Extension Education

Reshaping African Universitiesand Colleges for the 21st Century

CASIN/SAA/Global 2000

1•

Extension Education:

Reshaping African Universitiesand Colleges for the 21st Century

Proceedings of the Workshop on Bringing AfricanUniversities and Colleges More into Agricultural

Development, held in Accra and Cape Coast, Ghana,4-6 September 2000

Sponsored by the Centre tor Applied Studies inInternational Negotiations, Sasakawa Africa Association, and

the Global 2000 Program ofThe Carter Center. Funded bythe Nippon Foundation

Joseph A. Kwarteng, editor

Centrefor AppliedStudies in International Negotiations, 2001

ISBN 2-940192-20-0

Centre for Applied Studies in Intemational Negotiations, 7,bisAvenue de laPaix, 1211Geneva 1, Switzerland

Sasakawa Africa Association, c/o CIMMYT, Apdo. 6-641, 06600 MexicoD.R, Mexico

Global 2000 Program ofThe Carter Center, 1Coperihill Road, Atlanta, GA 30307, USA

The workshop sponsors: The Centre for Applied Studies inInternational Negotiations, establishedin 1979 at Geneva, Switzerland, is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated tohelping resolveproblems inawide range ofareas, including trade, the environment, agriculture, health, andhuman rights. The Sasakawa Africa Association andtheGlobal 2000 Program ofThe Carter Centerare joint sponsors ofthe Sasakawa-Global 2000 agricultural projects insub-Saharan Africa. Theprimary aim ofthose projects istopromote more effective transfer ofimproved technology tosmall-scale farmers. Both the Sasakawa Africa Association and the Global 2000 Program wereestablished in 1986, theformer by the NipponFoundation, Tokyo, and the latterby TheCarterCenter, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Abstract: This publication is thethirteenth proceedings ofa series ofworkshops thataddressmeasures for improving sub-Saharan Africa's food security andother issues relevant toeconomicprogress inthe region. The chapters cover efforts to ensure that extension practitioners are properlytrained to becomeeffective facilitators of change at the farmer level.The chapters highlight stepscertain African universities and colleges aretaking to reform theiragricultural education andextension curriculato makethem responsive to the trainingneeds of farmers, rural developmentorganizations, andagribusinesses. Another issue explored ishow networking among the participating African agricultural universities and colleges iscreating strong pan-African academicpartnerships to develop training programs for agricultural extension staff. Finally, the rising waveofinstitutional reform withinagricultural universities and colleges is examined.

Correct citation: Centre for Applied Studies in Intemational Negotiations. 2000. Extension education:Reshaping African universities andcollegesfor the 21st century. Geneva.

Contents

V Foreword

vii Glossary

ix Meeting Summary

1 Welcoming AddressSamuel Kwasi Adjepong

4 Introductory CommentsYohei Sasakawa

6 Opening StatementJ. H. Owusu-Acheampong

8 Opening StatementEkow Spio-Garbrah

11 Opening AddressJohn Evans Atta Mills

15

23

29

44

Why Rural Human Development MattersG. Edward Schuh

Human Resource Survey of Agricultural Extension Workers inSub-Saharan Africa

Alex G. Carson

Agricultural Education in Africa: Managing ChangeCharles J. Maguire

The SAFE Initiative: Challenges and OpportunitiesDeola Naibakelao

50 Summary of Task Force ReportsRoger E. Steele

56 Concluding CommentsNorman Borlaug

59 Appendix: Starting and Sustaining a SAFE-Type ProgramM. M. Zinnah, S. Akuamoah-Boateng, J. A. Kwarteng and G. O. Tetteh

70 Workshop Participants

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Foreword

Investments in agricultural educationand human resource development areprerequisites to achieving sustained agricultural and economic development andfood security in Africa. In particular, therole of field staff—mid-career extension

workers—is criticaland becomingevermore so due to the increasingcomplexityof agricultural problems. One of the major challenges facingAfrica today is toensure that extension practitioners arewell trained to enable them function ef

fectively as facilitators of changeat thefarmer level.

The Sasakawa Africa Fund for Exten

sion Education (SAFE), a pioneer agricultural curricula reform and institution-

strengthening initiative, was launched afew years ago by the Sasakawa AfricaAssociation in collaboration with the

Winrock International Institute for

Agricultural Development and withfunding from the Nippon Eoundation ofJapan. SAFEis working with selectedAfrican universities and colleges toreform their agricultural education andextension curricula in order to make

them responsive to the training needs ofagricultural sector clients—farmers, ruraldevelopment organizations, andagribusinesses. It is also fostering networking among the participating Africanagricultural universities and collegeswith the aim of building strong pan-

African academic partnerships to developtraining programs for agricultural extension staff. Finally,SAFE is bringing aboutbroad institutional reform within agricultural universities and colleges themselves.

The principles of the SAFE approachcan be adapted to many African coxmtries.The challenge is to get other potentialpartners (i.e., national governments,NGOs, the private sector, as well as thedonor community and technical assistance agencies) on board to support thisor similar approaches. Workshop 2000was meant to debate with such stakehold

ers the potential of the SAEE or similarapproaches to reforming agriculturaleducation in sub-Saharan Africa, and toenhance networking between and amongagricultural universities and colleges.

The University of Cape Coast, whichhas been the very first one to open up to aSAEE program, hosted the second part ofthe workshop and we would like here tothank very warmly Messrs. Samuel KwesiAdjepong, the Vice-Chancellor, andMensah Bonsu, the Dean of the School of

Agriculture, for their hospitality. The closelinks between SAEE and the University ofCape Coast are further illustrated by theconferment of honorary doctoral degreeson Messrs. Norman E. Borlaug, Presidentof the Sasakawa Africa Association and

Yohei Sasakawa, President of the NipponFoimdation.

Finally, I would like to emphasize thatthe success of any workshop is the resultof the effort and dedication of numerous

people working behind the stage. I amthinking more particularly about thedirectors of the country programs andtheir staff on whom we rely heavily forcontacts, local links and, above all, fieldvisits. I also want to express my gratitudeto Chris Dowswell, Deola Naibakelao as

well as to Moses Zinnah and all his

colleagues at Winrock and Cape Coast,who were instrumental in setting up and

finalizing the program and in running theWorkshop at the University of Cape Coast.To BenedictaAppiah-Asante who openedmany doors in Ghana, to GertrudeMormet, Frederica Quartey, WilliamQuartey and Jeni Akar, who, amongothers, saw to the smooth running ofWorkshop 2000,1say thank you. I alsowant to acknowledge the important workof Joe Kwarteng, the editor of this volume.

Jean F. FreymondDirector, CASIN

Geneva

VI

Glossary

AET Agricultural Education and Training

AKiS Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems

B.Sc, Bachelor of Science

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

MOFA Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana

NGO Non-governmental organization

SAA Sasakawa Africa Association

SAFE Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education

SG2000 Sasakawa-Global 2000

UCG University of Cape Coast

USAID United States Agency for Internationai Development

VoAg Vocational Agricultural Education

VII

f

Meeting Summary

Opening Statements

Samuel AdjepongIn his opening statement, the vice chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC),Samuel Adjepong, said imiversities hadimportant roles to play in national development, particularly in developingresponsive training programs for varioussectors of the economy. He regretted thatmany African universities were preoccupied with the need to uphold "academic rigor" at the expense of offeringresponsive programs that dealt with thereal needs of the larger society withinwhich they were based.

Adjepong said UCC larmched theSasakawa Fund for Extension Education

(SAFE) in response to a request from theMinistry of Eood and Agriculture (MOFA)to design and offer a need-based B.Sc.Degree program in Agricultural Extensionfor extension staff in Ghana who possessed Diploma and Certificate credentials. He said these levels of extension staff

were targeted for the program becausethey constituted more than 85% of thefield staff of the extension services in

Ghana, and provided the best opportunityto yield substantial payoffs in both theshort-term and long-term.

The uniqueness of the SAEEprogramat UCC, according to Adjepong, was thesupervised enterprise projects (SEPs)

component. He explained that after aperiod of training on the rmiversitycampus, students returned to their workenvironments in the field to undertake a

4- to 6-months duration off-campus SEPs.He said the SEPs facilitated experientiallearning as well as linkages between themajor subsystems of the agriculturalknowledge system namely: the farmersubsystem (including agribusiness), theextension and education subsystem andthe research subsystem. Adjepong emphasized that it was the SEPs component ofthe SAEE initiative that made it different

from the other existing academic programs in the university.

The vice chancellor said the programwas enhancing UCC's visibility outsidethe walls of the university and that thelecturers associated with the programnow got great exposure to the farmingcommimities across the cormtry throughthe off-campus SEPs. Such exposure, hesaid, enabled them to match theory withreal-life experiences in the diverse contexts of the agricultural sector in Ghana.Concluding, Adjepong expressed thehope that the workshop would give freshimpetus to the efforts aimed at bringingmany African Universities and collegesinto the enterprise of developing thehuman resource base for advancingand maintaining agricultural growthin Africa.

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Yohei Sasakawa

In his opening remarks Yohei Sasakawa,president of the Nippon Foundation,expressed his pleasure with the fact thatmany people were beginning to share hisbelief that agriculture was the single mostcrucial element in national developmentefforts and thus the key to the development of African nations. He referred to the

success of the Sasakawa Global 2000

project in Ghana and pointed out that theproject could not have succeeded withoutthe hard-working extension staff. Heregretted that not enough effort was putinto re-training these extension workers tomake them more effective in their jobs.

Yohei Sasakawa was happy to note thatthe SAFE program, started at UCC in1992, had achieved its objective of trainingagricultural extension staff in Ghana andnoted that similar SAFE program effortswere also training people in Ethiopia,Uganda and Tanzania. He emphasized theneed to nurture people with talent andcapability who could work in the fieldwith farmers.

J. H. Owusu-AcheampongJ. H. Owusu-Acheampong, Ghana'sMinister of Food and Agriculture, notedthat one of the fundamental constraints to

food production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa was the inadequate andinappropriate training of agriculturalextension staff. He said that this situation

was responsible for the lack of the kind offarmer education that could lead to the

integration of innovations into farmingsystems. To remedy the situation Owusu-Acheampong called for the strengtheningof the capacities of African universitiesand colleges to enable them developresponsive, demand-driven programs. Theagriculture Minister was pleased that theSasakawa Africa Association (SAA) had,since 1993, been assisting the Ministry of

Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to improvethe technical and human relations skills of

extension staff through a program at theUniversity of Cape Coast. He also commended more recent efforts by SAA toimprove technical staff through a similarprogram at the Diploma level at theKwadaso Agricultural College in Kumasi,Ghana.

The Minister urged participants tohave honest exchanges of ideas and comeup with pragmatic and strategic recommendations that would enable universities

in Ghana and other African countries to

develop responsive programs to helpbring about sustainable agriculturaldevelopment.

Ekow Spio-Garbrah

In his opening statement, Ekow Spio-Garbrah, Ghana's Minister of Education,

observed that the theme for the work

shop—Bringing African Universities andColleges more into Agricultural Development— was very important because thefoundation of the economies of the

cormtries in sub-Saharan Africa was

essentially based on agriculture. Hepointed out that the stark reality facingAfricans was that in the midst of plenty—the vast stretches of forest lands and soils

rich with mineral and other natural

resources—Africa still had 50% of its

population living in absolute poverty.Owing to this reality, Spio-Garbrah saidthere was the need for African imiversities

and colleges to play more proactive rolesin the process of ensuring sustainableagricultural development on the continent.

Spio-Garbrah noted that while technological development in agriculture waschanging rapidly, the men and womenwho worked with our peasant farmerslacked training opportunities to developthe necessary technical and human

relations skills that would enable them to

cope with the changes taking place in thisnew millermium. He was happy to learnthat several universities and colleges inAfrica, including the University of CapeCoast and the Kwadaso AgriculturalCollege in Ghana, were revising theircurricula in order to make them responsive to the needs of the various clients in

the agricultural sector, including the staffwho work with our farmers in Africa.

Spio-Garbrah urged the universities andcolleges that offered innovative agricultural extension training programs to taketime to document their experiences in theform of case studies which clearly pointedout the strengths, weaknesses, problemsor challenges in running such programs.Such case studies, he said, would providevital information for program improvement and also give insights to guide otheruniversities and colleges who might beinterested in offering similar programs.Concluding his address, Spio-Garbrahcalled for a policy framework that wouldenable and facilitate a linkage of university courses to realities outside the university.

John Evans Atta Mills

The Vice-President of the Republic ofGhana, His Excellency John Evans AttaMills, delivered the opening address forthe workshop. After expressing hisgratitude for the opportimity to addressthe workshop participants he asked for aminute's silence to be observed in

memory of the late Ryochi Sasakawathrough whose efforts and financialsupport the Sasakawa Global 2000 agricultural initiative was launched in sub-

Saharan Africa. Recalling the tremendousimpact the SG2000 program has had inGhana, the VicePresident acknowledgedthe important roles played by YoheiSasakawa, President of the Nippon

Foundation; Norman Borlaug, Presidentof the Sasakawa Africa Association, and

Jimmy Carter, former president of theUSA and President of the Carter Center in

Atlanta, USA in SG2000 programs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Vice President Mills said the role of

Africa's imiversities should be to developtraining programs that were responsive tothe rapidly changing needs of the Africancontinent. Such training programs, hesaid, must prepare graduates to gobeyond production agriculture andembrace other off-farm career opportunities such as marketing, processing, fooddistribution systems, and consumerconcerns about cost, quality, and theenvironmental effects of agriculturalsystems. The Vice President added thatthe training programs of Universitiesshould also enable the graduates to facethe realities of their own environments

and make positive changes within theirsocieties, including the willingness towork in fields with farmers in their

difficult circumstances. He drew participants' attention to the importance ofhands-on practical training, particularlyoff-campus activities involving community-based problem-solving, and said thismust be given more attention in thetraining of agriculturists in our universities and colleges.

Vice President Mills praised theleadership of the University of Cape Coastfor agreeing to collaborate with theMOFA, SAA, and Winrock International to

offer the innovative SAFE program andwas gratified to learn that universities andcolleges in other African coimtries,including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mah,Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda hadadopted the UCC model in designingtraining programs for mid-career agricultural extension staff in their respectivecountries.

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The Vice President expressed his beliefthat in order for African universities and

colleges to make meaningful impact onagricultural development, there was theneed for strategic alliances and partnerships among governments, public andprivate institutions and organizations,donor agencies and technical assistanceagencies. He added that where there was acommon vision and committed leader

ship, partnerships were sure to succeed.Considering the high caliber of theparticipants. Vice President Mills wasconvinced that the discussions at the

workshop would be fruitful and hopedthe recommendations that would emergefrom the workshop would be translatedinto practical action.

Why Rural Human ResourceDevelopment Matters

Delivering the keynote address, EdwardSchuh stated that universities in Africa

had a significant role to play in manydimensions of rural human development.He said this role was played through thedirect production of some of the humancapital critical to the development ofagriculture and the rest of the economyand also through the provision of leadership for lower-level human resourcedevelopment institutions. Begirming withformal education, he said the cognitiveskills developed by formal schoolingcontributed to production in a number ofways: firstly, it made workers moreproductive in physical terms; secondly, itenabled farmers to make more efficient

use of the resources available to them;

thirdly, it enabled farmers to correctlydecode new production technologies; andfourthly, it improved the entrepreneurialtalents and allowed such entrepreneurs totake advantage of economies imdergoingchanges to garner personal gains inincome. He added that vocational or

applied skills developed through vocational training were also very important inraising the productivity of labor in agriculture.

Touching on the role of the household,Schuh pointed out that a great deal ofdevelopment—including the developmentof cognitive and vocational skills—tookplace in the household. He regretted thatthis education often went unrecognizedand indicated that the higher the level ofeducation and training of members of thehousehold the greater their contribution tothe production and development of theseskills in the household. Continuing, headdressed the training of cadres orextension field staff and the issue of

competitiveness in the internationaleconomy.

Schuh said that an important way foruniversities and colleges to contribute torural human development was by trainingthe cadres or staff for a modern agriculture. He noted that while Africa had some

fine colleges and universities, not many ofthese had taken on the responsibility ofbeing change agents in society in the sameway land grant imiversities did in theUSA. He explained that with their threefold mission of teaching, research andextension, land grant universities playedthe role as one of the great engines ofeconomic growth in the United States. Herecalled that the essence of the land grantconcept was the sense of institutionalmission of providing higher-level education to the sons and daughters of farmersand industrial workers. Explaining that hewas not trying to make a case for the landgrant concept in Africa, he regretted thatthis concept was still not widely adoptedin other cotmtries, where, he noted,

higher-level education tended to bereserved for the sons and daughters of theelite. He observed that the frmctions of

teaching, research and extension tended to

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be located in different ministries in Africa,

but emphasized that the important thingwas for the functions to be integratedirrespective of where they were located.

Schuh stated that it was important forAfrican universities and colleges to be onthe cutting edge of knowledge, and totransmit new knowledge from the frontierof knowledge and at the same time makesure that the knowledge provided wasrelevant to the problems of Africansocieties. Observing that colleges ofagriculture were typically organizedaround the biological and other agricultural disciplines, he emphasized theimportance of the social sciences andcalled for collaborative endeavors be

tween strong disciplinary departments tosolve problems. He noted that the privatesector had an important role to play inattaining the goals of research, educationand extension and caUedfor a strengthening of the linkages between these sectorsand also for closer co-operation betweennon-governmental organizations and theuniversities.

On the issue of competitiveness in theinternational economy, Schuh observedthat human development was critical toclosing the gap between Africa and therest of the world in the level of their capitaincomes. Referring to the division of laborand specialization as key to raisingproductivity and thus to being competitive in the international economy, he saiduniversities played a special role inhelping a coimtry to gain internationalcompetitiveness.

Extension Human Resource

Survey in Africa

Presenting the results of a Human Resource Survey of Agricultural ExtensionWorkers in sub-Saharan Africa, AlexCarson, the immediate past Dean of TheSchool of Agriculture, University of Cape

Coast, reported that there was a lack ofcurrent and accurate data on the human

resource situation of agricultural extension workers in Africa. He said that while

there was a general agreement that therewas a need to bolster agricultural extension to enable it to continue to play itscritical role in agricultural and ruraldevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa,extension organizations were not able tocope with the emerging challenges theyfaced owing to poorly trained, poorlyequipped and inadequate numbers ofextension staff who were currentlyworking in these extension organizations.

Carson presented data on the staffingsituation in selected countries in sub-

Saharan Africa and noted that some of the

key factors related to the human resourcesituation of agricultural extension staffincluded:

• a lack of proper needs assessment todetermine the actual manpower needs inagricultural extension of the country andthe capacity of agricultural colleges anduniversities to offer responsive programsto meet those training needs• a lack of reliable data on extension staff

in the private sector including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)• a lack of strategic national trainingpolicies in most sub-Saharan Africancountries.

Two of the important conclusionsdrawn by Carson from the results of thesurvey were that: 1) the number of agricultural extension staff in African coim-

tries was grossly inadequate and thatthere was a need for each country in sub-Saharan Africa to develop and implementstrategic national policies on agriculturalextension training and staff developmentto fulfill agricultural and rural development objectives, and 2) agriculturalfaculties and colleges should be proactivein revising their curricula and teaching

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methodology to respond to the trainingneeds of the country.

Carson stated that overcoming themany challenges facing the agriculturalsector in sub-Saharan Africa dependedmostly on well-trained, well-equippedand adequate numbers of agriculturalextension workers who possessed thetechnical knowledge and human relationsskills, and the commitment needed to

create real change. He concluded thatagricultural colleges and universities andpublic and private sector agencies couldand should take on the responsibilities ofhelping to foster the training of changeagents who would possess the capacityand commitment to facilitate sustainable

agricultural and rural development insub-Saharan Africa.

Agricultural Education in Africa:Managing Change

Charles Maguire delivered a paper titled"Agricultural Education in Africa: Managing change." He observed that Africanuniversities had achieved much in a short

time, but faced a serious risk of losingtheir influence on the higher education ofAfrica's youth in view of increasedenrollment and declining budgets. He saidthe mandates given to these institutions atindependence—and the ensuing highereducation policies—required assessmentas a result of changes in the world, inAfrica, and in the universities themselves.

Maguire noted that agriculturaleducation faced a variety of challengesand dilemmas, but observed that there

were also new opportunities and possibilities. He outlined the problems facingagricultural education to include:• isolation of the agricultural universityfrom other parts of the university system• lack of communication with the

employers of the graduates of the imiver-sity

• poor practical skills• decreased funding as urban focusgathers strength• weak cormection with other parts ofthe agricultural education system—colleges, vocational schools, farmertraining networks• high unemployment of graduates fromthe university, often due to lack of relevance of curriculum

• failure to attract the best qualitystudents from secondary schools

In addition to these problems Maguireindicated that it was important to beconscious of other changes that impactedon agricultural education and presentedfurther challenges to its relevance. Thesechallenges, he said, included:• The shift in focus from agriculture torural development• Globalization

• HIV-AIDS

• Biotechnology• Urbanization

• Information technologyMaguire stated that we had reached a

point in agricultural education wheredemands for change from outside ourinstitutions were numerous and strongand it was therefore critical that decisions

were made on how to respond. He notedthat in most parts of Africa food securitywas still a critical issue and therefore food

production would continue to be a majorfocus of universities and other agriculturaleducation institutions for some time to

come. Citing bureaucratic, political andsocietal barriers to change, he acknowledged that change could be difficult evenfor the most enthusiastic and committed

university leader. He observed that pubHcsector agricultural education institutionswere not always autonomous enough tomake the bold and rational decisions

required to effect improvements in theway they operated. He addressed enroU-

XIV

ment, programming and financing asthree areas where many agriculturaluniversities lacked control.

Touching on successful African examples of institutional change, Maguirementioned the University of Cape Coast inGhana and Bunda College of Agriculturein Malawi as notable examples. He notedthat the University of Cape Coast inGhana had successfully launched aprogram whereby mid-career extensionstaff could bridge the artificial gap between the technically qualified andexperienced person and the academicallyeducated professional. He said the program had attracted the attention ofnational and international organizationsand institutions because of its leadershipin laimching an irmovative educationprogram and that it had been of particularbenefit to the UCC by enhancing itsvisibility in. the country and m forging andstrengthening the university's relationships with MOFA, farmers, extension staff,NGO's and District Assemblies. Even

though the SAFE program was relativelyyoimg, Maguire observed that someimportant lessons were emerging:1. Partnerships were necessary to solvethe complex task of training agriculturalextension staff in sub-Saharan Africa.

2. Failure of past efforts to establishsustainable and effective extension

systems in sub-Saharan Africa was largelydue to organizations and agencies working alone and fragmenting the process ofbuilding capacity.3. Partnerships between the SAFEprogram and a wide range of donoragencies, organizations and institutionswould be needed to make the programsustainable.

Admitting that change agents couldfeel isolated at the beginning of theprocess of institutional reform, especiallywhen all members of the community were

still to be convinced of the soundness of

the change program or its chances ofsuccess, Maguire encouraged them not tofeel alone, but to seek support from anumber of groups and entities seekinganswers to the problems and challengesposed by the evolving nature of agricultural education. He listed some of these

groups to include: The Global Consortiumof Higher Agricultural Education andResearch; The Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development; FAQ) TheWorld Bank through the AgriculturalKnowledge and Information Systems; andThe Kellogg Foundation.

