dissemination and use of such information, and strengthening local capacity to undertake and communicate policy research. The Network covers Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda.

THE NEED FOR POLICY INFORMATION IN AFRICA

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where the number of hungry and undernourished people, particularly children, has increased in recent years. Moreover, the region has experienced declining or stagnating agricultural incomes and in many places a progressive degradation of soils and vegetation. To help reverse these trends Africans need more effective policies for achieving sustainable economic growth while reducing poverty and ensuring sound management of natural resources. But decisionmakers in most African countries often lack the information, opportunity for informed dialogue, and institutional capacity that could help them develop appropriate policies to achieve these goals.

LEARNING THROUGH NETWORK RESEARCH, TRAINING, AND DIALOGUE

To address this information gap, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and its collaborators in the region established a research network for East Africa in 1998. The IFPRI Eastern Africa Food Policy Network comprises Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda. The overall goals of the network are to reduce poverty, improve food security and child nutrition, improve gender equity, increase agricultural productivity, and promote sustainable natural resource management. Through research, publications, training, and dialogue between decisionmakers and researchers, the network aims at generating information that policymakers can use to achieve sustainable growth and poverty-alleviation goals and to build the capacity of East African countries to design appropriate and effective policies and institutions.

Unlike most research-based entities, the Eastern Africa Food Policy Network includes not only researchers but also policymakers and leaders from civil society. To assure that the Network remains sustainable and relevant, IFPRI is partnering with ASARECA's Eastern and Central Africa Program for Agricultural Policy Analysis (ECAPAPA). IFPRI is also collaborating with other regional organizations and international agricultural research institutes to develop and implement the network. The Network is supported with funding from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), European Commission (EC), and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).

The network was set up through a collaborative process. Teams from each member country prepared country-specific papers that formed the basis for discussions at a regional priority-setting workshop. Participants identified country- and region-level priority themes and research topics related to food, agriculture, and the environment needed for effective policy formulation within food, agriculture, and the environment. Associated priorities for information dissemination, training, and capacity strengthening were also identified.

REALIZING THE GOALS

In early 2000 IFPRI and its collaborators in the six network countries embarked on the second phase of activities:

Policy Research--A competitive grants program has been set up to support research on country and regional priorities. During 2000, researchers from five countries (Mozambique did not participate in this round) formulated proposals on those themes and topics identified as priorities in their countries. This exercise resulted in 18 proposals submitted for consideration; of these, 10 proposals are being supported. The projects address topics such as agricultural productivity constraints, productivity and environmental effects of irrigation technologies, rice production and gender, livestock marketing and processing, agricultural trade liberalization, the efficiency of maize marketing systems, trade effects of the WTO round, community-based animal health services, household risk behavior, and forest governance systems. The first outputs are expected in late 2001. The second round of the competitive grants program was initiated in early 2001; training in proposal preparation is being offered in Spring 2001 with peer review workshops scheduled for Summer 2001. In Spring 2001, the Network will launch a pilot program to support research by young researchers completing their Master's degree. Besides the country-level research supported by the competitive grants program, a regional research project cutting across the Network countries is currently under preparation on a topic jointly identified as high priority for the region.

Policy Interfacing--Various communication instruments such as policy briefs and discussion papers are being developed, workshops and meetings are being organized, and a major regional conference will be held by the network towards the end of the second phase to present the results of network activities to a larger group of stakeholders in the region. To facilitate the sharing of knowledge and information among members and stakeholders, the Network has established and listserver.

Capacity Strengthening--Innovative courses are offered on topics such as proposal preparation, data analysis, and policy communication. A student-research support program will help build capacity among the future generation of policy researchers and analysts. When funding permits, a researcher exchange program will be set up to facilitate interaction among researchers within the region.

IFPRI and its collaborators firmly believe that the Eastern Africa Food Policy Network will contribute greatly to providing high-quality, timely, and region- and country-specific information, thereby improving policies and institutional strategies for poverty alleviation, gender equity, food security, agricultural development, and sound management of natural resources in East Africa. Moreover, IFPRI and its collaborators also believe that the approach used to set up the network will contribute to its long-term usefulness and sustainability and assure that it is locally owned and managed.

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