On partnerships, Maguire said that thereview of the problems and additionalchallenges facing African agriculturaleducation systems strongly indicated thatno single entity could solve the problemsrelated to the relevance, quality andsustamability of the programs alone.Agricultural education institutions andsystems would have to reach out to thebroader education system and partnerwith science, economics, sociology, environment, engineering, education, healthand business departments to design andoffer education programs which wouldattract good-quahty students and make animpact on rural development. He saidpartnerships would also have to be forgedwith donors, NGOs and the private sectorfor, as well as contributing in an intellectual way to education and training, thesestakeholders were employers of theoutput from the system. Emphasizing thatthe time to start change was now, Maguireconcluded that while there were manyexperienced and well-meaning individuals, organizations and firms who couldoffer advice on how best to bring aboutchange in African agricultural universitiesand agricultural education systems, theresponsibility for initiating the processrested with the faculty and administrators

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of agricultural education systems and thatit called for vision and leadership.

The SAFE Initiative

Speaking on the challenges and opportunities facing the Sasakawa Africa Fund forExtension Education (SAFE) initiative,Deola Naibakelao, Director of Sasakawa

Africa Association in Africa, drew participants' attention to the fact that one of themajor pre-requisites for enhancing thepace of agricultural development andfood security in sub-Saharan Africa washuman resource development, especiallyof farmers, researchers and extension

workers. He observed, however, that poortraining, especially of field level extensionstaff, was one of the major factors limitingagricultural development in sub-SaharanAfrica.

Naibakelao said that the SAFE initia

tive was launched by the Sasakawa AfricaAssociation in 1991 to tackle the problemof poor training of extension staff. He saidthat the initiative had the followingcomplementary aims:• to create training opportunities formid-career extension staff, both male and

female, who possess certificates anddiplomas in agriculture and related fieldsto improve upon their technical andhuman relation skills

• to reform agricultural extensioncurricula in selected agricultural imiversi-ties and colleges, and assist them in theacquisition of relevant instructionalmaterials

• to foster networking among agricultural universities participating in theSAFE initiative with the aim of buildingstrong pan-African academic partnershipsfor developing responsive trainingprograms for agricultural extension staff• to train agricultural extension leadersfor extension organizations in sub-SaharanAfrica

• to bring about institutional reformwithin agricultural universities andcolleges, not only in terms of the development of responsive agricultural extensioncurricula, but also the reform of the

institutions themselves

Naibakelao stated that the SAFE

curriculum reform approach emphasizedexperiential learning because the approach was guided by the principle that"experience is the best teacher." Tonurture the philosophy of experientiallearning, he said the SAFE initiative hasplaced great emphasis on a 5- to 8-monthpractical, off-campus, farmer-focusedSupervised Experience/EnterpriseProjects (SEPs).

Touching on challenges and opportunities, Naibakelao said some of the chal

lenges facing the SAFEprogram included:• the lack of a clear extension trainingpolicy in many African countries• inadequate number of well-trained andexperienced teaching staff in the area ofAgricultural Extension in most agricultural universities and colleges in sub-Saharan Africa.

• low number of women extension staff

and little tmderstanding of their trainingneeds

• lack of strong partnerships betweendonors and the various stakeholders or

actors involved in extension activities.

• financial constraints

• problems of sustainability• lack of committed leadership with adear vision of training mid-career professionals.

On opportunities, Naibakelao saidthere was a general appreciation amongthe donor commimity for the need to formpartnerships in developing, funding,implementing, monitoring and evaluatinginnovative and cost-effective extension

programs. He also noted that the trendtoward privatization and decentralization

XVI

in sub-Saharan Africa also presented newopportunities for program diversificationto meet the needs of new clientele.

Concluding, Naibakelao noted thatthere was an urgent need for systemicchange in the agricultural education system on the continent. He observed that the

environment in which extension organizations operated was rapidly changing andcalled for a continuous improvement inthe marmer in which extension staff were

trained to enable them respond to the newchallenges brought about by the changes.

Task Force Reports

Roger Steele of Cornell University provided a summary of four task forceswhich were set up to deliberate on important issues related to the workshop.Pertaining to what they considered to bethe most significant messages heard at theworkshop, the task forces generated eightkey ideas, four of which were:• Every imiversity or college must bewilling to leave its "ivory tower" and seekto be more demand-driven. In particular,they must seek to make their trainingmore relevant to extension workers.

• Every university or college curriculamust be dynamic and adaptable in orderto meet the changing needs of agriculturalextension, but the changes should notjeopardize the quality of higher education.• All universities or colleges mustdiscover ways to effectively partner withvarious levels of government and privatesector for the new programs to be viableand sustainable.

• Children and women must be made

central in these and all agriculturaldevelopment approaches.

With respect to what they considered tobe significant issues that were yet to befully addressed, among the most troublingissues mentioned were:

• It has been very difficult for some

universities and colleges to find sufficientfimding to start SAFE-type programs, andothers are struggling to locate sufficientresources for effective continuation of

existing programs.• Despite some progress, there is still aserious gender imbalance m agriculturaleducation and extension.

• Universities and colleges need morestaff in all areas relevant to training ofextension workers. These staff must be

qualified and equipped to make thetraining more relevant to client needs.• Focusing on mid-career improvementdoes meet an urgent short-term need formore effective extension workers, but, on

the other hand, does not do enough toaddress broader challenges for pre-servicepreparation of future agricultural workers.

The task force groups discussed thepotential roles and strategies for nationalorganizations, bilateral and multilateralorganizations, and NGOs and the privatesector.

Some of the potential roles and strategies that were identified for nationalorganizations included:• playing an advocacy role to promotesupport for responsive agriculturaleducation programs• providing appropriate policies• providing scholarships, study leaveand other forms of financial support• employing graduates and ensuringadequate conditions of service• assisting with formalizing field activities between ministries and universities or

colleges• participating actively—through theMinistry of Education—in the curriculumdevelopment, monitoring, and evaluationprocesses in collaboration with otherpartners

• promoting the incorporation of agricultural education into primary and secondary school curricula

XVII

• encouraging universities and teachers'training colleges to start training moreteachers in the subject matter content ofagriculture and pedagogy so secondaryand primary schools would have anappropriate cadre of qualified professionalteachers

• providing infrastructure (especiallyhousing) to universities for new demand-driven programs• promoting partnerships and interactions between universities and NGOs to

encourage more responsive programs andNGO funding• securing sufficient finances for start-upand operation of mid-career trainingprograms

The potential roles and strategiesidentified by the task force groups forbilateral and multilateral organizationsincluded;

• funding proposals for agriculturaleducation and extension programs,particularly those proposals that arisefrom participatory strategic planningprocesses that have involved their ownrepresentatives• playing a key role in facilitatingdialogue between stakeholders andensuring that agricultural education isseen as a priority at the highest levels ofnational government• encouraging and enabling an increasein the number and quality of humanresource needs assessments, tracer studies,

and other forms of analysis that willrepresent the needs of people at thecommunity level

The task force reports indicated thatNGOs and the private sector could be moreinvolved in the decision-making processin universities and colleges by providinginformation on training needs with theintention of improving relevance and byserving on councils and curriculumplanning and review bodies. Potential

roles identified for NGOs and the privatesector included:

• role as clients or potential employers• role as collaborators (for co-teaching,joint research, extension, demonstrations,etc.), including plarmmg, implementation,monitoring, and evaluation• role as hosts for students during SEPsactivities

• role as sponsors of components of theprogram (e.g., their staff, students, trainers)• role as providers of grants, endowmentetc.

• role as promoters of the program (e.g.,brokerage and lobbying roles).• role as users of knowledge provided byuniversities and colleges

Steele observed in his concludingcomments that rmiversities and collegeswhich decided to be more responsive tocommunity demands would require asignificant change in orientation and ashift in momentum. He noted that those

academic commimities which decided to

move closer to farmers and consumers

would face seemingly insurmoimtableobstacles including passive and activeresistance from many arenas and considerable new investment and reallocation of

existing resources. He added that academic staff would have to be providedwith appropriate incentives and then beenabled and empowered to move some oftheir pedagogic activities off the campusand closer to communities.

Steele drew attention to a pertinent callby workshop participants to rmiversitiesand colleges to change their approach toteaching from the lecture approach to amore practical, problem-based, andmultidisciplinary approach in their effortto produce better graduates for the worldof work. He noted that, overall, the

workshop participants applauded theremarkable efforts that have been made

XVIII

through SAFE-type initiatives in Ghanaand elsewhere. They also enthusiasticallyendorsed the continued experimentation,innovation, and implementation of newmid-career initiatives in other countries

and their respective institutions.

Concluding Remarks

In his concluding remarks NormanBorlaug, president of the Sasakawa AfricaAssociation, shared some of his experiences in agricultural development overmore than five decades with participants.He recounted how earlier efforts in

Mexico had initially focused on researchand later, through the effort of the scientists, evolved to have an extension component. Describing his early experiences inIndia and Pakistan, Borlaug observed thatthere was little or no communication

between research and extension back then.

and noted that this state of affairs had

hindered the transfer of technology.Warning of opposition to change, herecalled that even back then there were

problems and opposition to the development effort that had to be overcome.

Touching on current opposition to change,he cited biased press reports and expressed concern about current over-exaggerated news media reports about theeffects of fertilizer use and the wayfertilizers, which are plant nutrients, arermfairly lumped by the media in the samecategory with insecticides, frmgicides andherbicides, which are toxic chemicalsselected to control certain organisms.

Borlaug lauded the SAFEprogram andall who had worked hard to make it

succeed, and encouraged all to continuewith the effort to build responsive programs.

XIX

•

"i'-mt •• r'S;

WiMK

Welcoming AddressSamuel Kwasi Adjepong

The theme "BringingAfrican Universities and

Colleges more into Agricultural Development" is mostappropriate considering thefact that agriculture is thetrump card of the economies of most developingcountries, particularlythose in sub-Saharan Africa. As the

Executive head of an African universitywhich has set the pace in institutionalstrengthening and capacity building inagricultural extension, I could not help butfeel delighted and privileged to give anopening statement. For obvious reasons,my statement will tend to focus on UCC'scontribution to agricultural developmentthrough its innovative training programfor mid-career agricultural extension staff.I therefore crave your indulgence.

Universities have important roles toplay in national development, particularlyin developing responsive training programs for various sectors of the economy.They have a duty to develop trainingprograms that match their curricula withthe actual work environment their stu

dents will find when they leave theinstitutions. There seems to be skepticismas to whether the curricula of most

African universities, especially agricul-

tural universities and

colleges, address the actualproblems faced by ruraldwellers most of whom are

farmers. Many Africanuniversities are preoccupied with the need touphold "academic rigor" atthe expense of offering

responsive programs that deal with thereal needs of the larger society withinwhich they are based.

To address the problem of the lack ofresponsive training programs for mid-career agricultural extension staff inAfrica, Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA)launched the Sasakawa African Frmd for

Extension Education (SAFE) in 1992 incollaboration with Winrock International

Institute for Agricultural Development, anon-profit, non-governmental organization based in Arkansas, USA. This initia

tive seeks, in the long term, to bring aboutreform within African universities, not

only in terms of the development ofresponsive agricultural extension curricula, but also the reform of the institu

tions themselves. Thus, the SAFE initiative

strengthens the in-country capacity ofAfrican universities as adaptable organizations, capable of developing client-focused training programs, and mobiliz-

Samuel Kwasi Adjepong is the Vice-Chancellor University of Cape Coast, Ghana.

ing internal and external resources tosustain the programs. Another dimensionof the initiative is to encourage Africanimiversities and colleges to forge partnerships with other local and internationalinstitutions and agencies.

The SAFE program was launched atthe University of Cape Coast (UCC) inOctober 1993, in response to a requestfrom the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and with support fromSAA, Winrock International and

Sasakawa-Global 2000. The Ministryrequested UCC to design and offer aneed-based B.Sc.Degree program inAgricultural Extension for mid-careerextension staff in Ghana who possessedDiploma and Certificate credentials.These levels of extension staff were

targeted for the program because theyconstituted more than 85% of field staff

of the extension services in Ghana, and

provided the best opportimity for bothshort-term and long-tern development ofhigh-quality staff for field work. Besides,these extension staff would not be

looking for jobs upon completion of theirstudies as they would be on study leavefrom the Ministry and NGOs and therefore would return to their place of workupon the completion of their studies.

The uniqueness of the SAFE programis that it is largely based on off-campussupervised enterprise projects (SEPs).After a period of training on the university campus, students return to theirwork environments to undertake a 4 to 6

month off-campus SEP. The SEP facilitates experiential learning as well aslinkages between the major subsystemsof the agricultural knowledge system,namely: (1) the farmer subsystem,including agribusiness, (2) the extensionand education subsystem, and (3) theresearch subsystem. The SEPs componentof the SAFE initiative is what makes it

different from other existing academicprograms in the University.

The program is enhancing UCC'svisibihty outside the walls of the university. It is also forging and strengtheningthe University's relationships withMOFA, farmers, agricultural extensionstaff, NGOs, and District Assemblies in

Ghana. The UCC lecturers who are

associated with the SAFE program nowget greater exposure to the farmingcommunities across the country throughtheir involvement, as supervisors, of theoff-campus SEPs. The involvement of thelecturers in the SEPs serves as a means of

enabling them to match theory with real-life experiences in the diverse contexts ofthe agricultural sector in Ghana.

The experiences that have been gainedover the past 7 years in the implementation of the program have posed a fewchallenges and these, I must say, werevaguely foreseen at the inception of theprogram. They include the need for:• a re-orientation of staff (both teachingand non-teaching) of theUniversity's School of Agriculture toenable them to better appreciate thebenefits of the new system• continuous monitoring and documentation of the program's impact• gender mainstreaming through theadmission of more females into the

programs

• building partnerships with groups,both public and private, to help accelerate the spread of the benefits of theprogram

I must add that UCC, with the col

laboration and support of the SAA,Winrock International and MOFA, has

come a long way in confronting thesechallenges in order to increase the impactand sustainability of the program.

It is in the light of the above that we atthe UCC very much value our relation-

ship with MOFA, SAA and WinrockInternational. Indeed we are still workingon forging partnerships with otherinstitutions and agencies such as FAO, theCanadian International DevelopmentAgency, the African Development Bank,the International Fxmd for AgriculturalDevelopment, the German DevelopmentCooperation, the United States Agency for

International Development and the WorldBank.

It is our hope that this workshop willgive a fresh impetus to the efforts aimed atbringing many more African Universitiesand colleges into the enterprise of developing the human resource base foradvancing and maintaining agriculturalgrowth in Africa.

Introductory CommentsYohei Sasakawa

It is my utmost pleasure tobe given a chance to speakin front of you today. Thereare three reasons why I amso pleased. First, manypeople are beginning toshare what has long beenmy personal belief: thatabove all else, agriculture isthe single most crucial enterprise in aUofsub-Saharan Africa, and thus the key tothe development of African nations.Second, the methods we have employedto dramatically boost the productivity ofAfrican agriculture are at least beingwidely recognized by many. Third, it'sbecause 1am speaking to you here inGhana, the very first country where theSasakawa Global 2000 program waslaimched 14 years ago, and where theSasakawa Africa Fimd for Extension

Education (SAFE) program was initiatedin 1992 at the University of Cape Coast.

When my late father, RyoichiSasakawa, held the first Conference on

African Famine in Geneva in 1985 imme

diately after the famine tragedy in Ethiopia, most people were not enthusiasticabout the future of agriculture on thiscontinent. But we were of a totally different opinion. We were convinced that since

of the total populationworked in agriculture, itwould not be possible tomeet the goal of sustainable development withoutimproving agriculture. Tostate it briefly, we believedthere would be no happiness in Africa imtil all the

empty stomachs were filled. And so in1986, the year following the GenevaConference, we launched our first SG2000

project aimed at dramatically increasingthe productivity of the sorghum andmaize harvests here in Ghana rmder the

strong leadership of Dr. Norman Borlaug.Today some African leaders of vision,

who are exemplary in their open-mindedness, share our developmentgoals. These include President Rawlmgs ofGhana, President Obasanjo of Nigeria,Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia, formerPresident Soglo of Benin, and others. Theyhave all come to understand that the

starting pomt for better lives is agriculture. When 1met with President Obasanjoin Nigeria last March, 1made him aproposition, "Let us work together toorganize an agricultural summit meetingin the coming year to tackle possible waysto further increase productivity in the

this was a continent where more than 70% agricultural sector." President Obasanjo

Yohei Sasakawa is the President of The Nippon Foundation.

immediately said, "Yes" to this proposal,and preparations are now rmderway, ledby Mr. Jean Freymond, Director of theCenter for Applied Studies in International Negotiations (CASIN). If thesummit takes place, and I am sure it wUl, Ican think of no better way to commemorate a new millermium on this continent.

This change in policy priorities inAfrica is one reason that I am so happytoday. A further cause for my happinesscan be attributed to Dr. Norman Borlaug.His method of doubling or even triplingagricultural productivity has been provento work in Africa. I will not go into detailsince it has been so brilliantly exhibited inmany places already. It was Dr. Borlaug'sphilosophy of "going from the laboratoryinto the field" that fueled the success of

our SG2000 project. The success was supported by the efforts of dedicated countrydirectors and hard working extensionworkers in the 11 countries.

Now, let me focus on another prospect—capacity building in the agriculturalsector—which makes me happy, andwhich also is the objective of today'sworkshop. I have already pointed out thatwithout the hard-working extensionpeople, our program could not havesucceeded. But in the past, not much effortwas put into re-training these people to ahigher level of knowledge and skills. Also,there has been much discussion about the

damage that "brain-drain" imposes onmany African nations, but this discussionhas almost never resulted in concrete

suggestions to change the situation. TheSAFE program was designed and implemented to solve some of these longstanding problems with frontline extension staff. The program started here inGhana at Cape Coast University in 1992

and expanded to three other universitiesin the years that followed. Now we have216 graduates with a BS-equivalentdegrees who have returned to the field.The number of these students currentlystudying in Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda andTanzania is 252. This an amazing achievement!

Our work is based upon the principlethat the development of Africa must beattained through the self-help efforts bythe African people themselves. For this,we need to bring out the talent andcapability of people in Africa. Weneed tonurture people with talent and capabilitywho, at the same time, can work in thefield with farmers sharing the burden andsweating at work together. Weneed moretalented, knowledgeable and trainedpeople who, rather than confining themselves to ivory towers, "go from thelaboratory into the field," as Dr. NormanBorlaug says.

There is a saying in Asia, "If your planis for 1 year, plant crops; for 10 years,grow trees; but if your plan is for 100years, educate the people." We have here aplan for both 1 year and 100years. Buteven without waiting for those 100 yearsto pass, I am sure that we will see ourefforts bear fruit on this remarkable

continent.

In conclusion, I would like to conveythree messages here. First, agriculture isthe most important industry in Africa.Second, the methodology is already there.All we need is the political will to actualize it in the field. And third, the education

and training of people is the most crucialfactor in implementing this process. Let usmove on. Let us put our energies together.Let us work together for the bright futureof all African countries.

opening StatementJ. H. Owusu-Acheampong

The theme of the work

shop, "Bringing AfricanUniversities and Collegesmore into AgriculturalDevelopment," is very dearto my heart. The economiesof Ghana and a majority ofthe coimtries in sub-

Saharan Africa are based

on agriculture. Agriculture and its alliedservices constitute the main occupation ofthe people of Africa.

One of the fundamental constraints of

food production and food security in sub-Saharan Africahas been the inadequateand inappropriate training of agriculturalextension staff. Many studies, includingthose by FAQ, point out that 56% and 32%of the estimated 150,000 extension staff in

Africa possess academic quahfications atsecondary and intermediate levels,respectively. It is also estimated that theratio of extension staff to farmers is about

1:2000. Due to this situation, the effective

education of our subsistence farmers that

could ensure the integration of innovations into their farming systems is lacking.

Technological changes in agricultureare accelerating rapidly and getting morecomplex. However, our extension staff—the men and women who work with

farmers at the field level—lack the neces

sary skills in agriculturalproduction and extensioncommunication to copewith these changes. Therefore, it is very important tostrengthen the capacities ofAfrican universities and

colleges to develop responsive, demand-driven

curricula at all levels.

To improve the technical and humanrelations skills of our extension staff, theUniversity of Cape Coast in collaborationwith the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Sasakawa Africa Association and

Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, developed andlaimched an innovative B.Sc. AgriculturalExtension program in 1993. SasakawaAfrica Association has provided technicaland financial support to this programsince it was laxmched in 1993 under the

Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension

Education (SAFE).I am especially pleased to inform this

body that in 1999SAA also began to assistthe Ministry of Food and Agriculture inthe implementation of a similar SAFEprogram at the Diploma level at KwadasoAgricultural College in Kumasi.

It is my understanding that the Diploma program at the Kwadaso Agricul-

J. H. Owusu-Acheampong is Ghana's Minister of Food and Agriculture.

tural College is an offshoot of the B.Sc.Agricultural Extension program at theUniversity of Cape Coast and is, therefore,affiliated to the University of Cape Coast. Iam also informed that the University ofCape Coast will be awarding the diplomasto graduates from the Kwadaso program.

At this moment, when most of the

universities in Ghana are doing away withtheir diploma programs in agriculture, it ismost opportune for our Ministry to rrmthis diploma program at the KwadasoAgricultural College to ensure regularsupply of quahfied sub-professionalofficers to the sector. It is envisaged thatthe Kwadaso program is a prelude to theturning of all agricultural colleges in thecountry into diploma awarding institutions in conformity with theGovernment's education reform policy.

I cannot complete my speech withoutpaying glowing tribute to our partners—the University of Cape Coast, SasakawaAfrica Association and Winrock Interna

tional Institute for Agricultural Development—for the diverse ways they havecontributed toward the development andimplementation of the AgriculturalExtension program at both the Universityof Cape Coast and Kwadaso AgriculturalCollege.

It is my pleasure to armormce that sincethe launching of the Degree program in1993, 76 graduates have benefited from it

and are now serving the nation. Currently,there are 78 students studying at theuniversity for the B.Sc. degree in Agricultural Extension while 35 students are

studying for Diplomas in AgriculturalExtension at Kwadaso AgriculturalCollege.

The University of Cape Coast must bepraised for being responsive to thetraining needs of our Ministry and fortaking the risk to offer such a program.The dedication of the Vice-Chancellor and

the staff of the University of Cape Coastcontributed immensely toward the successof the program. Without the substantialfinancial and logistical support fromSasakawa Africa Association and the

technical support of Wmrock International, the programs could not have beenimplemented at both institutions inGhana. I therefore entreat all the partnersto continue working together as a team toachieve the noble objectives of the program.

I am convinced that this group ofnational and international experts willhave honest exchanges of ideas at thisworkshop and come up with pragmaticand strategic recommendations that willenable our rmiversities in Ghana and other

African cormtries to develop responsiveprograms to help bring about sustainableagricultural development and improveupon the lives of our people.

Opening StatementEkow Spio-Garbrah

Nothing is more gratifyingthan the commitment on

the part of the SasakawaAfrican Association and

this impressive galaxy ofagricultural experts,eminent scholars, seasoned

agronomists and policymakers to rededicate

themselves to the task of harnessing thevast agricultural resources of the Africancontinent to end the hunger and economicmisery which millions of Africans face.

To all participanfs, delegates andfriends of Ghana and indeed of Africa

who have come from far and near, let mesay Akwaaba to Africa's most hospitablenation. You are welcome to Ghana's

tourist attractions, particularly the ancientforts with their famous European-builtslave dungeons, the beautiful waterfalls,the vast stretches of sandy beaches, andabove all the friendliness of the people.

This Workshop, "Bringing AfricanUniversities and Colleges more intoAgricultural Development," could nothave been organized at a more auspicioustime. We are in an era when Africa, in

spife of its vast agricultural and humanresources, is said to have 37 of the world's

48 poorest countries. In the midst of

and soils rich with mineral

and other natural re

sources—Africa has 50% of

its population living inabsolute poverty. This isthe stark reality that weface as Africans.

The theme of this

workshop is therefore veryimportant because the foundation of theeconomies of the cormtries in sub-Saharan

Africa is essentially based on agriculture.Owing to this reality, our universities andcolleges should play more proactive rolesin the process of ensuring sustainableagricultural development on the continent. The other sectors of our continent's

economy cannot develop at an acceleratedpace unless agriculture is well developed.

Agriculture, in addition to providingfood for a nation's population, also playsvery critical roles in job and employmentcreation, poverty alleviation, industrialization, political stability and good governance. A hungry man, it is said, is anangry man. Ghana has committed itselfto the task of becoming a middle-incomecountry by the year 2020. Making thisvision a reality will depend upon ourability to develop the agricultural sectoras the backbone of fhe economy. This

plenty—the vast stretches of forest lands demandsa policy framework which

Ekow Spio-Garbrah is Ghana's Minister of Education.

addresses technological needs, injection ofcapital, training programs, efficient use ofresearch findings and data and review ofcurricula to make them relevant and

responsive to the nation's needs.As my colleague, the Minister of Food

and Agriculture, has already pointed outin his statement, technological development in agriculture is changing rapidlyand getting more complex. However, themen and women who work with our

peasant farmers lack training opportunities to develop the necessary technical andhuman relations skills to enable them to

cope with the changes taking place inagriculture in this new millennium. Evenin the few cases where training opportunities are available, the curricula are mostlytheoretical in nature and not responsive tothe work environment in which they findthemselves after the completion of theirstudies.

One way of addressing this problem isto ensure that the farm remains an indivis

ible unit. It is a fact that most secondaryand tertiary institutions in Africa occupyvast acres of land that students and

teachers could utilize for agriculturalproduction as part of agricultural trainingto help subsidize the costs of feedingstudents. Along this vein, it is importantfor agricultural universities and collegesto seek a good balance between theoryand hands-on practical activities in theirtraining programs.

I am happy to learn that severalimiversities and colleges in Africa, including the University of Cape Coast (UCC)and Kwadaso Agricultural College inGhana, are revising their curricula inorder to make them responsive to theneeds of the various clients in the agriculture sector, including the staff who workwith our farmers in Africa. This is highlycommendable.

Unlike basic education programs that

are supply-driven, agricultural extensionprograms are largely voluntary anddemand-driven. Therefore, the extension

training programs being offered in ouruniversities and colleges must take on lifelong learning orientation and focus ondistance education opportunities forextension staff who may wish to takeuniversity and college courses by distanceeducation.

One of the problems of the institutionsof higher education in Africa is their lackof attention to the need to document and

disseminate their experiences. Withoutproper documentationand sharing ofexperiences gained, it is difficultto makeclaims to the success or impact of programs. In this vein, it is absolutelynecessary that lecturers and researchersfindtime to visit pre-tertiary institutions togive talks on their researchfindings andthe success stories behind the programsthey are running. Workshops could beorganized for teachers of these institutionsto update their professional skills andknowledge and also help them educatetheir students on some of the new programs being offered in tertiary institutions.

1wish to urge the universities andcolleges that are offering innovativeagricultural extension training programsto take time to document their experiencesin the form of case studies which clearlypoint out the strengths, weaknesses,problems or challenges in running suchprograms. Such case studies wouldprovide vital information for programimprovement and also provide usefuliasights to guide other universities andcolleges that may be interested in offeringsimilar programs.

1am especially pleased to learn that theinnovative programs in agriculturaleducation are not focused solely onuniversity degrees but also on the diploma

9

level at the agricultural colleges. Themajority of the extension staff in Africa arecertificateholders who need to be upgraded to the diploma level. Let mecommend the Ministry of Food andAgriculture for taking this bold step to runa diploma program in agricultrual extension at Kwadaso Agricultural College toensure regular supply of sub-professionalofficers to the sector. We all hope that thenew diploma program at KwadasoAgricultural College will be a prelude tothe turning of all agricultural collegesinthe country into diploma awardinginstitutions in conformity with ourGovernment's education reform policy.Wewill work with the Ministry of Foodand Agriculture to make this policy areahty.

Beyond this collaboration, there oughtalso to be a policy framework that enablesand facilitates a linkage of universitycourses to realities outside the universityi.e., industry, conunercial production,packaging etc. This makes it pertinent forprivate farming companies to offerstudents an opportunity for field trips,study tours, weekend excursions, or betterstill, internships, attachments, work-studyarrangements or vacation employment.

Agriculture is not just about gainingknowledge in the subject, imdertakingresearch and developing curricula, it ispractically about producing enough food

for the people. Africans need nutritiousand well-balanced food at affordable

prices. The hoe and the cutlass can nolonger be used to feed the teeming population of the continent. The time has come

for African agricultural engineers to put astop to the clamor for advanced technology produced elsewhere. Consciousefforts must be made to develop simplebut efficient, reliable and affordable

agricultural implements as has been donein India and China. These two countries

have succeeded in developing technologies that contribute immensely to feedtheir people. While globalization willdefinitely encourage the importation oruse of technologies developed elsewhere,we must strive to internalize and domesti

cate these technologies for effectiveagricultural development and foodproduction.

Let me end my address by taking thisopportunity to extend my sincere thanksand appreciation to the University of CapeCoast, Sasakawa Africa Association and

Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development for being responsive to the training needs of our nation inthe field of agricultural extension and forproviding leadership for other universitieswho have launched similar programs. Ihope all the stakeholders will continue towork together in partnerships to achievethe objectives of the program.

10

opening AddressJohn Evans Atta Mills

Before I continue, pleaserise and join me to observea minute's silence in

memory of a good friend ofGhana, the late RyoichiSasakawa, through whosetireless efforts and financial

support the Sasakawa-Global 2000 agriculturalinitiative was launched in sub-Saharan

Africa.

The SG2000 programs have had atremendous impact in Ghana since theystarted in 1986.1 am convinced that if the

late Mr. Sasakawa were here today, hewould be pleased to see the progressbeing made in agricultural developmentin Ghana and the other coimtries where

SG2000 has intervened.

We are honored to have in our midst

today two very special people who are nostrangers to Ghana. The first is Mr. YoheiSasakawa, the President of NipponFoundation of Japan. As the President ofthe Nippon Foundation, he has continuedto cormnit his energy and financialresources to the SG2000 programs andother humanitarian works begim by hislate father, Ryoichi Sasakawa. The secondperson is Dr. Norman Borlaug, the eminent world agricultural scientist, NobelLaureate, father of the Green Revolution

in Asia and also President

of the Sasakawa Africa

Association. Dr. Norman

Borlaug has devoted mostof his energy in his retirement years to providingleadership for the effectiveimplementation of SG2000programs in sub-Saharan

Africa. We are fortunate to have with us

such distinguished individuals and theirassociates who share our common com

mitment to improving agricultural andrural development in Africa.

As you are aware, the SG2000 initiativein Africa is a partnership between theSasakawa Africa Association (SAA) in

Tokyo, Japan and the Global 2000programof the Carter Center in Atlanta, USA. SAA

is responsible for program managementwhile Global 2000 provides the enablingpolicy and political environment tounderscore the SG2000 program activities.I therefore wish to take this opportunity toalso acknowledge the role of the formerPresident of the United States of America,

Jimmy Carter, in establishing the SG2000program in Africa. President Carter,another longstanding friend of Ghana, hasbeen working selflessly to uplift thedisadvantaged in Africa, particularly inthe areas of food security, housing.

John Evans Atta Mills is the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana.

11

primary health care ar\d good goverr\ance.It is most encouraging to see a wide

range of eminent national and international experts at this workshop to share inthe deliberations and exchange ideas onthe role of African rmiversities and

colleges in agricultural development.Our rmiversities and colleges must

develop training programs that areresponsive to the rapidly changing needsof the African continent. Gone are the

days when universities and collegesoffered programs merely for the sake ofintellectual development or safe desk jobs.Agricultural universities and collegesmust offer programs that prepare graduates to go beyond production agricultureand embrace other off-farm career opportunities such as marketing, processing,food distribution systems, and consumerconcerns about cost, quality, and environmental effects of agricultural systems.Such training programs should alsoenable the graduates to face the realities oftheir own environment and make positivechanges within their societies, includingthe willingness to work in fields withfarmers in their difficult circumstances.

Hands-on practical training, particularlyoff-campus activities involving community-based problem solving must be givenmore attention in the training of agriculturists in our universities and colleges.

When the SG2000programs wereinitiated in Ghana in 1986the emphasiswas mainly on assisting small-scalefarmers to obtain improved yields in foodcrops, especially maize and sorghumthrough improved seeds and simple buteffective farming techniques. The humanresource development component,especially the training of our extensionstaff—the men and women who work

with farmers at the field level—was not

emphasized. This was later perceived as amajor missing link in the SG2000 initia

tive. Therefore, in 1991 SAA, in collaboration with Winrock International Institute

for Agricultural Development, larmchedthe Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension

Education (SAFE) to correct this shortcoming in the SG2000 programs. The SAFEprogram provides assistance to selectedagricultural universities and colleges insub-Saharan Africa in reforming theiragricultural education and extensioncurricula in order to make them responsive to the training needs of agriculturalsector clients—farmers, rural developmentorganizations, and agribusiness. SAA alsofosters networking among the participating African agricultural universities andcolleges with the aim of building strongpan-African academic partnerships todevelop responsive training programs foragricultural extension staff.

Ghana was the first country to benefitfrom the SAFE program. A B.Sc. programin agricultural extension was initiated atthe University of Cape Coast in 1993 and aDiploma program was launched atKwadaso Agricultural College in Kumasiin 1999. The program at Kwadaso isaffiliated to the University of Cape Coastfrom where diplomas will be awarded tothe graduates from the Kwadaso program.Some of our universities in Ghana initiallyresisted the idea of offering this specialprogram for our mid-career extension stafffor fear of lowering their academicstandards. The University of Cape Coastagreed to collaborate with the Ministry ofFood and Agriculture, SAA, and WinrockInternational to offer this innovative

program. 1wish to take this opportimityto commend the Vice-Chancellor of the

University of Cape Coast, Prof. S. K.Adjepong, and his staff for taking the riskin offering such an innovative and demand-driven training program in Ghana.

It is gratifying to learn that universitiesand colleges in other African cormtries.

12

including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali,Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, haveadopted the University of Cape Coastmodel in designing training programs formid-career agricultural extension staff intheir respective cormtries. These areconcrete examples of how African imiver-sities and colleges can become morecloselyinvolved in agricultural development. Even though there are only a fewAfrican countries currently offeringinnovative training programs for mid-career agricultural extension staff, Ibelieve that there will be a visible and

significant change in the near future.Many revolutions around the world beganwith a minority of people who had a clearvision and were committed to make that

vision work.

The majority of our people reside in therural areas and depend mainly on agriculture for their livelihood. The problems ofthe rural areas are multi-faceted and

diverse, including problems of foodinsecurity, poor housing, a high incidenceof preventable diseases, and high illiteracyrates. This is why the government ofGhana has devoted considerable attention

to agriculture and rural development andinfrastructure during the last two decades.

Our Medium-Term AgriculturalDevelopment Strategy (MTADS), forexample, placed emphasis on institutionalstrengthening, investment in rural infrastructure, efficient agricultural researchand extension services, promotion ofmarket-oriented agriculture, biodiversityand efficient management of naturalresources. While the review of the impactof the MTADS may be mixed, it has drawnnational and international attention to the

need to invest more in agriculture andrural development as a means of bringingabout sustainable development in Ghana.

Our universities and colleges shoulddevelop new and more responsive pro

grams or revise existing programs in orderto make them multi-disciplinary andresponsive to the needs of our societies.Multi-disciplinary programs are the trendof the future because they offer students awide range of opportunities to deal withthe complex and rapidly changing worldin which we find ourselves in this new

millennium.

From the list of workshop participants,I note that there are Vice-Chancellors and

Deans of Faculties of Agriculture fromseveral reputable African universities andcolleges attending this workshop. I urgeyou, both individually and collectively, touse this time to take stock of your varioustraining programs and see how they canbe made more responsive to the changingneeds of our respective countries.

I strongly believe that in order forAfrican universities and colleges to makea meaningful impact on agriculturaldevelopment there must be strategicalliances and partnerships betweengovernments, public and private institutions and organizations, donor agenciesand technical assistance agencies. Governments cannot do it alone, especially giventhe difficult economic circumstances in

which we all find ourselves. Where there

is a common vision and committed

leadership, partnerships are sure tosucceed. The success of the joint SG2000and SAFEprograms between the government of Ghana on the one hand and SAA,

Global 2000 and Winrock International on

the other, provides an outstanding example of fruitful collaboration.

I am pleased that this importantinternational workshop is being held inGhana in recognition of our humbleefforts to improve upon the living conditions of the people in our country and theAfrican continent. In the light of the highcaliber of the participants at this workshop, I am convinced that you will have

13

fruitful discussions and that the conclu- translated into practical action. On thissions and recommendations that will hopeful note I now have the honor toemerge from this workshop will be declare this international workshop open.

14

KEYNOTE ADDRESS:

Why Rural Human Development MattersG. Edward Schuh

I have set my sights ratherbroadly in terms of theassignment that has beengiven me. I realize that thetitle of the Workshopaddresses the issue of

bringing African universities and colleges more fullyinto the process of agricultural development. 1also realize that thedescriptive material for the Workshopgives a lot of attention to the training ofextension agents. However, the title of mypaper is much broader than that, and 1have thus cast my net amply.

Universities in the region have asignificant role to play in many dimensions of rural human development. Inaddition to playing an important role inthe direct production of some of thehuman capital that is critical to the development of agriculture and the rest of theeconomy, they also have a responsibihtyto provide the leadership for the development of lower-level institutions that

provide education and training and thusengage in human development morebroadly. That leadership role is not alwaysan easy role to play, especially when theeducational institutions are boimd up in

complex bureaucraticarrangements.

• .'///« An important part of my. U remarks will focus on the

various forms of human

capital and on how itcontributes to the development and modernization of

agriculture. That will, ofnecessity, entail a discussion of the formaleducational and vocational systems, aswell as vocational training in the region.However, given that human developmentalso involves the adequacy of health andnutrition, I will have some brief comments

on those issues. In addition, my agendawill include the role of the household in

human development and what we mightdo to strengthen the capacity of thehousehold to produce human development and human capital. It will also go asfar as to discuss the role of the universities

and colleges in promoting the division oflabor and specialization that is so essentialfor economic development.

Formal Education and

Agricultural Development

A useful place to consider the importanceof human development is with formal

G. Edward Schuh is Regents Professorof International Economic Policy,University of Minnesota, and Orviiieand Jane Freeman Professor of internationalTrade and Investment Policy, the University's Humphrey institute of Public Affairs.

15

education or schooling. Empirical researchhas shown us that education and the

cognitive skills it helps to develop contributes to production in a number of ways.First, we have learned that workers with

more formal schooling were more productive in physical terms, independently ofany other change the increased schoolingmight bring about. The late Zvi Grilichesdocumented this with his work on the

aggregate production function for U.Sagriculture. In that work he showed thatthe coefficient for the variable measuringeducation was exactly the same as thecoefficient for the physical measure oflabor in the sector. That meant that

increasing the level of schooling of theagricultural labor force had the same effectas increasing the number of workers in thesector. That was a very important finding,for it documented in an important way theimportance of education in improving thequality of the labor force.

A second dimension to the contribution

of education is that it enables the farmer to

make more efficient use of the resources

he has available to him or her, includinghis own labor. It is the cognitive skills thatthe individual acquires from schoolingthat enables him or her to bring about thisincrease in efficiency. An important issuein this case is that as long as traditionalproduction techniques are being used,there is little to be gained, in this sense,from the additional education. The

techniques of production will be unchanging, and there will be little to be gainedfrom re-organizing the resources used inproduction. Once new technology isavailable, however, the need to combine

the available resources in new ways willbe important. If the farmer does not leamhow to recombine his resources the

potential gains from the new technologywill be lost.

There is a corollary here that is very

similar to that associated with makingmore efficient use of the resources at hand.

As long as there is no new productiontechnology being made available to theproducer the returns from this contribution of education will be rather low.

However, as more new productiontechnology is made available, the rate ofreturn to education from this contribution

will be higher. This complementaryrelationship between education and newproduction technology is very important.It probably explainswhy at early stages ofdevelopment it is difficult to see whyinvestments in education are important, atleast from an economic perspective.

A third contribution of education or

formal schooling relates to new production technologies that are produced fromagricultural research programs and thatneed to be decoded by farmers if they areto use it. The cognitive skills developed byformal schooling are critical to this decoding. The cognitive skills, however, includemore than literacy and the ability to readthe instructions on the new packages. Itincludes the ability to gain understandingof how the new technology contributes toproduction, and the need to learn how toadapt it to the local conditions on theindividual farm.

Finally, Professor Schultz had enormous insight in teaching us about entre-preneurship and disequilibrium economics. Under this rubric, the role of cognitiveskills again comes to the fore. Moreover,we come back to what happens when aneconomy begins to experience change,either from the introduction of new

production technology, or from changes inthe economy or other sources. Thesechanges, or these shocks, create disequilib-ria in the economy, since the adjustmentprocess will tend to lag behind thatrequired from the original shock. Cognitive skills enable individuals to exploit

16

these disequilibria, and to garner personalgains in income from so doing. Note,however, that it isn't just the individualthat benefits. Society as a whole benefitsfrom making a more efficient use of theresources. Furthermore, note that an

important component of the benefits werefer to from exploiting these disequilibriais derived from entrepreneurship. Manyhave argued that one cannot teach entrepreneurship. However, developingcognitiveskills can certainly make existingentrepreneurial talents more effective.

Related issues

There are two related issues that can be

considered at this point in my remarks. Sofar I have concentrated on the role of

schooling and formal education and itscontribution to agricultural development.However, schooling has another important contribution to make. As I have

argued elsewhere, if agricultural modernization is successful, a significant share ofthe agricultural labor force will have toseek employment elsewhere if it is to earnincomes comparable to what labor earnselsewhere in the economy, and if theprocess of modernization is to be sustained. An important role of educationand schooling is to help prepare membersof the important contributions in terms ofalleviating rural poverty.

Ironically, this is a two-edged sword.As noted above, education and schoolingraises the productivity of labor in agriculture. In the first instance, that increases thedemand for those commodities. The

increase will thus tend to drive down the

price of the commodity, and in turn, willreduce the demand for labor. Hence, ineffectthe labor is driven out of agricultureby what takes place in the commoditymarkets. This mechanism makes the

education of the rural population all themore important.

Finally, there is the issue of vocationaltraining. In a sense, this is the corollary offormal education and schooling and theimportance of cognitive skills. Whilerecognizing the importance of vocationaltraining, I have not given it a large role inmy remarks because in practice it isdifficult to separate the development ofcognitive skills and vocational skills fromeach other. In fact, there is a continuingcontroversy in the education field overwhether the two can in fact be separated.For now, I would just say that thesevocational or applied skills are terriblyimportant in raising the productivity oflabor in agriculture, and that the development of vocational skills are equallyimportant in preparing the rural population for employment in the non-farmsector.

The Role of the Household

A great deal of human development takesplace in the household, although development economists have been slow to

recognize that. When we think abouthuman development, however, we areaware of the production of children in thehousehold, the provision of adequatenutrition to provide for strong, healthybodies and minds, including cognitiveskills, and the importance of good health,yet we don't always recognize the role ofthe household in producing it, or ofmaking it possible.

Even less seldom is it recognized that agreat deal of the development of cognitiveand vocational skills takes place in thehousehold, the development of these skillstakes place almost every day in the life ofa household, and the "teacher" typicallyinvolves almost all members of the

household. In fact, there is anotherimportant complementary relationshipthat takes place here. The higher the levelof education and training of members of

17

the household the greater will be theircontribution to the production anddevelopment of these skills in the household. Some of the evidence for this point isthat the eventual success of children is

determined in large part by the educationof the caring parent, which tends to be thewoman.

There is another important issue,however, and that involves the importance of the time constraint in the house

hold. Our general failure to recognize thatthe household is equivalent to a firmproducing goods and services for themembers of the household causes us to

neglect the productivity of time in thehousehold as critical for the women in the

household. In the case of farming, thewoman typically does a lot of the work onthe farm, which is in addition to the timespent in household activities.

There is an important dynamic thattakes place in the household that needs tobe given more attention. Under a ratherwide range of conditions in sub-Saharanagriculture the man leaves the householdto take employment elsewhere in the non-farm sector. That requires that the womanplay a more important role in the farmactivities. With time limited to 24 hours a

day, that means that often the time of thewoman is pulled away from the household activities, which as I have argued, isimportantly engaged in the production ofthe human capital for the family.

Two things are important in thiscontext, and yet are typically neglected indevelopment programs. The first is theimportance of the production technologyused in the household. Agriculturaldevelopers tend, appropriately, to put a lotof attention on the availability of newproduction technology for the productionof the farm commodities. Less seldom do

they recognize the importance of a suitable new production technology for the

household. If that new technology weremade available, it would not only relievethe drudgery of much of the work thewoman tjqjically does in the household, itwould also raise her productivity so thattime would be released for giving moreattention to the production of the humancapital.

The related issue is the neglect ofproviding education for the women andgirls in the household. Given that thewoman is responsible for most of theeffort devoted to the production of thehuman capital in the household, she needsthe cognitive skills for these activities inthe same way they are needed in theproduction of the farm products. Sheneeds to decode the household technol

ogy,and if she is the person responsiblefor the farm production activities, sheneeds it for decoding the technology forthe farm imit as well. Moreover, if she has

the literacy and cognitive skills, she canread and provide improved health andimproved nutrition.

Finally, there has been a recent trendtoward having female extension agentsbecause of the important role Africanwomen play in agricultural production.An equally strong, and perhaps evenstronger case can be made for extensionagents who teach the women more aboutthe household technology. This wouldinclude knowledge on health, sanitation,nutrition, and the ability to make moreeffective use of their time.

Universities and Colleges

Africa has some fine colleges and universities, and some of them have scientistsand other knowledge agents who are closeto the frontiers of knowledge. Not manyof these colleges and universities however,have taken on the responsibility of beingchange agents in society. One of the greatengines of economicgrowth in the United

h

States has been the land grant universities,with their triple mission of teaching,research, and education. Although limitedin the begirming to state-supported publicuniversities, the concept of the land grantmission has spread, and today one seldomfinds a imiversity, private or public, thatdoes not have the main elements of the

land grant university as the basis of itsprograms.

At the same time, the essence of the

land grant concept, and one that is neglected today even in universities identified as land grants, is the sense of institutional mission those universities originallyhad. They were created with a mission ofproviding higher-level education to thesons and daughters of farmers and ofindustrial workers. That was a revolution

ary concept at the time, and one that isstill not widely adopted in other countries,where higher-level education tends to bereserved for the sons and daughters ofthe elite.

The second mission of the land grants,added decades later, was that of re

search—the production of new knowledge. The addition of that mission madethe universities a dynamic force in society.The important point is that this missionhad a problem-solving dimension to it,one that helped make the universitiespowerful agents for change and development. Then later, it was realized that if the

new knowledge was to be effective it hadto be extended to the private sector, and inparticular to the producers.

The genius of this system was two-fold.The first was the sense of mission these

universities were given. The land grantswere to be agents of change, and to helpsolve the ever-changing problems ofsociety. The second element of genius wasthe integration of the three fimctions inone institution. The complementaritiesamong the three functions are great, and

the integration of the three functions inthe same institution has been an efficient

way of delivering the three services.My point is not to make the case for the

land grant concept in Africa, although Ithink it has much to offer to Africa coun

tries. The key element is to link the threefunctions, or to integrate them, eventhough each function may be embeddedin separate organizations or institutions.

When we think about a university orcollege we tend to think first about theeducation of students. There are manythings we could discuss about this, but themain thing I would like to emphasize isthe importance of transmitting newknowledge form the frontier of knowledge, while at the same time making surethat the knowledge provided is relevant tothe problems of society. It is easy foracademic faculty to think that the university or college is there to serve theirinterests. The truth of the matter is that the

universities, especially public imiversities,are there to serve the needs of the student,and the society at large.

A second point I want to emphasize isthe importance of the social sciences to theproblems of modern society. Colleges ofagriculture are typically organized aroundthe biological and other agriculturaldisciplines. The social sciences tend tocome off third or fourth in the line of

priority, and then only with modest andweak investments.

The related point is the importance ofmelding together the various subjectmatter disciplines in the college of agriculture in multi-disciplinary cooperativeefforts, independently of whether one isconsidering teaching, research, or extension. There are very few problems intoday's world that can be solved byknowledge from only one discipline. Thechallenge is to have strong disciplinarydepartments, while at the same time

19

engaging them in collaborative endeavors.In making the above points 1do not

want to leave the impression that theuniversities are the only institution insociety capable of producing new knowledge and transmitting it to the members ofsociety, either to the youth or the adults.The private sector has an important role toplay in each of the three basic functions.Moreover, many of the goals or criteria Ihave discussed above will be more easilyattained by close cooperation between theprivate sector and the universities, andbetween the non-governmental organizations and the universities. My perceptionis that these links are fairly weak in Africa,and that in some cases such linkages tendto be controversial.

Training the Cadre

An important way that universities andcolleges contribute to rural human development is by training and serving thecadres for a modern agriculture, or formodernization of agriculture. We will bespending a lot of time in this workshopaddressing the problems of training theextension agents, and those are importantissues. However, I believe we need to be

thinking more broadly than that. Forexample, there is the recurrent andpressing problem of credit for a modernagriculture. I am always surprised at howseldom we address the problem of providing the skilled cadre needed for the creditsystem, both in local banks and creditagencies and in the larger bureaucraticinfrastructure of the banking system. Thecadre for these agencies, be they private orpublic, need training in management,economics, and the institutional arrangements, as well as in the basic agriculturalskills. The lack of such training andeducation for the cadre of the credit system is sorely lacking and must be provided if we are to address the improve

ment of human welfare m Africa.

The related point is the lack of trainingin modern management for agriculture,and for the private and public sector thatserves agriculture. In addressing thisissue, 1am reminded of how agriculturaleconomics was born in the United States.

Early in the last century the colleges ofagriculture and the extension systemswere made up for the most part of theagronomic and agricultural disciplines.However, people began to realize that themain management problems that farmswere facing were those involving theeconomic management of their resources.This problem was first recognized indepartments of agronomy. These departments, for their part, created small imits offarm management to address this problem. Since there was no research beingdone on these issues, the agronomistsconducted surveys of farmers as themeans of identifying the best practices forearning income being used on farms. Theextension staff themselves distributed that

knowledge to the other farmers.Later, the importance of marketing was

recognized. That led to the creation ofsmall marketing units in departments ofeconomics. Eventually, it became recognized that these two separate fields hadsome relationship with each other, and thetwo units were joined to create departments of agricultural economics. In effect,the imiversities were responding to theneeds of society, as should have beenexpected of a land grant university.

Let me conclude this section by emphasizing the key role that universities andcolleges play in rural human developmentin African countries. They should makeevery effort to be on the cutting edge ofknowledge, and in the same way, makeevery effort to transmit that knowledge tothe citizens of their countries, to train the

cadres needed for modernization, and to

20

use the knowledge available to addressthe pressing problems of African society.

Competitiveness in theinternational Economy

African coimtries tend to lag behindcoimtries in other parts of the world in thelevel of their per capita incomes. Humandevelopment in the various ways identified above is critical to closing the gapbetween Africa and the rest of the world.

In this section I want to discuss how

human development can contribute toclosing the gap in. ways not identifiedabove.

Adam Smith taught us in his Magnaopus of 1776 on The Wealth of Nations thatit was the division of labor and specialization that was critical to garnering increasesin per capita incomes. Recall, that he waswriting at a time in which technical changeas we understand it today was onlyminimal, yet coimtries still experienceincreases in per capita income. Specialization and the division of labor were his

explanations for this phenomenon.In today's world, we tend to put the

emphasis on the production and adoptionof new production technology as theengine of economic growth. However,Smith's propositions about specialization,and especially about specialization amongmembers of the labor force, are still

pertinent. A little reflection will persuadeone that everything I have said about education, schooling, and vocational trainingis pertinent to gaming more specializationand thus more division of labor. I emphasize this because it calls attention to the

sense in which human development canbe an engine of economic development,and in the context of this Workshop,agricultural development.

More recent developments in the fieldof economic development make anadditional important point. Allyn Young

has revitalized Adam Smith's basic pointby calling attention to the division of laborand specialization among sectors of theeconomy. From his perspective, the engineof economic growth is the spirming off ofspecialized sectors of the economy toproduce the inputs needed by the morebasic sectors of the economy as it grows.In fact, he argues that this process can be apowerful driving force impelling economic growth forward.

This insight gains special power whenit is used to connect what we know about

international trade and about economic

development. With that connection, wecan understand how specialization inspecific economic activities can help makea country more competitive in international markets and thus make interna

tional trade a powerful source of economicgrowth and development. This is thelesson of the Asian Tigers and their greatsuccess in closing the gap between theirper capita incomes and those in thedeveloped countries.

A couple of things are worth noting.First, it is the division of labor and specialization that is the key to raising productivity and thus to being more competitive inthe international economy. This emphasizes again the importance of humandevelopment as an important means toeconomic growth. Second, the universitiesplay a special role in helping a nation togain the sectoral specialization that is soimportant to helping a country gaininternational competitiveness moregenerally. It is through the research thatthey and the private sector undertake thatproduces the new production technology,as well as the skilled manpower, that is socritical to specialization and, in turn,international competitiveness.

In closing this section, I find it difficultto leave the subject without mentioningone of Professor Schultz's great insights.

21

He argued that the ultimate specializationand division of labor in a society takesplace in the imiversities. As we thinkabout the role of the universities and

colleges in promoting agricultural development in this workshop we might thinkabout this issue of dividing up the taskand specializing in ways that will takeadvantage of the comparative advantageindividual countries and universities

already have.

Some Concluding Comments

The title of my presentation advised me toaddress the issue of why rural humandevelopment matters. I have not dwelledon why agricultural and rural humandevelopment matters in my remarks, inlarge part because it should be obviouswhen so many of Africa's resources are in

agriculture and when such a large share ofthe African consumer's income goes forfood. Instead, I have focused on whyhuman development in general matters.

It has not been possible to cover all thatcould have been covered under the topicgiven me in the time allowed me. However, I hope I have shed some light onwhy human development, in all itsvarious dimensions, and at all its various

levels, truly matters. I hope I have alsogiven sufficient attention to the fact that itis when an economy starts to grow andchange that human development surfacesas the critical issue. In other words,

human development is the sine qua non ofthe dynamics of economic growth anddevelopment. The reason we are at thisWorkshop is to help promote that growthand development.

22

Human Resource Survey of AgriculturalExtension Workers in Sub-Saharan

Africa

Alex G. Carson

The agricultural sector insub-Saharan is faced with

many challenges, includingfood insecurity, inefficientuse of available agriculturalinnovations, very high costof agricultural inputs, slowtake-off of knowledge-intensive farming systems,very high cost of agricultural produce,degradation of the environment due topressure on the land and a rapidly growing population. A key factor in dealingwith these challenges is the need forsystemic changes and adaptations inagricultural education. This need fortransformation places tremendous responsibilities on the agricultural educationinstitutions, both within the public andprivate sectors.

Agricultural extension has emerged asthe main organization dealing withhuman resource development and technology transfer to farmers in developingcountries around the world. There is a

general agreement that agriculturalextension must be bolstered to enable it

continue playing this critical role inagricultural and rural development insub-Saharan Africa. However, numerous

studies have pointed out that extension

Alex Carson is the immediate past Dean of the Schooi of Agriouiture,University of Cape Coast.

23

organizations are not ableto cope with the emergingchallenges they face owingto poorly-trained, poorly-equipped and inadequatenumbers of extension staff

who are currently workingin these extension organizations (Crowder, Lindley,

Bruening and Doron 1998; FAO 1990,1991,1996,1998a, 1998b; Kwarteng,Zinnah and Ntifo-Siaw 1998; Qamar 1998;

Rogers 1996; Zinnah, Steele and Mattocks1998). This problem is exacerbated byother critical factors, including:1. There is the lack of up-to-date data onhuman resource development needs inmany African countries. This results inpoor policy on the actual training needsand often gives rise to the failure toprovide the needed resources to maketraining programs functional.2. The absence of systemic revitahzationof the curricula of most agriculturalcolleges and universities which wouldmake them responsive to the new requirements and demands of the rapidly changing work environment of extension staff.3. The lack of awareness or absence of a

credible mission statement, well-devel

oped strategy and sound management in

agricultural colleges and universities.4. Poor network mechanisms that could

speed up the exchange of ideas on innovative educational practices, lessons andmodels to create responsive institutionalchange.5. The lack of a consensus about the

appropriate model of extension thatshould be used resulting in continuousshifts from one model to the next without

carefully considering their human resource implications. Different extensionmodels have different human resource

needs in terms of the required numberand educational level of extension staff.

6. The current trend toward privatizationand decentralization does pose newtraining challenges for extension staff interms of their numbers, education level

and specific types of training required.

Human Resource Situation of

Agricultural Extension Workersin Africa

There is a lack of current and accurate

data on the human resource situation of

agricultural extension workers in Africa.Since earlier efforts to compile data on thestatus of agricultural extension staff

worldwide (Swanson, Farmer and Bahal1990; FAO 1991), there has not beenfurther in-depth work on the status of thestaffing situation of agricultural extensionworkers in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore,

it is difficult to give any precise accoimt ofthe current human resource trends such

as: (1) the down-sizing or up-sizing ofextension staff, (2) extension worker tofarmer ratio, (3) educational qualificationand training needs, (4) professional status,(5) the proportion of female extension staffand gender-related training needs, and (6)staff stability. The most recent reports byFAO (1990; 1991) on extension staffestimate that there are about 600,000

extension workers worldwide servingabout 1.2 billion people who are economically active m agriculture. About 150,00 ofthese extension workers are based in sub-

Saharan Africa. Tables 1 and 2 providesnap shots of the staffing situation inselected countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

These are the countries in which

Sasakawa-Global 2000 has agriculturaldevelopment programs in collaborationwith ministries of agriculture and privateorganizations, including local and international NGOs.

Table 1. Total number of extension staff differentiated by gender

in selected African countries.

Country Male Female Total

Benin 1,889 (92%) 165 (8%) 2,054

Burkina Faso N/A N/A 1,989

Eritrea 483 (79%) 127 (21%) 610

Ethiopia 12,991 (77%) 3,918 (23%) 16,909

Ghana 3,614 (88%) 490 (12%) 4,104*

Guinea 1,223 (95%) 65 (5%) 1,288

Malawi 2,288 (86%) 365 (14%) 2,653

Mali N/A N/A 3,016

Mozambique 665 (95%) 35 (5%) 700

Tanzania N/A N/A 7,000

Uganda 1.563 (82%) 332 (18%) 1,895

Sources of data: Achuonjei et al. (1997); Aralamon et al. (1999 & 2000);

Bekuretsion, H. (2000); FAO (1990 & 1991); Gebre, T. (2000); Mallet (2000);

Ntiancale, (2000); Qamar (1998); Valencia (2000); Zinnati, Bekele, Beshah andKorara (1995).

*About 500 are in the Head Ottices ot the Ministry ot Food and Agriculture.

24

The following is a list of key factorsrelated to the human resource situation of

agricultural extension staff in sub-SaharanAfrica. These factors were derived from a

synthesis of previous studies (Crowder,Lindley Bruening and Doron 1998; FAO1990,1991,1996,1998a, 1998b;Kwarteng,Zinnah and Ntifo-Siaw 1998; Qamar 1998;

Rogers 1996; Zirmah, Steele and Mattocks1998).• Lack of proper needs assessment todetermine the actual manpower needs inagricultural extension of the coxmtry andthe capacity of agricultural colleges anduniversities to otter responsive program tomeet those training needs.• Lack of reliable data on extension staff

in the private sector including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). FAO(1990) estimates that about 86% of theextension organizations in the world arefunded and organized by governmentministries or related institutions while the

remaining 14% of extension services inAfrica are provided by the private sector,including national and internationalNGOs, farmer groups, self-help groups,and commodity organizations. However,there are no accurate data on the number,gender, and educational levels of theseprivate sector extension staff.

• Lack of strategic national trainingpolicies in most sub-Saharan Africancountries.

• Agricultural colleges and universitieslack clear objectives, mission statements,target groups that should be served, thetype of jobs for which the students arebeing trained and the extent to which theircurricula need to be revised to meet the

rapidly changing demands of the agricultural sector.

• Low number of qualified staff, themajority of whom are poorly trained andill equipped to effectively carry out theirtasks.

• The majority of extension staff (about80%) possess only secondary school andintermediate level diploma and certificatecredentials.

• Very few female extension staff (about11% or less).• Very wide variation in the structure ofthe educational systems in theFrancophone and Anglophone countriesin Africa.

• Structural adjustment programs beingpromoted by the International MonetaryFimd and the World Bank to "restructure"

the economies of countries in sub-Saharan

Africa have reduced the main roles of

extension and research services to techni-

Table 2. Number of extension staff by educational qualification in selected African countries.

Secondary school intermediate level Undergraduate Post-graduateCountry level or lower (diploma & certificate) degree or equivalent degree Total

Benin 1,702 (79%) 203 (9%) 55 (3%) 194 (9%) 2,154

Burkina Faso N/A N/A N/A N/A 1,989

Eritrea 115 (19%) 321 (53%) 137 (22%) 37 (6%) 610

Ethiopia 550 (3%) 15,033 (89%) 1,326 (8%) 16,909

Ghana Nil 3,396 (83%) 592 (14%) 139 (3%) 4,104*

Guinea 294 (23%) 424 (33%) 568 (44%) 2 (<1%) 1,286

Malawi Nil 2,565 (97%) 53 (2%) 35 (1%) 2,653

Mali N/A N/A N/A N/A 3,016

Mozambique 100 (14%) 567 (81%) 30 (4%) 3 (<1%) 700

Tanzania N/A N/A N/A N/A 7,000

Uganda Nil 1,618 (85%) 261 (14%) 16 (1%) 1,895

Sources: See table 1.

'About 500 are in ttie Head Offices of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

25

cally facilitative and qualitative roles, andhave tried to divest the important roles ofinput supply, credit, and seed productionand multiplication to the private sector.The structural adjustment programs have,to some extent, reduced the number of

extension staff in the public sector due inpart to the decline in the level of stateexpenditure in most African countries.Owing to the reduction in the level ofstate expenditure in the agriculturalsector, governments have been unable tohire additional extension staff to provideneeded extension services to the largenumber of farmers.

Implications of the StaffingSituation of AgriculturalExtension Workers in Africa

• The number of agricultural extensionstaff in African countries is grosslyinadequate in terms of the ratio of extension staff to farmers. Therefore, each

country in sub-Saharan Africa shoulddevelop and implement strategic nationalpolicies on agricultural extension trainingand staff development to fulfill agricultural and rural development objectives.Such policies should be supported withthe needed resources to ensure that theyare successfully implemented.• There is the need for systematic, ratherthan an ad hoc, formulation, monitoring,evaluation and revision of curricula for

training of extension staff. This should bebased on proper training needs assessment to determine the extension man

power needs of the country.• Agricultural faculties and collegesshould be proactive in revising theircurricula and teaching methods to respond to the training needs of the country.This will help to produce graduates whoare able to perform their tasks withoutcostly additional training.• There is the need for leaders of agricul

tural colleges and universities who arecapable of formulating a clear vision fortraining and cultivating a flexible interdisciplinary approach to education toaddress the complex and changing needsof the agricultural sector.• Graduates from universities and

colleges in Africa are no longer guaranteed automatic job placements in thepublic sector upon the completion of theirtraining programs. One of the mainavenues for employment is the privatesector, including NGOs. However, theseemployers are demanding graduates withdiverse skills that go far beyond thetraditional skills in crop and animal production. They are demanding agriculturalgraduates who also have skills in communication, critical thinking, andentrepreneurship and management.Agricultural universities and collegesmust respond to these emerging demands.

• There is the need for partnership indeveloping, co-financing and implementing extension training programs, involving diverse national governments anddonor and technical assistance agencies,in order to increase program impact.

Conclusion

Education is a capital—it is a humancapital. It is a necessary investment. Investment in agricultural educationinstitutions where human resources are

developed represents the best hope forachieving sustainable agricultural andrural development. Sustainable agricultural and rural development is knowledge intensive and education is a keyfactor in fostering, generating andreproducing knowledge. Overcoming themany challenges facing the agriculturalsector in sub-Saharan depends mostly onwell-trained, well-equipped and adequate number of agricultural extension

26

workers who possess the technicalknowledge and human relations skills,and the commitment needed to create real

change. Agricultural colleges and imiver-sities and public and private sectoragencies can and should take on theresponsibilities of helping to foster thetraining of change agents who wouldpossess the capacity and commitment tofacilitate sustainable agricultural and ruraldevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa.

References Cited

Achuonjei, P.,Sylla, M., Diallo, D. and Mansare, K.1997. A needs assessment for the establishment of

a B.Sc.degree program in Agricultural Extensionfor the trairiing of mid-career extension staff atthe Institut Superieur Agronomique et Veterinarieof Faranah in the Republic of Guinea. Aconsultancy report.

Aralamon, F. C., Bourema, C. and Famanta, M. 2000.An assessment of training needs of agriculturalextension in Mali. A consultancy report.

Aralamon, F.C., Ouedraogo, J. H. and Nacro, B. H.1999. An assessment of training needs ofagricultural extension in Burkina Faso. A

consultancy report.Bekuretsion, H. 2000. Personal communication on

the agricultural extension staff situation in theMinistry of Agriculture in Eritrea.

Crowder, L. V. and Anderson, J. 2000. Contracting forextension services: Contrasting approaches fromMozambique.

Crowder, L. V. and Anderson, J. 2000. Theory andpractice of extension contracting in Uganda.

Crowder, L. V.,Lindley, W.I., Bruening and Doron1998. Agricultural education for sustainable ruraldevelopment: Challenges for developingcountries in the 21" Century. TheJournal ofAgricultural Education and Extension, 5(2), 71-84.

FAO. 1998a. Strategic considerations and actions inagricultural education and human resource

development in sub-Saharan Francophone Africa:A discussion paper. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1998b. Training for agricultural and rural

development. Economic and Social DevelopmentSeries No. 55. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1996. Trainingfor agricultural and rural development. Economic and Social Development Series No.54. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1991. International directory ofagricultural

extension organizations. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1990. Report of the global consultation on

agricultural extension. Rome: FAO.

Cebre, T.2000.Personal communication on agricultural extension staff situation in Ethiopia.

Gibbon, P., Havnevilk, K. J. and Hermele, K. 1993. A

blighted harvest: TheWorld Bankand Africa agriculture in the 1980s. London: Africa World Press, Inc.

Kwarteng, J. A., Zinnah, M. M. and Ntifo-Siaw, E.

1998.The status and constraints of trainingextension staff in Africa: An African view. In

Developing sustainableagricultural extensionsystemsin Africathroughpartnershipandfarmers empowerment. Proceedingsof the Third Informal Consultationson International Support to Agricultural ExtensionSystems in Africa & Joint Workshop on ExtensionPersonnel Trainingin Africa,held in Cape Coastfrom 19-24 October, 1997.Rome: FAO, pp.7-9.

Mallet, E. 2000. Personal communication on

extension staff situation in the Ministry of Foodand Agriculture in Ghana.

Ministry of Agriculture, DANIDA and FAO 2000.Redefining strategies for farmers' advisoryservices in Eritrea. Draft Report, March 2000.Asmara: Ministry of Agriculture.

Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development 2000.

Rural extension in Mozambique. Maputo: Ministry of

Agriculture and Rural Development.

Nhancale, 1.2000. Personal communication on agricul

tural extension staff situation in Mozambique.

Qamar, M. K. 1998. The status and constraints of training

extension staff in Africa as viewed by international

supporters. In Developing sustainable agricultural

extension systems in Africa through partnership and

farmers empowerment. Proceedings of the Third

Informal Consultations on International Support to

Agricultural Extension Systems in Africa & Joint

Workshop on Extension Personnel Training in Africa,

held in Cape Coast from 19-24 October, 1997. Rome:

FAO, pp. 3-6.

Rogers, A. 1996. Participatory training: Using critical

reflection on experiential in agricultural extension

training. In Trainingfor agricultural and rural

development. Economic and Social Development

Series No. 54. Rome: FAO.

Swanson, B. E., Farmer, B. J. and Bahal, R. 1990. The

current status ofAgricultural Extension Worldwide. In

Report of the global consultation on agricultural

extension. Rome: FAO, pp. 43-76.

Valencia, J. A. 2000. Personal communication on

agricultural extension staff situation in the Agricultural

Development Divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture

in Malawi.

Warren, M. 1998. Practising what we preach: Managing

agricultural education in a changing world. Journal of

27

Agricultural Education andExtension, 5(1), pp.53- Zirmah,M. M.,Bekele, W., Beshah,T.and Korara,D.65. 1995. Assessment of the demand and institutional

Zinnah, M. M.,Steele, R. E. andMattocks, D. M. 1998. In capacity for irutiating B.Sc. Agricultural ExtensionTrainingfor agricultural and ruraldevelopment. Programme at AlemayaUniversityofAgricultureEconomicand SocialDevelopment SeriesNo. 55. for mid-career, front-hne agricultural extensionRome: FAO, pp. 16-28. staff in Ethiopia. A consultancy report.

28

Agricultural Education in Africa:Managing ChangeCharles J. Maguire

The situation confronting agricultural educatorseverywhere may hesummedup in the phrase: "Adapt orPerish" (Wallace 1997).

Change is a fact of life.When we look around us at

our families and friends, at

our towns and farms, our

sources for information,

and our choice of consumer goods wenotice that very little remains static.Change is also a fact of life in the world ofacademia even if the pace is slow. We havereached a point in agricultural educationwhere the demands for change fromoutside our institutions are numerous and

strong and it is critical that decisions aremade on how to respond. This conferenceprovides the opportunity to examine whatis happening in the world of agriculturaleducation, gain a better xmderstanding ofproblems, imperatives, solutions, andmost importantly, create the resolve toreturn home with the courage and thedetermination to do something positiveabout the challenge of change.

Change and African Universities

By international standards African Universities are very young, dating from the1960s when the independence movement

began to gain momentum.The African universities

have achieved much in a

short time but now with

increased enrollment and

declining budgets there is aserious risk of universities

losing their influence on thehigher education of Africa's

youth. Africa's universities currentlystand in crisis at a pivotal point in theirdevelopment. The mandates given atindependence—and ensuing highereducation policies—^nowrequire reassessment as a result of changes in the world,in Africa, and in the universities themselves (Saint 1992). What are some of themain problems in African universities?• enrollments are often greater than thecapacity of universities to handle• unsustainable patterns of expenditurefor higher education• decline in the quality of education• declining relevance to national needs(Saint 1992)• exodus of teaching and research staff toareas of higher pay and better conditions• too many universities in certaincountries that cannot be sustained with

existing budgets• poor linkages and lack of communica-

Charles J. Maguire is a Senior Institutional Development Specialist In theRural Development Department, the World Bank.

29

tion with employers of graduates from theuniversities

Change and AgriculturalEducation

Worldwide, agriculture has had anamazing success record. Despite seriousdroughts which plague parts of Africa,Australia and the Americas; despite floodsand storms; despite the ravages of pests;and an exploding increase in population,the production of food has never beenbetter. We have defeated the threat of

mass starvation predicted by Malthus wholived from 1766 to 1834. Success has been

assured by the scientists, teachers, andextension workers who discovered, trans

mitted and disseminated vital technological findings to the farming public. Yet,there is a constant pressure on the imiver-sities and other education and traininginstitutions to adjust to the realities ofchange. As with so many aspects ofdevelopment, agricultural education inAfrica (and elsewhere) now faces rapidand often perplexing changes in theenvironments in which it exists. It faces a

variety of challenges and dilemmas, butalso of new opportunities and possibilities. (Oniang'o and Richer 1999).

Some of the problems confrontingagricultural education are:• isolation of the agricultural rmiversityfrom other parts of the university system• lack of communication with the

employers of the graduates of the university—the market• poor practical skills• decreased fimding as urban focusgathers strength• weak connection with other parts ofthe agricultural education system—colleges, vocational schools, farmertraining networks• high unemployment of graduates fromthe university, often due to lack

• of relevance of curriculum

• failure to attract the best qualitystudents from secondary schools

Taken together, these problemspresent a formidable barrier to effectiveeducation. Fortimately, few imiversitieshave to deal with all at the same time.

However, it is likely that if agriculturaleducation systems do not produceemployable graduates at all levels theyrisk becoming irrelevant as educationalinstitutions. This is happening alreadyand can be seen in declining enrollments,lower quality of students/trainees atentry and, of course, the high level ofunemployment among graduates especially from university level agriculturalinstitutions. There is, however, another

observation that suggests that alliancesshould not only be made with futureemployers of graduates but with othereducational institutions. It is not uncom

mon to see private sector jobs in agriculture and agribusiness filled by graduatesof other disciplines who are better skilledin the social aspects of rural development. The agricultural research system isa good example of a changed situation.Scientists now working in agriculturalresearch come from a wide range ofdisciplines, rather than from agriculturaleducation as was traditionally the case(Falvey, Maguire 1997). It is a commonobservation that, in the private sector, afailure of an institution to recognizemarket needs will cause it to lose custom

ers, profits and indeed, may end in itsclosure. In the public sector things aredifferent. "Public sector institutions are

not subject to the kind of market forcesthat govern the life of a firm. TTiis fact isparticularly true of agricultural universities, most of which are public institutions. In the absence of conventional

market pressures, what might serve toensure that the university addresses

30

important social needs irmovatively andresponsively? Or, put in a more crudelynegative sense, how does the rmiversityavoid stagnating and becoming irrelevant?" (Hansen 1990)

Major Change Influences onAgricultural Education in theNew Century

In most parts of Africa food security is stilla critical issue and therefore food production will continue to be a major focus ofimiversities and other agricultural education institutions for some time to come.

The delivery of quality education andtraining is, as we have seen, a major challenge in view of higher student intakes,decreasing levels of funding, and loss ofkey experienced teaching and researchstaff. However, it is important to beconscious of other changes that impact onagricultural education and present furtherchallenges to its relevance.• the shift in focus from agriculture torural development• globalization• HIV-AIDS

• biotechnology• urbanization

• information technology

From Agriculture to RuralDevelopment

One of the current challenges toagricultural education is how to meet thechallenge of providing education andtraining for rural development rather thanfor agriculture alone. It is clear that theolder curriculum that concentrated on

production agriculture is no longer able toproduce educated people who can dealwith the wider problems of rural development.

The threat of global starvation thatspurred the green revolution and established conventional high input-high

output farming as the most effective wayof getting acceptable yields has eased inmany parts of the world. The focus ofdevelopment has turned from agricultureto rural development recognizing thatconventional farming was beginning toproduce many undesirable side effectssuch as soil degradation, erosion, pollutedwater, and, with irrigation, high salinity ofsoils. The term rural development recognizes the linkages between agriculture,natural resources, human settlements, andbiodiversity. It further recognizes thatsustainable development requires thecooperation and inputs of other sectorssuch as infrastructure, education, health,

and energy. It is now evident that thesustainable development of the rural areaswill depend on non-farm employment inaddition to agriculture.

In order to bring about significantchange, reformers of agricultural education institutions or systems must appreciate the complexity of the environment inwhich a shift in focus from agriculture torural development would take place.Within the mral development universethere are attractive and compellingactivities which can be added to or

incorporated into traditional agriculturaleducation programs but many times theseare selected not from a clear understand

ing of their place in that rmiverse but forother reasons. Bawden (1998) offers adiagrammatic explanation of how theagricultural education and training (AET)system fits into the complex rural development system and how both of thesesystems are influenced by the widerenvironment in which they exist.

First, agricultural education is viewednot from a single perspective such ashigher, secondary, vocational or adult butas a system. The AET system can beviewed as being composed of four interrelated sub-systems (Eig. 1).

31

Universities

Schools

Colleges

Non-formaleducation

^wganizationjx

Figure 1. The AET system and its component subsystems.

The AET system is itself a sub-systemof the higher order (agriculturally focused) system (or bounded network) ofrural development (Fig. 2) which includesthe clientele, organizations and institutions in both the private and publicsectors, and both non-government organizations (NGOs) and community-basedorganizations.

The complexity of the term RuralDevelopment can be appreciated when itis understood that each of the other sub

systems in the rural development systemis also comprised of a complex set ofinterconnected elements. The clientele

sub-systems, for instance, can be seen tocomprise seven interconnected sub-subsystems (Fig. 3).

The Public Sector sub-system, meanwhile, has sub-sub-systems concernedwith policy, infrastructure, research,development, and extension while thePrivate Sector comprises financial institu-

^^^ientele^PublicSector

PrivateSector

Figure 2. The AET system as a sub-system of the

rural development system.

txporting

Parks

FisfieriesI I Forests

Clientele

.andless V.....

Figure 3. The clientele sub-system of the natural

resource component of the rural development

system.

tions, input companies, marketing companies, manufacturing companies, themedia, etc.

The whole Rural Development Systemmeanwhile, with all these component subsystems, itself operates within an environment of immense complexity which ischaracterized by a host of factors whichcan influence, and be influenced by, therural development system (Fig. 4).

Globalization

Globalization is a topic that is verymuch in the news. There is considerable

confusion associated with globalizationwith both dire and favorable predictionsapplied to agriculture and to smallfarmers in particular. Governments needthe advice of economists who can deal

with agriculture and the macroeconomicsituation in an integrated world for eachcountry must understand the implicationsof World Trade Organization rules andregulations, make its case internationally,and formulate appropriate nationalpolicies. The agricultural universities arethe logical places to house expertise onthis topic to provide education for undergraduate and post-graduate students, andto inform societies at large.

32

Armed

Poitics Conflicts

ClimateGlobalAgency Gbba ENVIRONMENT ChangeRisksAgendas Trade

hunding

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Figure 4. The rural development system and aspects of the environment in which it must operate.

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS is a topic that is of particular importance to agriculture and ruraldevelopment. The impact of the epidemicon rural populations is well known,especially on the capacity of farmingfamilies fo carry out essential operations.The consequences of AIDS for femalemembers of farming populafions aredevastating and many families aredragged info poverfy. The impact of theepidemic on the professional agriculturalworkforce is also severe and causes fhe

loss of experienced scienfific and exfen-sion capacity. Agricultural educators needto analyze the challenges posed by thisphenomenon and to make institutionalchanges to meet the replacement humanresources needs and to provide theeducation and training required by thoseleft behind in the rural areas.

BiotechnologyBiotechnology offers mankind the

promise of improved and high producingcrops and animals but is controversial fora number of reasons. There are those who

are concerned that biotechnology in the

form of genetically modified organismscan have serious consequences for manand for the flora and fauna of fhe world

(see Box 1); and others who worry that asmall number of global companies willhold fhe patents for the most importantproducts of biotechnology and forcefarmers fo pay dearly for seeds, improvedanimal strains and for cerfain inputs.These viewpoints have to be weighedagainst the scientific evidence, for propo-

Box 1: A Concerned Public

"Critics assert that genetic engineeringintroduces into food genes that are notpresent naturally, cannot be introducedthrough conventional breeding and mayhave unknown health effects that should

be investigated before the food is sold tothe public. But there is a broad scientificconsensus that the present generation ofGM foods is safe. Even so, this does little

to reassure consumers. Food frights suchas 'mad cow' disease and revelations of

cancer-causing dioxin in food have sorelyundermined their confidence in scientific

pronouncements and regulatory authorities alike."—The Economist, June 19,1999.

33

nents of biotechnology believe that theonly way to teed a growing world population is to use the products ot biotechno-logical research.

The agricultural universities must joinwith other scientists including human andanimal nutritionists and with sociologiststo provide decision-makers and the publicat large with answers to the perplexingquestions raised by this promising scientific advance.

Urbanization

All countries have experienced themigration ot rural people to urban centers.The reasons are many and logical. Urbancenters create more job opportunities andhave easier access to services such as

health and education, and recreational

facilities. It has always been the ambitionot farming families to educate theirchildren so that they can attain a betterstandard ot living away from the farm andfrom rural areas. This is an unstoppabletide but it does have implications toragricultural education. Do agriculturaluniversities have the capacity to analyzethe impact ot rural to urban migration onthe capacity ot farming families to produce sufficient food tor themselves and

the market? Have universities the capacityto devise off-farm employment possibilities tor rural populations that decide tostay behind? Do agricultural universitiesseek technological and farming systemsalternatives tor either ageing farmers ortor gender-skewed farming populations?Are universities analyzing the impact otrural-urban migration on rural poverty?

Information TechnologyA commonly used phrase these days is,

"we live in an information age." Companies and educational institutions commit

large sums ot money to knowledgemanagement, and the internet has revolu

tionized the speed, content and cost otsharing information. E-Commerce is anew term applied to the way in whichcompanies and ordinary people buy andseU goods and services internationally onthe internet from their offices and homes.

The value of this type of commerce hasgrown from insignificant amounts tobillions of dollars in just a few years andthe growth is expected to continue.Universities need rapid and cheap accessto the vast sources of information in

education, science and technology if thequality of their programs is to be relevantin to-day's world. Farmers increasinglyhave access to electronic information even

in remote areas. It is hard to find a farm

household in many coimtries where thereis not a radio, a television and a VCR.

Village internet terminals are appearingwith access to market and weather infor

mation and it is obvious that even in the

small-scale farming sector the flow ofinformation will grow from the presenttrickle to a flood. What is the state of

information technology in African agricultural universities? How readily canteachers and researchers access the world

wide web? How easily, reliably andcheaply can they use the telephone? Howmany programs or courses are enriched bymaterials or direct inputs from educational and scientific institutions outside

the Province, the State, or the Country? Adescription of the difficulties in tappinginto the information age from Malawi mayapply elsewhere in Africa.

In this day and age, communication isa key to effective teaching, research, andadministration, but the level of communi

cations technology in Malawi is stilllagging behind international standards.Coupled with this problem are the highcost rates for telephone and other relatedservices. For example, telephone chargesfrom the United States to Malawi can be as

34

low as US$0.50 per minute, yet calling theUSA from Malawi can cost up to US$3.00per minute. This limits the acquisition ofresearch dafa and other pertinent information for effective imiversity teaching,hence retarding research and developmentin Malawi. This scenario is true also with

other research and development equipment and services such as computers andthe internet. (Kasomekera 1999).

The change influences cited above, andothers, pose a threat and a challenge toagricultural education institutions.Although the task of improving the basicconditions and quality of imdergraduatedegree programs is a daunting challengein itself, the new influences carmot be

ignored.

Agricultural Education Systems

It is becoming increasingly difficult toview agricultural education from fheperspective of the university or thediploma granting college or the farmer'straining center alone. We are accustomedto thinking about the imiversity as thecenter of the education system and indeedwe should, for African imiversities will be

the primary source of human capital foragricultural research agencies as weU asthe source of future academic staff mem

bers (Oniang'o and Eicher 1999). However, the graduates of the university areinfluential in many ways in the staffing,management, funding, and operation ofthe Colleges, training centers, researchcenters, and extension services suggestingthat education and training is part of asystem that serves the agricultural sector.Increasingly, the pressure is on for thesystem to serve not only agriculture butthe needs of the broader rural sector.

Many countries now use the term AET forthe agricultural education and trainingsystem that stretches from adult ruraleducation to the university. There has

been an academic cultural problem withforming alliances with diploma grantingcolleges or institutes, a cultural problemthat continues to extension and adult

education. There is now a realization that

this segregation is detrimental to thedevelopment of agriculture. This isbrought home to educators by the increasing influence of agribusiness.

The Demand for Technicians

Thirty years ago at the World Conferenceon Agricultural Education and Training,the importance of technical level manpower was stressed (FAO, UNESCO, andILO 1970). The observations made thenare still relevant. "The people who receiveintermediate training will be workingessentially in the field, the laboratory, theworkshop and in storage and processingplants, and community services, ratherthan in predominantly clerical duties.They must form the link between thefindings of research and technology andtheir practical application in more efficientagricultural production. In many countries, rural development is seriouslyhampered by the shortage of adequatelytrained people at the intermediate level,but there are few developing countrieswhich have solved satisfactorily theproblem of producing adequate intermediate staff in both numbers and quality."In many parts of the world agriculturalsector entrepreneurs are not farmers.Many are businessmen and women whosee profitability in farming or agro-enferprises. They need to buy the skillsrequired to make these ventures work.Where can such skilled persons be foimd?They are rarely in our system's university-level institutions and certainly not in theacademic secondary education programs.The supply of technicians is from Polytechnics, Colleges or Institutes which offerdiploma (non-degree) programs that

35

should produce a person with the theoretical and practical background and skillsto enter an agribusiness situation withconfidence and success. Another source of

such personnel is the vocational agricultural education program of the classicalUSA type. Typically, farmer's sons anddaughters entered vocational agricultureprograms and added to their theoreticalknowledge base, acquired skills andparticipated in the running of projectssuch as growing a crop or raising animals.These practical exercises, similar to thosedescribed at the University of Cape Coast,were closely supervised by teachers andmanaged by the student in a business-likemanner. The vocational agriculture programs produced a competent and confident person who could successfully enterthe farming profession or obtain employment in agro-industry or other endeavors.Is it too much of a leap of imagination tosee a direct link between university degreeprograms and research activities and thetertiary non-degree institutions and adultnon-formal education?

Meeting the Challenge ofChange

Initiating change can be difficult even forthe most enthusiastic and committed

university leader. There are many bureaucratic, political and societal barriers tochange that can defeat even the mostinnovative and enthusiastic change agent.It is only fair to recognize that publicsector agricultural education institutionsare not always autonomous enough tomake the bold and rational decisions

required to effect improvements in theway they operate. Hansen (1990), notesthree areas where many agriculturaluniversities lack control:

Enrollment: Where admission policiesare usually controlled by outside government agencies, which frequently encour

age rapid increases in enrollments withoutensuring funding increases to accommodate expanding numbers. This has led tosituations where facilities and facultysupport are inadequate and the quality ofeducation has suffered, in some instances

quite dramatically.Programming: In many cases, curricu

lum policy is imder the control of a centraloutside agency, which leaves the university or other education and traininginstitutions little if any latitude or incentive for undertaking curriculum innovation.

Financing: Most rmiversities have verylittle direction over the structure of their

finances. In most cases, the levels of

student subsidies, fees, and faculty salaries are regulated by an outside agency,budgetary flexibility is limited, and,normally, income earned by the universitymust be returned to the Government

treasury.

Agents of change have to deal with theexpectations of major stakeholders.Politicians typically view investments inagricultural education as a short-termproposition. Since their terms of office arelimited to 3 or 4 years they desire andexpect results in that time frame. Parentsof students, and the students themselves,

also have a short-term horizon limited to

the length of the degree program. It is leftto the administrators and faculty to takethe long view and try to progressivelybuild a sustainable institution that reflects

quality and relevance to stakeholderneeds. This has to be achieved while

satisfying the expectations of thosestakeholders with short-term horizons.

Does this mean there is nothingagricultural educators in the public sectorcan do to bring about change? If weremain isolated within our system we canachieve little. Only by looking outside, byunderstanding the dynamics of fhe newly

36

defined more encompassing sector and byforming alliances with institutions andindividuals who already have access orthe means to accessing policy makers canwe make a difference. However, this will

not come easily. It will take courage, it willtake arguments based on well-documented facts and, above all, it will take

commitment to our profession, which,despite its importance, is not alwaysrecognized for its vital role in the development of the rural sector (Maguire 1999).

Successful African Examples ofInstitutional Change

It is heartening for change agents toreview successful examples of change atAfrican universities. In Ghana, the Univer

sity of Cape Coast has successfullylaunched a program whereby mid-careerextension staff can bridge the artificial gapbetween the technically qualified andexperienced person and the academicallyeducated professional. The program waslaunched in 1993 with the assistance of a

Japanese non-governmental organization,the Sasakawa Africa Association which

had created the Sasakawa Africa Fund for

Extension Education (SAFE). The programis aimed at extension staff who possessDiploma or Certificate qualifications andcomprise about 85% of extension fieldstaff in Ghana. At its mception the program comprised two tiers: a basal 4-yearpost-Certificate degree program and anupper-tier, 2-year post-Diploma degreeprogram. Both led to a B. Sc. Degree inAgricultural Extension. In 1999, a 2-yearpost-Certificate program leading to aDiploma in Agricultural Extension waslaunched at the Kwadaso AgriculturalCollege leaving the University of CapeCoast to concentrate on the 2-year postDiploma Degree program. A uniquefeature of the SAFE program is the off-campus supervised enterprise projects

(SEPs)which nms for 4 to 6 months afterthe participant has had a period of training on campus. The SAFE program issupported by the Ministry of Food andAgriculture (MOFA), farmers, extensionworkers, and the University of CapeCoast. Sasakawa Africa Association and

Winrock International played a facilitatingand brokering role in the development ofthe program. The SAFE program has beenof particular benefit to the UCC byenhancing its visibility in the country andin forging and strengthening theuniversity's relationships with MOEA,farmers, extension staff, NCOs, andDistrict Assemblies. The University hasattracted the attention of national and

international organizations and institutions because of its leadership in launching an innovative education program.

Of course the program is not withoutproblems, the most pressing being theneed to provide funding for supervisionof the field-based SEPs projects conductedby the participants. At a time of decreasing support for agricultural education thisposes a serious threat to sustainability ofthe program. There is still a need toconvince administrators and academic

staff that the SAFE program offers substantial benefits to the university and thatlessons from the program may be used toimprove the design and implementationof new and existing programs in theinstitution as a whole. The availability ofqualified and committed core staff isessential for the long-term sustainabilityof the program, however, with alternativeemployment offering better salary andbenefit conditions, retaining good staffposes a continuing problem.

Lessons Learned

Even though the program is relativelynew some important lessons are emerging:• Partnerships are necessary to solve the

37

complex task for training agriculturalextension staff in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Failure of past efforts to establishsustainable and effective extension

systems in SSAwas largely due to organizations and agencies working alone andfragmenting the process of buildingcapacity.• Partnerships between the SAFE program and a wide range of donor agencies,organizations and institutions will beneeded to make the program sustainable(Adjepong 1999).

Bunda CollegeAnother successful change initiative is

illustrated in the case of Bxmda College ofAgriculture, Malawi. The College wasestablished in 1966by the Ministry ofAgriculture using a grant from the UnitedStates. The first student intake numbered

35. In 1967 the College was incorporatedinto the University of Malawi.

The College has had dual lineage since1967, conducting all administrativebusiness with the Ministry of Educationthrough the University Central Office,andexecuting all technical matters with theMinistry of Agriculture. The early mainfocus of Bunda College was to trainagriculturists who could meet the needs ofsmall-scale farmers and to conduct

research that could improve small-scaleproductivity (Kasomekera 1999). In theearly 1970s the University of Malawi andthe Malawi Government decided that

Bunda College had to expand to a studentpopulation of 364 by 1980 to meet the highdemand for agricultural technical personnel. The College set in motion a localization program that aimed to have 92%local staff in place or 32 out of a total staffof 36.This was considered a very important concept that preserved academic staffcapacity. In 1999 the local staff stood at98% of the total, two-thirds of which had

doctoral degrees. The 1976 to 1981 expansion project changed Bunda College froma small college to a medium collegebySouthern African standards. It had at

tained the critical mass necessary toembark on local consolidation. Infrastruc

ture improvement brought laboratories,lecture theatres and offices, and senior andsupport staff housing. Kasomekera notesthat at the end of this development phase,Bunda College had successfully redesigned its curriculum to train researchers,plarmers, and extension personnel atdiploma and degree levels. Part-timemasters and doctoral programs wereoffered to deserving candidates, and thecollege had embarked on various researchprojects in agriculture.

Challenges and OpportunitiesBetween 1981 and 1990no significant

growth was recorded. The absorptivecapacity of the market for Bunda graduates began to weaken and employmenttrends changed from the former 70% togovernment to 40% while 60% wereemployed by the private sector. This was aperiod of reflection at the College whichsought a balance that would satisfy thedemands of the new employers andattract donors to fund infrastructure

development. This was a shift away fromthe traditional dependence on government for funds. The college decided toidentify its strengths and weaknessesthrough a series of consultative workshops and conferences in which alumniwere invited to critique the curriculumand suggest improvements. These led tothree areas of concern: (1)Bimda produced generalists that had to be retrainedfor specialized areas; (2) the Bundagraduate lacked management skills andwas not able to perform in the privatesector; and (3) graduates did not have theskills to run commercial agricultural enter-

38

prises. The outcome of this review was anew curriculum introduced in 1986 that

allowed students to take common courses

in the first 2 years and then specialize. Bythe time the first graduates from the newcurriculum came on the market the collegewas gaining recognition not only inMalawi but in the whole Southern Africa

region. Kasomekera notes that the transition from government-initiated to locally-mobilized development is very criticalbecause, in most cases, the same leader

ship which has seen government initiatedevelopment has to accept the fact thatgovernment's priorities have shifted.

Bimda College realized that the recipefor development would depend on anumber of principles that included:• redefining the curriculum to meetprevailing government policy and theneeds of the private sector• carrying out aggressive outreachactivities to inform all potential fundingagencies about the potentials of theinstitution and the major constraintspreventing optimal operation• building institutional confidenceamong staff so that they were able toarticulate the vision and commitment of

the institution in national and regionaldevelopment• conducting a thorough goal-settingexercise for all departments and faculties,and ranking these goals at the departmental, faculty, and college level so thatpotential frmding agencies could chooseareas of assistance

• engaging in continuous dialogue withdonors and government to keep up withtheir areas of interest and procedures forproject preparation and presentation• instituting a staff appraisal system thatwas objective, transparent, and consistentin order to reward high performers, but atthe same time encouraging below-averagestaff

Bimda College, from the begirming,had a program of public relations beginning with an armualfield day for localfarmers, donor representatives andgovernment officials. The cost of this wasnot sustainable and after trying a biannual event the field day was dropped. Itwas replaced by an activity, "Getting toKnow Bunda," which targeted selectedpotential donors and policy makers whowere invited to spend a day at the collegeto examine the research and teachingactivities. A new principal introduced adoor-to-door approach to "sell" the idea ofsupport for a Center for AgriculturalResearch and Development at the college.The principal also used his good politicalcormections to make the college's needsknown. The door-to-door donor sensitiza-

tion was systematically executed withwell-articulated goals and objectives.

In 1992 a new principal, Zachary M.Kasomekera, requested all Heads ofDepartments to prepare 10-yearplans,which indicated past achievements,existing rmderutilized human capacity,and major constraints. The plans clearlydefined goals and objectivesfor eachdepartment, fromwhich college-wideprioritieswere drawn up. Thedevelopment of institutional goals and prioritieswas seen as a necessary condition forattracting donor funding.

The problem of obtaining funding fornew programs was overcome in the caseof the Master Science in Animal Science byusing German support and making theprogram a regional one. Its successled toa regional program in aquaculture thatformed the basis of a Japanese aquacultureproject. The college has been the venue forregional programs on tissue culture, agro-forestry, and environmental policy. Mostdonors regard the regional approach asviable in terms of demand for human

capacity and cost effectiveness.

39

A draft strategic plan has been drawnup for the college. The plan states that themission of Bunda College, as an educational institution of higher learning inagriculture and natural resources inMalawi, is to advance and promoteknowledge, skill and self reliance for:• sustainable food production andutilization

• improving income, food security andnutrition of rural and urban populations• conservation and management of biodiversity, natural resources and theenvironment; through the provision ofinformation, teaching and training,research, outreach and consultancy inresponse to national and global needs

Looking to the future Bunda Collegesees a participatory approach to curriculum development and empowerment ofgraduating students to embark on self-employed agricultural business ventureswith limited reliance on wage employment. This approach calls for re-engineering not only the curriculum but also thelecturers,who should place more emphasis on real-life agricultural problems thatcan be solved using alternative approaches.

Lessons from Bunda College• Bunda College suffers from commonconstraints. There is the pressure to enrollmore students than can be effectivelyserved and the danger of overcrowdingand the erosion of educational standards;the college is subject to political pressuresand to the rules and regulations of government relating to issues such as fees;teaching staff are not well paid and manyare tempted to leave and take morelucrative posts elsewhere; and the unavailability of effective communicationshinders teaching, research and administration.

• The experience of Bunda College offersvaluable lessons to other colleges anduniversities especially in Southern Africa.The most powerful lesson is that it isnecessary to clearly articulate institutionalgoals and objectives that can be used tosolicit assistance from government anddonors.

• Institutional capacity is a very important prerequisite to sustainable development and donor support. It is critical toimpress upon government and donorsthat the institution can manage andadminister resources. A disappointedgovernment or donor is a fatal liability toa young institution, and all efforts shouldbe made to live up to the expectations ofthese fxmding sources.• Leadership skills are a necessaryingredient to mobilizing institutionaldevelopment. The best leadership recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of theinstitution and its personnel and is able todelegate effectively. It is important toappoint local staff to leadership positionsfor they often have a clearer understanding of the potential of the institution.• To achieve development goals theinstitution must have the ability to identify government policies of the dayrelevant to the institution, and to identifyprevailing donor areas of interest. Institutional development can only be supportedif it is in line with current governmentpolicies and/or donor priorities.

The Bunda College case is inspirationalfor those who work in universities or

colleges and who see the need for change.The key ingredient in Bxmda's success isundoubtedly the quality of leadership thatwas seen in each of the principals between1966and 1999. Each brought to theinstitution his own brand of inspirationand continued the forward movement of

the change initiative.

40

A Network for Change

Change agents can feel isolated when theybegin the process of institutional reformespecially when all members of thecommunity are still to be convinced of thesoimdness of the change program or itschances for success. Change agents shouldnot feel alone for there are a munber of

groups and entities seeking answers to theproblems and challenges posed by theevolving nature of agricultural education.These bodies can be approached foranswers to problems and for advicerelated to the lessons of change. A selection of these groups and entities are asfollows.

The Global Consortium of HigherAgricultural Education and Research wasfounded in 1998 with the goals of fostering global cooperation for the improvement of higher education and research foragriculture as a prerequisite to solving thefood security and environmental problemsconfronting our world. The consortiumaims to serve institutions with programsin agriculture, veterinary medicine, andnatural resource management, includingthe biological, physical and social sciencesdimensions of these fields. The consor

tium formders designed it to be helpful toinstitutions worldwide which are workingto make significant reforms in theirsystems of higher agricultural education.

The Standing Forum for Discussion onthe Integration of Agricultural Educationin the Americas sponsored by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation onAgriculture was established in 1999with aconference at the Organization of American States in Washington D.C. The purpose of the Forum is to help positionagriculture and, in particular, agriculturaland rural education and training, on thework agenda of political and financialentities and to support modernizationefforts and facilitate integration among

institutions and countries.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development can be contactedfor support related to Agricultural Knowledge Systems (AKS). The AKS encompasses Agricultural Research, Extension,and Higher Education.

FAO has an ongoing program on agricultural and rural education and trainingparticularly concerned with the need forreforms and well reasoned responses tothe pressures of change.

The World Bank through the Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems(AKIS) thematic group in the Rural Familyhas been working for a revival of interestin agricultural and rural education since1998. AKISsponsored an internationalworkshop at the World Bank in late 1999with the theme: Education for Agricultureand Rural Development; IdentifyingStrategies for Meeting Future Needs. TheWorkshop identified a number of Re-searchable Questions that needed to beanswered if the donor community was tomake a case for future investments in

agricultural education systems.A number of bilateral donors have been

active in supporting innovative agricultural education projects over the past 10years and were identified by Willett(1998). The Kellogg Foundation hasprovided support to the USLand GrantUniversities in positioning themselves forthe future and, in parallel, has supported aprocess of reform in secondary agricultural education (vocational agriculture)programs.

Donors and AgriculturalEducation

For too long the focus of internationaldonor agencies has been on elements ofthe AFT system. The World Bank, in the 26years between 1963 and 1989, supportedagricultural education in 67 of its 135

41

higher education projects. As a 1992WorldBank Review notes, agricultural collegesand universities were among the firsteducation institutions to receive Bank

assistance, and the Bank itself was amongthe earliest multilateral donors to supportthese institutions. Bank assistance was

based upon the need to supply techniciansto support the science-based agriculture,which was to play such an important partin increasing food security and promotingeconomic development. Governmentslooked to these higher education institutions to produce the technical personnel,managers, teachers, researchers, andextension workers required to staffagricultural agencies. It is now clear thatthe emphasis of these investments was onan element of the system, the highereducation element, but not on the systemitself. Willett (1998) noted in his review ofagricultural education support by theWorld Bank and other donors in the

decade 1987-1997, that past investmenttended to emphasize bricks and mortar,hardware and facultyoverseastraining tobuild AET programs focused on state-ledsupport services for much broader, multi-disciplinary systems approach. Newgeneration AETprojects need to develophuman capacity, not just for productionagriculture, but for environmentally andsocially sustainabledevelopment throughout the rural sector, engaging morediverse, rural sector-related systemsthrough a multiple field of partners andstakeholders.

Partnerships

The review of the problems and additionalchallenges facing African agriculturaleducation systems strongly indicates thatno single entity can solve the problems ofrelevance, quahty, and sustainabilityalone. Agricultural education institutionsand systems will have to reach out to the

broader education system and partnerwith science, economics, sociology,environment, engineering, education,health and business departments todesign and offer education programswhich will attract good quality studentsand make an impact on rural development. Partnerships will also have to beforged with donors, NGOs, and theprivate sector for, as well as contributingin an intellectual way to education andtraining, these stakeholders are employersof the output from the system.

Finally

There are many experienced and well-meaning individuals, organizations andfirms who can offer advice on how best to

bring about change in African agriculturaluniversities and agricultural educationsystems but, at the end of the day, it is theinstitutions themselves that must take the

initiative. In doing so, two importantelements are necessary: vision and leadership. Bawden (1998) identifies weakleadership and inappropriate conceptualmaps for the development process as a

Box 2. Institutional Change and

Growth

"Reform in any university anywhere in theworld cannot occur unless there is a vision

passionately believed in and furthered byleaders. If we want change or reform, it willnot happen causally or simply by itsbubbling up within a university. There maybe ferment for change and a desire for

adaptation. But change will not occur unlessthere are leaders willing to step up and stepout and provide direction and articulate a

vision that can unite men and women to

work for needed change, building on the

accomplishments of the university and itshistory, but pointing unequivocally to thefuture." (Magrath 1999)

42

cause of crisis in AET systems and in thebroader domain of agriculture and ruralaffairs. He indicates that in the past theAET system emphasized providing skilledmanpower for techno-scientific production agriculture to assure food security.Now the emerging focus is on developingand promulgating an environmentallysustainable, socially equitable, andethically defensible agricultural development process that fosters the well being ofrural commimities and of the biophysicaland socio-cultural environments in which

they live. To deal with this complexsituation Bawden suggest that leaders ofAET systems will need to learn how toenvision plausible futures. He stresses thatone vision of the future is not enough andthat a number of scenarios should be

considered. Magrath (1999) stresses theleadership element that was identified inthe case of institutional change andgrowth at Bunda College of Agriculture(see Box 2).

It is clear that the responsibility forinitiating the change process rests with thefaculty and administrators of agriculturaleducation systems. Leadership is expectedfrom the agricultural universities and timeis rurming out before alternative sourcesof relevant education and training gainstrength and credibility. The time to startthe change process is now!

Reference Materials

Adjepong, S. K. 1999.The university and nationaldevelopment: An overview of an innovativeprogramme at the University of Cape Coast,Ghana for mid-career agricultural extension staff.Presentation to World Bank staff at Rural Week.

Falvey, L. and Maguire, C. 1997.The Emerging rolefor agricultural education in producing futureresearchers. Journal of International Agriculturaland Extension Education. Volume 4, Number 1.

FAO, UNESCO, and ILO. 1970. World Conference on

Agricultural Education and Training,Copenhagen, Commission Paper Number II.

Hansen, G. E, 1990. Beyondthe neoclassical university:Agricultural higher education in thedeveloping world.Program Evaluation Report Number 20.Washington D.C.:Agency for InternationalDevelopment.

Kasomekera, Z. M. 1999.Mobilizing development foragricultural institutions: Experiences from BundaCollege of Agriculture, Malawi. In Proceedings oftheInauguralConference oftheGlobal Consortium ofHigher Education and Research for Agriculture. IowaState University.

Maguire,C. J. 1999. Future prospects for agriculturaleducation systems. In Trends and perspectives inagricultural education in Asia-Pacific pp. 141-155.Asian Productivity Organization. Tokyo, Japan.

Magrath, C. P.1999. ReformingU.S. higher education. In Proceedings oftheInauguralConference ofthe Global Consortium ofHigher Education andResearchfor Agriculture. Iowa State University.

Oniang'o R.,and C. K.Eicher. 1999. Universities andagricultural development in Africa: InsightsfromKenya.

Saint, W. S. 1999. Universities in Africa:Strategiesforstabilization and revitalization. World Bank

Technical Paper Number 194,AfricaTechnicalDepartment Series.The World Bank,Washington,D. C.

Wallace, 1.1997. Agricultural education at thecrossroads: Present dilemmas and possible

options for the future in sub-Saharan Africa.International Journal ofEducationalDevelopment,Vol 17, No. 1 pp. 27-39.

43

The SAFE Initiative: Challenges andOpportunitiesDeola Naibakelao

No country has developedwithout a strong agriculturalbase to provide food security for its citizenry. Owingto this reality the SG2000initiative was launched in

1986 to help assist farmersand sub-Saharan African

governmenfs to reducepoverty, enhance food security and protectthe natural resource base through theaccelerated adoption of productivity-enhancing agricultural technologies. TheSG2000 initiative is a partnership of twoorganizations: Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), whose President is NobelLaureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, and theGlobal 2000 program of fhe Carter Center,whose Chairman is former United States

President, Jimmy Carter. Funding forSG2000 programs comes from The NipponFoundation of Japan, whose President isMr. Yohei Sasakawa.

One of the major prerequisites forenhancing the pace of agricultural development and food security in sub-SaharanAfrica is human resource development,including educated farmers, researchersand extension workers. However, poortraining, especially of field level extensionstaff,is one of the major factors limiting

Deola Naibakelao is the Director of the Sasakawa Africa Fund for

Extension Education.

44

agricultural developmentin sub-Saharan Africa.

The Sasakawa Africa

Fund for Extension

Education Program

As a means of tackling theproblem of poor training ofextension staff, SAA

latmched the Sasakawa Africa Fund for

Extension Education (SAFE) in 1991. TheSAFE program is geared toward assistingselected agricultural colleges and universi-hes in sub-Saharan Africa to developresponsive programs to train agriculturalextension staff. The program is beingimplemented in collaboration withWinrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, ministries ofagriculture and agricultural colleges anduniversities in selected African counfries,including Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania andUganda. A number of agricultural collegesand universities in Burkina Faso, Nigeria,and Mali are also making plans to launchsimilar SAFE programs.

The SAFE initiative has the followingcomplementary aims:1. To create training opportunities formid-career extension staff, both male and

female, who possess certificate and

diploma qualifications in agriculture andrelated fields and are already working inthe field to improved upon their technicaland humans relation skills.

2. To reform agricultural extensioncurricula in selected African agriculturaluniversities and colleges, and assist themin the acquisition of relevant instructionalmaterials.

3. To foster networking among theparticipating African agricultural universities and colleges with aim of buildingstrong pan-African academic partnershipsfor developing responsive trainingprograms for agricultural extension staff.4. To train agricultural extension leadersfor extension organizations in sub-SaharanAfrica. This does not necessarily implytrammg extension staff to occupy highpositions within the extension organization, but more importantly, to help themdevelop new positive attitudes towardtheir work and responsibilities, and tobecome systems thinkers, catalysts,facilitators, and effective managers ofchange within their extension organizations.

5. To bring about institutional reformwithin African agricultural universitiesand colleges, not only in terms of thedevelopment of responsive agriculturalextension curricula, but also the reform of

the institutions themselves. Thus, the

SAFE initiative strengthens the in-countrycapacity of these training institutions to beflexible organizations, to develop client-focused training programs, to acquirerelevant core instructional materials in

agricultural extension and related fields,to mobilize internal and external resources

to sustain the programs, and to forgepartnerships with other local and international institutions and agencies.

The SAFE curriculum reform approachis guided by the principle that "experienceis the best teacher." The approach, there

fore, emphasizes experiential learning—the combination of theory, experience,critical reflection and practice. Experiential learning is emphasized because itprovides learners with the opportunity todevelop lifelong learning skills and buildstheir confidence and commitment, so that

they can work with farmers in participatory ways.

As a means of nurturing the philosophy of experiential learning, the SAFEinitiative places great emphasis on the off-campus, farmer-focused SupervisedExperience/Enterprise Projects (SEPs)component of the training program.Under this component students who havehad a prescribed period of training on thecollege or university campus undertake 4-to 8-month off-campus field-based experiential programs. The SEPs component ofthe SAFE initiative is what makes it

different from other existing academicprograms in the participating colleges anduniversities.

The SEPs provide opportunities foracademic staff to assess the relevance and

effectiveness of their teaching and toidentify other opportunities for learning.The college or university is brought closerto farmers and issues pertaining to thefarming sector thereby ensuring that thecurriculum remains farmer-focused.

Because the SEPs are based on farmer-

level situations they are inevitablymultidisciplinary. The SEPs, therefore,provide an opportunity for disciplinaryspecialists to work together in seekingsolutions to farmer-based problems.

The choice of topics for each SEP ishighly influenced by the beneficiaries—farmers, employers or sponsors of thestudents and the students themselves.

Apart from having direct input into thedesign of the projects and in the testing ofthe technologies involved, farmers arebrought in direct contact with the univer-

45

sity, thereby providing them with anopportunity to influence the design ofcurriculum at the university.

Challenges of the SAFE Program

1. The lack of a clear extension trainingpolicy in many African countries oftencreates ambiguity about the range ofissues related to the development andimplementation of effective training programs, including the number of extensionstaff that should be trained, the selection

of those to be trained, and the financial

and human resources required to implement the training.2. Location of intermediate agriculturaltraining institutions under the Ministry ofAgriculture while the degree-grantingagricultural training institutions are underthe Ministry of Education. This leads toconfusion over the objectives and financing of various levels of agriculturalextension staff.

3. Inadequate number of well-trained andexperienced teaching staff in the area ofAgricultural Extension in most agricultural universities and colleges in sub-Saharan Africa, including the participatinguniversities and colleges in the SAFEinitiative. The future in terms of increasingthe number of teaching staff in Africanuniversities and colleges is bleak, especially m the light of ageing staff and thelack of motivation for younger staff to takeup the available teaching positions.4. Financial constraints affect effective

implementation and sustainability of theSAFE program, which is field-based andfocuses on experiential learning, andtherefore requires steady funding. Fimdsare needed for students' off-campus SEPsand transportation and per diem for thesupervisory staff. Program ownership andsustainability demand that adequateannual budgetary allocations should bemade support of the program, especially

the off-campus SEPs.5. Lack of responsive curricula with moretechnical subjects at the expense of theequally important social science subjectssuch as adult education, extension meth

odology, program plaiming and evaluation, communication, gender issues, andcritical thinking skills. The content ofcurrent training programs is mostly theoretical and not client-focused.

6. Low number of women extension staff

and little understanding of their trainingneeds. This results in poor formulation oftraining programs.7. Lack of strong partnerships betweendonors and the various stakeholders or

actors involved in extension activities: A

number of actors are involved in agricultural extension activities in sub-Saharan

Africa, including public agencies (ministries of agriculture and education, universities and colleges), farmer organizations(e.g., cooperatives and associations), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),private service providers (e.g., inputsuppliers and purchasers of agricultnralproduces) and donors. Even though theirroles and capacity vary, each of them has acritical role to play in the developmentand implementation of responsive extension training programs in order to reflectthe needs of societies. Agricultural universities and colleges can, and should help infacilitating partnerships or collaborationbetween these important actors.8. A training institution offering responsive programs may find it difficult to copewith the requests from the clients to sendtheir staff to pursue the program oncepeople realize its potential. The traininginstitution and its supporting donoragency (e.g., SAA) may get overwhelmedwith requests that they carmot meet. Tosolve this problem there is the need tomultiply the number of programs andinstitutions in order to cope with the

46

growing demand. But multiplying thenumber of programs and institutionsrequires additional funds. The challenge isto determine how these additional de

mands will be funded by diverse agenciesincluding bilateral, donor and technicalassistance agencies.9. Problems of sustainability: The problem of sustainability is not limited tofinance, but also the equally importantissues of: (a) poor post-training workenvironment of graduates that may discourage potential candidates from pursuing the course, (b) the lack of qualifiedteaching staff, and (c) poor workingconditions of teaching staff which maycreate a danger of the program revertingto the traditional theoretical program.10. Lack of committed leadership with aclear vision of training mid-career professionals. Without good leadership itbecomes impossible to ensure the smoothimplementation of innovative trainingprograms.

It is probably apparent that there are nosurprises in the list of challenges orconstraints presented. Many studies havepointed out these constraints (Breth 2000,1999; FAO 1997,1996,1990; Kwarteng,Zinnah and Ntifo-Siaw 1998; Lindley 2000;Neuchatel Group 1999; Qamar 1998;Zinnah and Naibakelao 1999; Zinnah,

Steele and Mattocks 1998). Besides, themajority of the participants at this workshop are quite familiar with most of theseconstraints. The Vice-Chancellors and

Deans at this workshop are probablystruggling with some of these challenges.

Opportunities

First, there is currently a general appreciation among the donor community for theneed to form partnerships in developing,fimding, implementing, monitoring andevaluating innovative and cost-effectiveextension training programs. Partnership

is now seen as the key toward optimizingand improving extension training programs so as to enhance the performanceand competence of agricultural extensionstaff. Such an appreciation among thedonor community is a good signal thatthere is hope for pluralistic funding ofextension programs in sub-Saharan Africaand provides an opportunity for futureimprovement in the training of agricultural extension staff.

Second, the trend toward privatizationand decentralization in sub-Saharan

Africa presents new opportunities forprogram diversification to meet the needsof new clientele. When the SAFE initiative

was laimched in 1991 by SAA, the mainemphasis was on upgrading the technicaland human relations skills of staff of the

ministries of agriculture in Africa. Withthe move toward increasing the role of theprivate sector, including NGOs, in theprovision of agricultural services, thefocus of the SAFE initiative is beingbroadened to respond to these changes.

Third, another untapped opportunity isfor universities and colleges to deviceways and means for greater participationof community-based resource persons andorganizations from outside these institutions in the training programs, especiallyfor the off-campus practical component ofthe course. The participation of outsideresource persons offers several advantagessuch as: (1) helping to alleviate the problem of inadequate teaching staff byreducing the number of full-time teachingstaff and the associated overhead costs; (2)keeping students and lecturers in touchwith practical, real-life situations; and (3)and exposing the institutions to theoutside world to enhance its prestige.Many outside resource persons areusually willing to participate in teachingof courses and in practical activities inuniversities and colleges. However,

47

several problems often limit their participation, including: (1) the rigid criteria forapproving such individuals, particularlyin terms of academic credentials wherebyin most instances a minimum of a Masters

degree, preferably by research, is requiredto be approved for teaching courses inuniversities and colleges; and (2) poorremimeratlon of the resource persons interms of the costs of transportation andhonoraria.

Conclusion

In order to bring African universities andcolleges more into agricultural development, there is an urgent need for systemicchange in the agricultural educationsystems on the continent. The environment under which extension organizations operate is rapidly changing. Thiscalls for a continuous improvement in themanner in which extension staff are

trained. The emphasis must be placed onboth the quantity and quality of thetraining, especially the exposure of thetrainees to real-life work environments.

Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), asa small non-governmental organization, isserving as a catalyst in the process offacilitating the revitalization of agricultural extension training programs inselected imiversities and colleges in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on the emergingsuccess of the SAFE programs in selecteduniversities and colleges in Ethiopia,Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda, manyuniversities and colleges across Africahave expressed interest in launchingsimilar responsive agricultural extensiontraining programs for early- to mid-careerextension staff. SAA is unable to meet the

requests of these institutions due to itslimited budget. Therefore, other donorand technical assistance agencies mustalso contribute to future efforts. More

importantly, national governments in

Africa must be willing to provide theneeded resources and policy frameworknecessary to effect the systemic changesthat are required to bring their universitiesand colleges more into agriculturaldevelopment to ensure food security.

References Cited

Breth, S. A. (ed.) 2000. Innovative extension education in

Africa. Mexico City; Sasakawa Africa Association.Breth, S. A. (ed.) 1999. Partnerships for rural develop

ment in sub-Saharan Africa. Geneva: Centre forApplied Studies in International Negotiations.

FAO. 1997. Trainingfor agricultural and rural development. Economic and Social Development SeriesNo. 55. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1996. Trainingfor agricultural and rural development. Economic and Social Development SeriesNo. 54. Rome: FAO.

FAO. 1990. Report of the global consultation onagricultural extension. Rome: FAO.

Gmelch, W. H. 1999. Building leadership capacity forinstitutional reform. In Globalconsortium ofhighereducationand researchfor agriculture. Ames: IowaState University.

Kwarteng, J. A., Zinnah, M. M. and Ntifo-Siaw, E.1998. The status and constraints of trainingextension staff in Africa: An African view. In

Developingsustainable agricultural extension systemsin Africa throughpartnership andfarmers empowerment. Proceedingsof the Third Informal Consultationson International Support to Agricultural ExtensionSystems in Africa & Joint Workshop on ExtensionPersonnel Training in Africa, held in Cape Coastfrom 19-24 October, 1997.Rome: FAO, pp. 7-9.

Lindley, W. I. 2000.Constraints and potentials oftraining irud-career extension professionals. InInnovativeextensioneducationin Africa.MexicoCity: Sasakawa Africa Association, pp. 16-32.

Neuchatel Group. 1999. Commonframework onagricultural extension. Paris.

Qamar, M. K. 1998. The status and constraints of

training extension staff in Africa as viewed byinternational supporters. In Developingsustainableagricultural extension systems in Africa throughpartnership andfarmers empowerment. Proceedingsofthe Third Informal Consultations on InternationalSupport to Agricultural Extension Systems in Africa& Joint Workshop on Extension Personnel Training inAfrica, held in Cape Coast from 19-24 October,1997. Rome: FAO, pp. 3-6.

Zinnah, M. M. and Naibakelao, D. 1999. BringingAfrican universities into development: the SAFE

48

programme at the University of Cape Coast. In Zirmah, M. M., Steele, R. E. and Mattocks, D. M.Partnershipsfor rural development in suh-Saharan 1998. In Trainingfor agricultural and ruralAfrica. Geneva: CentreforAppliedStudiesin development. Economic and Social DevelopmentInternational Negotiations, pp. 65-75. Series No. 55. Rome: FAO.

49

Summary of Task Force ReportsRoger E. Steele

Four task forces were set up to deliberateon important issues related to the workshop. Each participant was assigned toone of the four task forces. Allowed over 2

hours to complete their deliberation, eachof the task force groups was instructed toprepare a set of recommendations to useas the basis for a summary report to bepresented to a plenary session of theworkshop. Most of the key outcomes fromthe four task forces have been captured inthe following paragraphs.

What have been the most significantmessages heard at the workshop?

As their first activity, each of the fourtask forces was asked to identify the mostimportant messages they had heard at theworkshop. The eight key ideas generatedby the task force members were:1. Every university or college must bewilling to leave its "ivory tower" and seekto be more demand-driven. In particular,they must seek to make their trainingmore relevant to extension workers.

2. There must be sufficient vision and

strategy to drive changes in universitycurricula and to sustain their continuingimplementation.3. Extension training must be approachedin a multi-disciplinary marmer with anemphasis on lifelong continuing education.

4. Every university and college curricula

must be dynamic and adaptable in orderto meet the changing needs of agriculturalextension—^but that the changes shouldnot jeopardize the quality of highereducation.

5. All universities and colleges mustdiscover ways to effectively partner withvarious levels of government and privatesector for the new programs to be viableand sustainable.

6. Women and children must be made

central in these and all agriculturaldevelopment approaches.7. In order to have significant and lastingchange, there must be a critical mass ofimiversities and colleges (within countries, across the continent, and even

worldwide) who are willing to implementdemand-driven responsive mid-careertraining.8. Universities and colleges need toincrease the quantity and improve thequality of networking in the area ofrelevant training for extension workers.

What are the most challenging issuesthat are yet to be fully addressed?

Secondly, each of the four task forcesidentified a few of the most problematicissues related to the workshop theme. Themost troubling concerns mentioned were:1. Since the agricultural sector ultimatelyhas a somewhat limited potential forproviding employment, some help must

50

be given to help enable employment inother sectors.

2. It has been very difficult for someuniversities and colleges to find sufficientfimding for start-up of new SAFE-typeprograms and others are struggling tolocate sufficient resources for effective

continuation of existing programs.3. Universities and colleges rarely havean enabling environment (weak policies)and often do not have the women and

men with sufficient courage (lack ofleadership) to make the necessary boldand responsive changes.4. Despite some progress, there is still aserious gender imbalance in agriculturaleducation and extension.

5. It is difficult to identify and evaluatethe training needs for extension—causedto some extent by a lack of accurate andcurrent data that would be needed for

effective planning.6. Universities and colleges need morestaff in all areas relevant to training ofextension workers—and that these staff

must be qualified and equipped to makethe training more relevant to client needs.7. HIV/AIDS, in particular, along withother diseases are radically impactingagriculture.8. The image of agriculture is poor inevery coimtry.

9. The best students often do not choose

to study agriculture.10. There is virtually no well-organizedagricultural education at the secondaryschool levels in some cormtries—and that

the agricultural education that is availableat the secondary level is often limited andof questionable quality.11. Focusing on mid-career improvementdoes meet an urgent short-term need formore effective extension workers but, on

the other hand, does not do enough toaddress broader challenges for pre-servicepreparation of future agricultural workers.

12. Because a considerable amount of

the brain drain in extension is due to poorsalaries and benefits, an improved training scheme will fall short unless it isaccompanied by reforms that improvethe conditions of service for extension

workers.

Potential roles and strategies fornational organizations

Two of the task force groups discussedand identified some appropriate roles andstrategies that national organizationsshould consider in trying to bring universities and colleges more into development.National organizations were identified tobe ministries of agriculture, education,finance/planning, and environment/natural resources; research institutions;

parliament; local authorities or localgovernments and certain non-govemmen-tal organizations.

By definition, national organizationsembody potential capacity to providetraining, protection of natural resources,distribution of agricultural resources,improvement of infrastructure, and agro-processing. The roles that they can playinclude advocacy (at least for NGOs),rationalization/maximization of resources

between governments and universities,setting of appropriate policies, employment of personnel through respectiveministries, provision of scholarships,salary guarantees, offers of adequateconditions of service, and assistance with

formalizing field activities betweenministries and universities. In particular, aministry of finance can remove or reducetax duties on items and equipment relatedto research and teaching. National organizations should also organize workshops tohelp evaluate partnerships betweengovernments and universities and toencourage informal discussions amongother stakeholders.

51

Each ministry of agriculture in a participating country should ensure involvement of their extension staff in mid-career

programs and provide approved leave,sufficient funding, and adequate studyfacilities for those who participate. Theministry of agriculture should alsoactively participate in the curriculumdevelopment, monitoring, and evaluationprocess in collaboration with otherpartners.

An essential strategy for ministries ofeducation includes meaningful incorporation of agricultural education into primaryand secondary school curricula. Furthermore, it is essential that once high qualityprimary and secondary agriculturaleducation has become available, the

respective authorities must be convincedto give due weight to agricultural qualifications in rmiversity admission processes.As a complementary strategy, rmiversitiesand teacher training colleges must starttraining more teachers in agriculturalsubject matter content and pedagogy sosecondary and primary schools have anappropriate cadre of qualified professionalteachers.

As far as local authorities or local

governments are concerned, they must bewilling to provide infrastructure (especially housing) to rmiversities for newdemand-driven programs. Local authorities can also remove or reduce levies on

services such as rentals and utilities to

ease the burden on new and continuingprograms. Perhaps most importantly, thelocal goverrrments must help establishstandards for adequate salaries andconditions of service that will serve to

motivate and retain the best extension

workers in their communities.

Another important ingredient tosuccess of new and continuing programsis to encourage imiversihes and colleges toaccelerate their interactions with NGOs. If

NGOs can be convinced that universityand college students are able to meaningfully engage with their developmentactivities in the field, then the NGOs are

likely to assist with fimding for the relatedportions of students' interventions in SEPsand other field activities. However,

universities and colleges must be diligentin helping their students conceptualizeand develop proposals for SEPs that fit theobjectives of each particular NGO and itstarget clientele in the field. It is essentialthat universities and colleges involverepresentatives of NGOs in curriculumdevelopment processes as early and oftenas possible. Once convinced of a viablerole, NGOs often have flexible resources

that they are willing to allocate towardmeeting aims and objectives of essentialfield work components related to academic extension training programs. Inparticular, NGOs often have a unique andcomplementary capacity to help instrengthening applied research efforts inthe applied social sciences.

As for the commercial private sector,they need to learn ways that they canwork with and, in particular, benefit frominvolvement with universities/colleges.Often, individuals who work for privatecompanies are not able to visualize whatuniversity or college students and graduates might be able to do to help them.They often limit student involvement tospecific prescribed technical tasks. Specialefforts must be made by universities andcolleges to help market the abilities ofstudents and graduates to perform morecomplex problem solving and to help theprivate sector understand that studentsare able to effectively undertake practicalmultidisciplinary type activities that areencountered in the field.

The next point is perhaps the mostcritical to ensuring success of new mid-career extension training programs. One

52

of the task force groups specificallyrecommended that each country's respective national organizations must securesufficient finances of its own tor start-upand operation of mid-career trainingprograms. They recommended the following:• That 30% of funds tor equipment andother initial investments should be

provided by the respective nationalgovernments (ministry of agriculture andeducation, and university).• That 20% be provided by other sourcesinternal to the country (NGOs, farmerorganizations, etc.).• That the remaining 50% be provided byexternal international organizations.Responsibilities tor on-going operatingcosts should also be shared but with the

respective host university or college incharge of providing and managing humanresources.

This task force group also recommended that a significant portion of thefunds needed tor funding SEPs should besolicited from NGOs and other potentialpartners tor at least the first 5 years ofeach new program. After the initial 5-yearperiod, the university and ministry ofagriculture should be prepared to assumeprimary financing of SEPs.

What are potential roles andstrategies for bilateral andmultilateral organizations?

It is painfully obvious that the area ofagricultural education and extensiondesperately needs more advocates whoare able to influence decision-making atall levels. Human resource developmentimprovements must be incorporated at theappropriate moments in all program andproject development and funding processes. Curriculum revision, provision ofequipment, and development or expansion of training facilities are a few of the

urgent needs. With these needs in mind,two of the workshop's task forces deliberated on the potential and appropriateroles for bilateral and multilateral

organizations. These two task forcegroups recommended that bilateral andmultilateral organizations be encouragedto fund proposals for agricultural education and extension programs, particularlythose proposals that arise from participatory strategic planning processes thathave involved representatives of bilateraland multilateral organizations. Bilateraland multilateral organizations arepositioned to play a key role in facilitating dialogue between stakeholders andensuring that agricultural education isseen as a priority at the highest levels ofnational government. Representatives ofbilateral and multilateral agencies canalso help encourage and enable anincrease in the number and quality ofhuman resource needs assessments,

tracer studies, and other forms of analysis that will represent the needs of thosepeople living at the community level.National organizations will welcomeconstructive assistance to aid their

processes of formulating effectivepolicies, preparing accurate documentation,and in disseminating any informationthat might be of interest to a broaderinternational community

Task force members itemized several

strategies that might help raise thelikelihood that bilateral and multilateral

organizations will choose to supportprograms for mid-career training ofextension staff. An important aspect wasthat proposals to international organizations must clearly show the following:• how needs were identified

• that the identified needs have been

expressed by the people themselves• the potential for sustainability of thenew programs

53

• more gender sensitivity, especiallymore participation of women in all aspectsof extension

• relevance of the cadres to be trained to

the overall agricultural and rural development needs

• relationship to other programs beingpromoted by host coimtries• an integral relationship of new programs to important environmentalconcerns

• that there has been internal agreementbetween ministries (especially importantfor World Bank and FAO involvement)• a convincing cormection to both longand short term visions

• that a host government has an internalcommitment to the proposed extensiontraining programs

Accurate accounting for funds alongwith an extensive dissemination of

program results through reports, workshops, and users conferences will increasethe likelihood of solicitingcontinuing cooperation from bilateral and multilateralorganizations. Similarly, rigorous monitoring and thorough evaluation will increasecredibility in the eyes of bilateral andmultilateral agencies.

One of the task forces noted that the

bilateral and multilateral communitywould continue to focus on their own

priorities unless national governmentofficials guide them in another direction.They observed that national officials mustbe convinced through tn-cormtry dialoguethat agriculture is the foundation ofnational development and, in particular,that a relevant training of mid-careerextension staff is essential for preparationof qualified individuals who can work inthe food, fiber, and off-farmagricultural-related industries. A clear statement of

internal prioritization will be the mosteffective means for conviucing bilateraland multilateral organizations that

agricultural education and extensionshould also be one of their investment

priorities. Undoubtedly, the bilateral andmultilateral organizations will also wantto see national governments demonstrating greater commitment to agriculturaleducation and extension through allocation of their own resources to the sector.

What are potential roles andstrategies for NGOs and the privatesector?

One of the task forces devoted aU of

their discussion time to identifyingappropriate roles and strategies for NGOsand the private sector. Potential rolesinclude:

• clients or potential employers• collaborators (co-teaching, joint research, extension, demonstrations, etc.),including planning, implementation,monitoring, and evaluation• hosts for students during SEPs activities

• sponsors of components of the program (e.g., their staff, students, trainers)• providers of grants, endowment etc.• promoters of the program (e.g., brokerage and lobbying roles)• users of knowledge provided byuniversities and colleges

Perhaps most importantly, the taskforce members felt that the private sectorand NGOs should be a part of universityand college decision-making processes.Qualified representatives from the privatesector and NGOs should be recruited to sit

on coimcils and curriculum planning andreview bodies. In particular, they couldprovide information on training needswith the intention of improving relevancy.Finally, universities and colleges shouldwork with the private sector and NGOs toexplore and pursue strategic partnershipswith each other for mutual benefits.

54

Final Comments

One theme in particular echoedthrough each of the four task force discussions: the need for sufficient fimding tolaunch and sustain programs for helpinguniversities and colleges to become moreengaged with agricultural development.All of the groups mentioned that it isalways cheaper and more convenient foruniversities and colleges to continueliving in their ivory towers. Engaging withagricultural development will require asignificant change in orientation and ashift in momentum. Those academic

communities which have decided that

they want to move closer to farmers andconsumers in their constituent areas will

face seemingly insurmountable obstacles.They will face both passive and activeopposition from many arenas. Theirefforts to leave the ivory tower willrequire considerable new investment andre-allocation of existing resources. Academic staff will have to be provided withappropriate incentives and then beenabled and empowered to move some oftheir pedagogic activities off the campusand closer to communities.

A second integrating theme arisingfrom the task forces is related to the

dynamic processes of dialogue that arenecessary for bringing about the enablingenvironment that must exist to success

fully launch any significant set of changes,especially those that are attempting tochange traditionally inflexible institutions.One workshop participant was overheardto say "the participants at this workshopare preaching to the converted." Thisindividual was making the point that thenetwork that contains the dialogue aboutbringing universities and colleges intoagricultural development must be significantly widened to include new audiences.This person also commented on thelimited diversity of participants from

bilateral and multilateral organizations atthis workshop. It was noted that eventhough the workshop organizers extendedinvitations to numerous bilateral and

multilateral organizations, only a fewwere actually able to attend. Widening thenet of participation remains a primarychallenge for this mid-career extensioneducation movement.

Finally, while the workshop's task forceparticipants clearly voiced the need forextension workers to obtain a solid

educational grounding in relevant areas ofagricultural science and technology, therewas an even more urgent call for a radicalchange in the traditional approaches thatuniversities and colleges use as theirprimary approach to teaching and learning. The lecture is still the predominantteaching methodology—people tend toteach the same way they were taught.Each of the task force groups noted thatconsiderable energy must be exerted ifuniversities and colleges are to be significantly moved toward a better mode ofpreparing students that is more practical,problem-based, and multidisciplinary inits orientation. Each of the task force

discussions affirmed that change towardmore responsive curricula is easier to talkabout than to actually implement andsustain. It is recognized that a multi-faceted and long-term effort with strongand capable leadership will be needed tobring about the necessary changes in sucha challenging institutional environment.

Overall, the workshop participantsapplauded the remarkable efforts thathave been made through SAFE-typeinitiatives in Ghana and elsewhere. Theyalso enthusiastically endorsed the continued experimentation, innovation, andimplementation of new mid-careerinitiatives in other countries and their

respective institutions.

55

Concluding CommentsNorman Borlaug

As I sat here over the last 2

days listening to discussions, I have sort of re

flected on all of the changesthat I have seen, not just inextension and education as

Sasakawa Africa Associa

tion has been involved

with here in sub-Saharan

African countries, but also in other areasof agricultural development. Let me beginby going back about six decades to theoriginal program to see how the development effort has evolved over time. That

first foreign technicalassistanceprogramwas established between the governmentof Mexicoand its Secretary of Agricultureand the Rockefeller Foundation in 1943.1

joined the effort in 1944 and from that dayto this I have been in one way or anotherworking in research, extension andeducation in different organizationsassociated with agricultural developmentin developing nations.

The Early Years

When the program in Mexico was initiated in 1943there was no research of anyconsequence going on in that country withthe exception of a small amount going onin maize and even much less in wheat.

There was no extension division so we

Norman Boriaug is President of the Sasakawa Africa Association.

56

researchers and our re

search associates had to

function, in effect, as the

extension service. We did

this because we were

interested to see the im

proved technologies wedeveloped—the newvarieties and how to grow

them, how to prepare the land, how tofertilize crops, how to control weeds inirrigated fields and how and when toirrigate crops—move to the beneficiariesof these technologies. At that time thecolleges of agriculture were dealinglargely with theory. There was very littlepractical experimentation to illustrate theprinciples that were being put forward.There was no graduate school in agricultural sciences of substance anywhere inLatin America at that time. So researchers

and their staff implemented extensionuntil about 12 years later when 15 researchers were moved into extension to

begin the extension program.It is important to mention that we

ultimately succeeded in having a verysuccessful wheat breeding programalthough many people sometimes thoughtit was insane because they said themethod was non-conventional. This

success made it possible to move this

wheat technology rapidly to areas thatwere in great difficulty with famine andhunger, namely Pakistan and India.Behind the scenes it also moved into

China even though I didn't see it thereuntil about 9 years later in 1974.

Reaching Out

When we got to Pakistan and India we raninto some problems. The researchersdidn't talk to the extension people orperhaps I should say the extension peopledidn't talk to the researchers—youcouldn't tell the difference. There was a

no-man's land between them. And ob

viously the transfer of technology didn'ttake place from experimental stations oruniversities to farms until this no-man's

land was bridged.There was a lot to be done in training.

And while there was a lot more sophistication in the educational institutions,

especially in India, than we had in LatinAmerica when we began, but the trainingwas still not very relevant to much of thethings that needed to be done in the short-term. I should have pointed out that inthat early period in Mexico, and we foundit true especially in Pakistan and to alesser extent in India, that when we had

outstanding yormg people who hadproven their capabilities and neededgraduate study training it was a hassle.There were a lot of training scholarshipfunds available in those early years inLatin America through Rockefeller, FordFoundation, USAID and various others

like the Kellogg Foundation. But theobstacles, especially of language, weregreat as there were no rapid languagetraining schools at that time. So there wereearly decisions to start graduate schoolsand now there are several in Mexico and

in many of the Latin American cormtries.At that time the relevance of training inAmerican or Western European universi

ties was much more appropriate than it istoday for our people here in sub-SaharanAfrica. So it behooves us to put majoremphasis not only on the type of trainingwe are dealing with in this workshop, butalso as far as possible, try to influence therestructuring or the reorientation andfocus of the curricula being used forcourses of study for sub-Saharan Africanstudents for the next several decades.

Opposition to Progress

Don't get the impression that we didn'thave problems then with commimicationor that we didn't have certain groups thatwere trying to subterfuge and sink thewhole effort. They were not as skilled inhandling the television or the press orradio and television hardly existed at thattime. But they were there badmouthingeverything that was going on not just inthe third world. Look, I say, back home atthe country where I first came from, wehad all sorts of people who, depending onwhich way the wind was blowing, couldbe supportive. There were others thatwere very disruptive and very disillusioning to the total efforts. There were othersthat were more skilled at undermining thethings we had set out to achieve and thesevery often were people in top positionssuch as in the Ministry of Agriculture,Finance, or in educational institutions.When you reach the pirmacle of the CivilService system you don't want peoplerocking the canoe. You want the statusquo. But the status quo means that you arenot changing with population growth andyou are marching backwards.

There were all sorts of things that werebeing used as propaganda. Not toodifferent in the degree of exaggeration thatwe hear today in some of the environmental issues by the extremists. I want tomake it clear that I originally lived in theback country and I hke wildlife. The

57

environment and the benefits of properuse of the land resources are important tome, but I must admit sometimes I get a bitdisconcerted by the over-exaggeratedemphasis given to one narrow aspect ofthe environment where the bias is all too

often very extreme. Just so that youimderstand and can appreciate how youhave to deal with all of this along the wayin development, whether it is in educationor extension or research, let me share an

experience with you. At one time rumorswere put out by three top people, one aVice Chancellor, who insisted that the

Mexican wheat had inferior taste. That

rumor couldn't be quelled until a ministerof agriculture of Pakistan ran a blindfoldtest comparing chapatis made from two ofthe best pre-Indian, meaning pre-partition,varieties with those made from two

imported Mexican varieties. With the helpof God, or at least with a lot of confusion,they rated the two Mexican varieties asthe best and that stopped that rumor. Butthere were other things said that weremore ferocious and more vicious: that

these wheats were making the animals,and possibly the women also, sterile. Thatwas more difficult to deal with because

these are insidious things and if they areproperly dished out they have a way ofcatching on. I mention these because ofmany of the issues being put forwardtoday by people with extremist views thatindicate we are on the verge of beingpoisoned out of existence by all sorts ofthings. For example, they imply thatchemical fertilizers are same as insecti

cides, fungicides, herbicides etc., by lumping them together in the same sentence.We all know fertilizers as nutrients for

plants whereas the other three—insecticides, fungicides and herbicides—are toxicsubstances selected to control certain

organisms, but this aU gets tangled up andhere we are tripping over each other.

Conclusion

In concluding, let me say that I believe theSAFE Program that was firmed by thethree people who originally had a stronghand in its development—DeolaNaibakelao, Chris Dowswell and RogerSteele—has, both in terms of organizationand structure, taken a solid shape whichwe have had the privilege of utilizing forthis exchange. We have had the opportunity to share ideas and information tofurther improve its efficiency and impactand I think it has been great. There's a lotleft to be done in terms of curriculum

modification and revitahzation and it is

my hope that one or two outstandinggraduate faculties in Agricultural Sciencewill emerge in one of the best universitiesand will become a truly great internationalinstitution.

I will stop here, but allow me tocongratulate all of you for the roles thatyou played. I want to thank YoheiSasakawa for continuing the noble effortsof his father, Roichi Sasakawa, who started

the whole African program. We had anunderstanding with Yohei's father thatwhen he passed away we were going totry to push this program forward so thathe would be proud of what was beingachieved. I feel strongly that if he werehere he would be proud of this meetingthat we have participated in over the last 2days. I wish you all success to carry onthis struggle for greater and greaterimprovement of extension education.Earlier, I mentioned three persons whoplayed an important role in getting thisprogram started. It would not have beenpossible to have had a successful localprogram in Ghana without the leadershipof the Vice Chancellor, his Dean and staff.

They set the tone for an excellent programwhich has spread to other countrieswithin this short period and that speaks ina loud voice. Congratulations to all of you.

58

APPENDIX

Starting and Sustaining a SAFE-TypeProgram: A Look at the University ofCape Coast SAFE Program, GhanaM. M. Zinnah, S. Akuamoah-Boateng, J, A. Kwarteng and G. O. Tetteh

The University of Cape Coast (UCC) B.Sc.Program in Agricultural Extension waslaunched in the 1993/94 academic year. Itconsisted of two tiers: a 4-year programfor certificate holders, and a 2-yearprogram for candidates with diplomas. In1999, a 2-year post-Certificate programleading to a Diploma in AgriculturalExtension was launched at the Kwadaso

Agricultural College in Kumasi leavingthe University of Cape Coast to concentrate on the 2-year post-Diploma Degreeprogram.

The program was requested by theMinistry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA)to train mid-career agricultural extensionstaff in Ghana. It was larmched with

financial and technical assistance from the

Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), a

Japanese non-governmental donororganization and Winrock International, anon-governmental development organization in the USA. The Ministry of Food andAgriculture and the University of CapeCoast provided additional funding.

Getting the Program Started

The important issues considered at theoutset were:

• preliminary issues related to theprogram

• resources needed to start the program• financing the program

Preliminary Issues1. Formal and informal consultations

were held among major stakeholders—University of Cape Coast, Ministry ofFood and Agriculture, Sasakawa AfricaAssociation and Winrock International—

to sensitize and create awareness for the

need for the mid-career extension program and to ensure a shared vision andcommitment to the program.2. A formal extension training needsassessment was conducted to provide dataon current training needs and the capacityof the university in terms of physicalinfrastructure, academic and administra

tive staff etc. to offer the training needed.3. In-house workshops were held withthe major stakeholders to discuss thephilosophy, approach, opportunities andproblems in developing and implementing such a program.4. A national workshop was held forrepresentatives of diverse stakeholders—regional and district directors, farmers,lecturers, NGOs, etc.—to discuss andconsolidate the vision and details of the

program and to secure wider commitmentto the objectives of the program.

M. M. Zinnah is the SAFE project co-ordinator; S. Akuamoah-Boateng and

J. A. Kwarteng are faculty members of the Department of Agricultural Econom

ics and Extension, UCC; G. O. Tetteh is the Director of Development, UCC.

59

Box 1. Summary of Curriculum for the Post-Diploma B.Sc. Agricultural

Extension Programme In the School of Agriculture, University of Cape

Coast.

Hours

Course no./course title Theory/practice Credits

Level 300* - First Semester Courses

AGN 205 Introduction to Computing 1-2 2

AEX 303 Social Change and Rural Development 3-0 3

AEX 304 Adult and Non-Formal Education 3-0 3

AEG 301 Farm Management Economics 2-3 3

IRC 301 Information Retrieval 2-0 2

AGR 301 Principles of Horticulture 2-3 3

AAS 401 Fisheries 2-3 3

Total 19

Level 300* - Second Semester Courses

AEX 302 Communication and Extension Methods 2-2 3

AEX 305 Extension Research Methods 2-3 3

AGN 302 Non-Traditional Farming 2-3 3

AEN 302 Post-Harvest Technology 1-2 2

AEX 306 Systems Thinking for Changing Agriculture 2-0 2

AEX 307 Participatory Approaches in Extension 1-2 2

AEX 403 Report and Proposal Writing 2-2 3

AEG 401 Agricultural Marketing 2-0 2

Total 20

Level 400 First Semester Courses

AEX 402 Programme Planning and Evaluation in Extension 3-0 3

AEX 404 Planning of Supervised Experience Projects (SEPs) 2-2 2

AEX 405 Group Dynamics and Public Relations 3-0 3

AEX 406 Gender, Leadership and Youth Issues In Extension 3-0 3

AEX 411 Animal Production 2-3 3

Elective Course** 3

Elective Course** 3

Total 20

Level 400 -Off-Campus Supervised Experience Projects (SEPs)AEX 407 Supervised Experience Projects (SEPs) 0-9 3

Total 3

*Students are placed at Level 300—equivalent to Year 3 in the normal 4-Year Universityprogram—-because they already possess a Diploma qualification

** The two elective courses must be selected by students from the list of elective coursesbased on the student's perceived need and upon the advice and consent of their academicadvisors or the Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension.

Continued

60

Box 1. Continued.

Hours

Course no./course title Theory/practice Credits

Level 400 - Second Semester Courses

AEN 401 Irrigation and Drainage 2-2 3

AEX 408 Population, Resource Management and Environment 2-0 2

AEX 409 Development of Extension Training Materials 2-3 3

AEX 410 Current Issues In Extension and Technology 3-0 3

ACR 404 Integrated Pest Management 2-3 3

ASS 403 Soil Management 2-3 3

AEX 499 Project 0-9 3

Total 20

TOTAL CREDIT HOURS = 82

NOTE: Courses InAgricultural Extension and closely related fields make up a total of 44credit hours or 54% of credit distribution while supporting courses In agriculture and agricultural economics make up the remaining 46%.

5. A detailed, responsive curriculum wasprepared with inputs from the majorstakeholders to satisfy MOFA's demand(see summary in Box 1).6. The curriculum was sent through theacademic board of the University forstudy, discussion and approval.7. Selection and admission criteria were

developed for prospective studentsaccording to the employer's (MOFA's)staff development policy criteria and theadmission requirements of the Universityof Cape Coast.

Resources Needed to Start Program

An assessment was made of the

following resources needed to start theprogram.

1. Human resources (number and qualification of full-time and part-time academicstaff, administrative staff, etc.). Howeverprojections were made to increase seniorstaff strength by 50%.2. Physical infrastructure (classrooms,offices, dormitories, library, etc.). A facilitycomprising classrooms, dormitories.

offices and conference rooms was con

structed (see Fig. 1).3. Instructional materials/equipment(books, journals, computers, projectorsand accessories, vehicles, etc. (Table 1).

Financing the Program

The main aspects of financing involvedcapital and operational costs. The majorsources of funding for the UCC SAFEprogram are presented in Table 2.

Capital cost involved the cost ofvehicles, offices, classrooms, dormitories

etc. Internal and external fimds were

required to cover capital costs at thebeginning of the program. In addition, acouple of vehicles and other materials andequipment were acquired for the program.Capital cost for the UCC SAFE programwas provided by the Sasakawa AfricaAssociation, the Ministry of Food andAgriculture, USAID and the University ofCape Coast.

Operational costs were costs involvedin the day-to-day rurming of the programas well as costs for such items as tuition.

61

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Figure. 1. Plan of physical structures (student hostel section and conterence section).

materials and the supervision of SEPs . Inthe case of the UCC program, tuition costswere covered by the University whileMOFA provided study leave tor all theirstudents enrolled in the program. Additional timding was provided by SAA andthe University to cover materials, runningcosts and supervision of the supervisedenterprise/experience projects (SEPs).

Human resources costs involved costs

of full-time and part-time faculty, administrative and junior staff costs as weU asstaff development (especially fromMasters to Ph.D. degrees) and professionalenhancement costs involving such activities as conferences, seminars and work

shops. These costs are borne by theUniversity of Cape Coast under its existing arrangements. Funds are from time totime provided by the SAFE program torworkshops and conferences.

Keeping the Program Going

Keeping the program going entailsactivities related to:

• on-campus delivery of the curriculum• ott-campus supervised enterprise/experience projects (SEPs)

On-Campus Delivery of Curriculum

This comprises teaching, field trips, on-campus practicals, training materials andother consumables etc. Adult education

principles and adult teaching methods aswell as facilitation skills are stressed

throughout the teaching and learningencounter.

Off-Campus Supervised Enterprise/Experience Projects (SEPs)

The ott-campus SEP is to help studentswork with farmers in rural commimities

to:

62

Table 1. Instructional materials and equipment required for getting started.

Unit Cost Total Cost

Item Quantity (US$) (US$)

30-Seater Bus 1 70,000 70,000

4x4 Double Cabin PIck-Up 1 30,000 30,000

4x4 Station Wagon (Land Cruiser) 1 55,000 55,000

Core reference text books Several - 20,000

Journal subscriptions Assorted -4,000

Internet subscriptions - -500

Computers, monitors and cables 22 2,500 55,000

Printers and cables 10 600 6,000

UPS 22 450 9,900

Ptiotocopiers 2 4,000 8,000

Scanner 1 600 600

Computer software 10 400 4000

Laptop computers 3 2000 6000

Fax machine 1 600 600

Multi-media video projector 1 10,000 10,000

Video projector screens 4 650 2,600

Video camera 2 700 1,400

Still camera 5 400 2,000

Binding machine 2 350 700

Overhead projector 3 550 1,650

Slide projector 3 600 1,800

Video deck 2 400 800

Color printer 1 700 700

TV monitor 2 300 600

Trolley 4 150 600

Flip chart stands 5 60 300

Tripod for video cameras 2 60 120

Generator (60 KVA) 1 20,000 20,000

Public address system 1 1,000 1,000

Refrigerator 2 700 1,400

Miscellaneous Equipment - -10,000

Total 325,270

• develop increased competencies asextension agents in order to promote theeffective delivery of extension throughparticipatory extension• increase reflective learning• appreciate the value of participation inexperiential learning• emphasize the importance of processand impact in experiential learningthereby promoting a monitoring andevaluation culture

• complement on-campus learning forholisfic human resource development• encourage lifelong learning

The plarming, implemenfation andevaluation of SEPs goes through thefollowing stages:1. Students visit proposed SEPs communities to plan projects with stakeholders.After this exercise every student is required to filled out and duly approvedPre-SEPs Form 01 (see Box 2).2. Students develop and submit SEPsproposals to on-campus supervisors (UCClecturers).3. Students proceed to selected communities to implement SEPs with stakeholders.Daily student field activities are moni-

63

Table 2. Major sources of funding for the SAFE program at the University of Cape Coast.

Major sources of funding Components of program being funded

University of Cape Coast (UCC) Salaries of university staff; administrative overheads; utilities;office and accommodation for Winrock/SAA staff seconded to

UCC; contribution to the construction of Sasakawa Centrehostel, conference rooms, library etc.; contribution to thefunding of off campus SEPs.

Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) Contribution to the construction of Sasakawa Centre; provisionof instructional materials and equipment; contribution to thefunding of SEPs; payment of study leave salaries of all MOFAstaff in the program

Sasakawa Africa Association Grants for initial planning; contribution to the construction ofSasakawa Centre; vehicles; instructional materials and

equipment (e.g., computers); contribution to funding ofoff-campus SEPs; salary and benefits of secondedSAAAVinrock staff.

German Technical Co-operation Contribution to funding of students' SEPs

World Vision International-Ghana Contribution to funding off-campus SEPs

USAID Contribution to the construction of the Sasakawa Centre

Darko Farms Contribution to students' SEPs

District Assemblies Contribution to students' SEPs

Other NGOs Contribution to students' SEPs

tored by designated supervisors calledCo-Supervisors. These are usually MOFAemployees of the rank of District Director.4. Lecturers visit students at pre-deter-mined intervals to evaluate SEPs activity.Lecturers fill out Form 02-SEPs Visitation

Record for UCC Lecturers (see Box 3).5. Co-supervisors assess students undertheir charge and provide feedback to theUniversity on the basis of the followingvariables: quality of planning, dependability, initiative, judgment, use of availablelocal resources, usefulness of the SEP to

local extension activities, degree ofachievement of SEP objecfives, attitudetoward SEP activities, attitude toward

workers and farmers, attitude toward

directions, and guidance.6. Students prepare and present SEPsProject Reports.7. Students prepare and submit final SEPsreports m the form of dissertations.8. Students are given final grades on thebasis of overall performance (see Box 4).

Note: The average armual total cost ofthe SEPs per student is currently $805.

Most of this cost is made up of transportation and supervision costs.

Recommendations for Launchingand Sustaining SAFE-iypePrograms

The following recommendations areoffered for the benefit of institutions and

partners interested in launching SAFE-type programs.

1. Carry out a formal needs assessment toestablish a need for the program.2. Secure the commitment of the leader

ship of the implementing institution to thevision and success of the program throughdialogue and discussions about theprogram.

3. Hold consultations with major stakeholders to ensure a common and shared

vision for the program.4. Develop responsive curriculum withinput from major stakeholders. Thecurriculum should be reviewed from time

to time and the required changes made tokeep it responsive and relevant.5. Hold a re-orientation course for all staff

64

Box 2.

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND EXTENSION

FORM 01— PRE-SUPERVISED ENTERPRISE PROJECTS (SEPs) FORM

NAME OF STUDENT:

PROPOSED SEPs TOPIC:*

*Please consider points a-d below in arriving at a proposed SEPs topic

JUSTIFiCATION FOR TOPIC (To be filled by student in consultation with localsupervisor)

(a) What are the most pressing agricultural problems for farmers in thisarea? Please list in descending order of priority.

(b) Is the selected SEPs topic related to any of the prioritizedagricultural problems indicated in (a) above

YES ; NO If Yes, Explain

(c) Will the student be able to complete the proposed project \A/ithin thestipulated 4-6 months period?

YES ; NO

(d) Will there be adequate on-site supervision for the student over theproject period?

YES ; NO

Co-Supervisor's Name: Position:

Contact Address:

Tel: ; Other (e.g., e-mail. Fax):

Please indicate what support the District will be able to provide for the student:

Name of District Director of Agriculture:

Signature of District Director of Agriculture: Date:.

65

Box 3.

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND EXTENSION

FORM 02— SEPs VISITATION RECORD FOR UCC LECTURERS

GENERAL INFORMATION

Name of Student:

Surname

Date of visit:.

District:

Title of SEP:-

Observations:.

Major Accomplishments:

First Name

.Visit No.:_

-Region:—

Middle Initial

.Village/Town.

improvements or changes in the SEP since last visit (or since student began the

SEP, if this is the first visit)

Student's Probiems and Concerns:

Lecturer's comments and recommendations for improvement:

Lecturer's Name: Lecturer's Signature: Date:

66

Box 4.

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND EXTENSION

FORM 04—STUDENT OVERALL SEPs EVALUATION FORM

Name of Student:

Title of SEPs Project:

Village/ Town District. .Region.

Overall Evaluation Score Grade

Grading System

80-100

75-79

70-74

65-69

60-64

55-59

50-54

0-49

Supervisor's Name:

Supervisor's Signature:

Date:

67

A

B+

B

C+

0

D+

D

E

involved in the program to sensitize themto the philosophy, operation and merits ofthe program.6. Plan for the effective delivery of thecurriculum using adult education principles, participatory approaches andfacilitation skills.

7. Make sure there are adequate numbersof qualified staff (hmnan resources) tostart the program.8. Ensure that gender is mainstreamed inall aspects of the program.9. Provide effective supervision to makeSEPs projects relevant and successful.10. Make sure there is (or will be) adequate infrastructure to start the program.11. Plan for the acquisition of instructional materials and equipment for theprogram.

12. Determine clearly the costs involved

in starting and sustaining the programand show how the program will befinanced (e.g., through grants and fundedproposals).13. Organize a start-up workshop formajor stakeholders to facilitate the smoothimplementation of the program.14. Form partnerships with organizationsand institutions committed to the same

vision.

15. Have a human resources developmentprogram and motivation strategies thatpromote continuing staff developmentand high staff morale for staff involved inthe implementation of the program.16. Develop a framework and a set ofcriteria for monitoring, evaluating, anddocumenting the impacts of the program.This may involve internal and externalreviews of the program.

68

Workshop ParticipantsBringing African Universities and Colleges More into Agricultural Development, held inAccra and Cape Coast, Ghana, 4^6 September 2000.

Samuel Kwasi AdjepongVice Chancellor

University of Cape CoastCape Coast, Ghana

S. Akuamoah-BoatengAg. Head,Dept. of Agricultural Economics& Extension

University of Cape CoastCape Coast, Ghana

Anthony AppiahPrincipalKwadaso Agricultural CoUegeKumasi, Ghana

Benedicta Appiah-AsanteNational Coordinator

Sasakawa Global 2000

Accra, Ghana

Tareke BerheCountry DirectorSasakawa Global 2000

Conakry, Guinea

Mensah BonsuDean

School of AgricultureUniversity of Cape CoastCape Coast, Ghana

Norman E. BorlaugPresident

Sasakawa Africa Association

Mexico D.F., Mexico

Steven BrethEditor

Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Alex G. CarsonProfessor

University of Cape CoastSchool of AgricultureCape Coast, Ghana

Rui DE BritoDean of the Faculty of Agronomyand Forest EngineeringUniversidade Eduardo Mondlane

Maputo, Mozambique

Desta HamitoPresident

Alemaya University of Agriculture

Dire Dawa, Ethiopia

Christopher DowswellDirector for Program Coordination

Sasakawa Africa Association

Mexico D.F., Mexico

Michael FosterCountry DirectorSasakawa Global 2000

Kampala, Uganda

Jean F. FreymondDirector

Centre for Applied Studies inInternational NegotiationsGeneva, Switzerland

Marcel GalibaCountry Director for Mali&Burkina Faso

Sasakawa Global 2000

Bamako, Mali

Wayne HaagCountry DirectorSasakawa Global 2000

Maputo, Mozambique

John HardmanExecutive Director

The Carter Center

Atlanta, Georgia 30307USA

Floyd P. Horn

Administrator

Agricultural Research ServiceU.S. Department of AgricultureWashington D.C. USA

Akira Iriyama

President

Sasakawa Peace Foundation

Tokyo, Japan

70

Michio Ito

Administrative Officer

Sasakawa Africa Association

Tokyo, Japan

Takashi ItoDirector

Dept. of International AffairsThe Nippon FoundationTokyo, Japan

George Kanyama-PhiriPrincipalBunda College of AgricultureUniversity of MalawiLilongwe, Malawi

WiLBERFORCE KlSAMBA-Mugerwa

Minister of Agriculture, AnimalIndustries and Fisheries

Entebbe, Uganda

Gabriel KiwuwaSenior Professor of AgricultureMakerere UniversityKampala, Uganda

Hendrik Knipscheer

Senior Managing DirectorGlobal OperationsWinrock International

Arlington, Virginia, USA

Mamady KouroumaAdviser on Higher EducationMinistere de TEnseignementSuperieurConakry, Guinea

J. A. KwartengSenior Lecturer and Editor

University of Cape CoastSchool of AgricultureCape Coast, Ghana

D. L. Lamptey

Head, Dept. of AgriculturalEngineeringUniversity of Cape CoastSchool of AgricultureCape Coast, Ghana

William I. Lindley

Consultant in AgriculturalEducation

Washington, Pennsylvania, USA

Anselm B. LwogaVice-Chancellor

Sokoine University of AgricultureMorogoro, Tanzania

TosfflRO Mado

Program OfficerFood Processing EnterpriseSasakawa Africa Association

Tokyo, Japan

Charles MaguireSenior Institutional DevelopmentSpecialistWorld Bank

Washington, D.C., USA

Abdullahi MahadiVice-Chancellor

Ahmadu Bello UniversityZaria, Nigeria

Charles January MatabwaController, Agricultural Extension and Technical Services

Ministry of Agriculture andIrrigationLilongwe, Malawi

Mengistu Hulluka

Minister of AgricultureAddis Ababa, Ethiopia

Masataka MinagawaGeneral ManagerSasakawa Africa Association

Tokyo, Japan

Johannes MoetDirector

Faculty of AgricultureCatholic UniversityCuamba, Mozambique

Olivia MuchenaMinister of State in the Vice-

President's Office

Harare, Zimbabwe

JeffMutimbaCo-ordinator for East and

Southern Africa

SAFE/Winrock International

Alemaya UniversityDire Dawa, Ethiopia

Shiro Nabeya

Resident RepresentativeJapan International CooperationAgencyAccra-North, Ghana

CoFFi Mathurin NagoDoyenFaculte des Sciences

AgronomiquesUniversite Nationale du Benin

Cotonou, Benin

Deola Naibakelao

Director

Sasakawa Africa Fund for

Extension Education

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Stephen ObimpehMember of Parliament

Accra, Ghana

Kfntaro OgiueThe Nippon FoundationTokyo, Japan

Moussa OuattaraRecteur

Universite PolytechniqueBobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Michelle OwensExtension, Education cSc Communication Officer

FAO

Accra, Ghana

Marco A. QuinonesCountry DirectorSasakawa Global 2000

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

71

pAFRfi SaMAKESecretaire General

Universite du Mali

Bamako, Mali

Shohei SasakawaNippon FoundationTokyo, Japan

Yohei SasakawaPresident

Nippon FoundationTokyo, Japan

G. Edward SchuhRegents ProfessorHumphrey Institute of PublicAffairs

University of MinnesotaMinneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Victoria SekitolekoSub-Regional RepresentativeSouthern and Eastern Africa

FAO

Harare, Zimbabwe

Nicodemus SicilimaDirector of AgricultureMinistry of Agriculture andCooperativesDar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Yazora SorofoguiDirecteur General

Institut Sup&ieur Agronomiqueet Veterinaire

Faranah, Guinea

Roger SteeleAssistant Professor

Cornell UniversityDepartment of EducationIthaca, New York. USA

Lanre TalabiExecutive Chairman

Talon (Nigeria) Ltd.Lagos, Nigeria

Tatsuya Tanami Helen Wedgewood Moses ZinnahDirector, International Relations Rural Livelihoods Coordinator West & Central Africa Co-

and Special Projects Dept. for International Develop- ordinatorDept. of International Affairs ment SAFENippon Foundation Rural Livelihoods Office Winrock InternationalTokyo, Japan Accra,Ghana University of Cape Coast

J. A. Valencia Kunio YonenagaCountry Director Member of the Board ofSasakawa Global 2000 Coimsellors

Lilongwe, Malawi Nippon FoundationTokyo, Japan

72

Cape Coast, Ghana

Centre for Applied Studies in International Negotiations, 7, bis Avenue de la Paix, 1211Geneva 1, Switzerland

Sasakawa Africa Association, c/o CIMMYT, Apdo. 6-641, 06600 Mexico D.F., Mexico

Global 2000 Program of The Carter Center, 1 Copenhill Road, Atlanta, GA 30307, USA

ISBN 2-940192-20-0