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As introduction, I am Gary Alex, currently working in the Washington office of USAID in the Agricultural Technology Generation and Outreach Team. I have spent about 25 years overseas working on USAID rural programs and about eight years working as a consultant at the World Bank. Most of my career has been related to agricultural technology and innovation programs. The opening questions for this discussion frame two related but somewhat separate issues: * How DFID can best organize to provide adequate technical support for its program development and implementation activities; and * How DFID can best promote development of mechanisms for adequate technical support to development in target countries or areas. The first is a management issue and the second an institutional development issue. Ensuring AST relevance seems to me to be the critical issue. All technologies and innovations must be tested-and often adapted-to local conditions. This is probably becoming increasingly important with the changing face of agricultural and rural economies and the need for technologies that are more management intensive and tailored to local environmental, social, and market realities. What this implies is the development of more robust rural knowledge economies. AST is a major element of this, but is only part of the entire picture. There would seem to be no question but what DFID must ensure adequate its in-house expertise to manage AST and broader rural development programs. Dana Dalrymple points out the value of a balance of centralized support and field technical staff. Central units are important for knowledge management and technical support-especially when supported by generous travel budgets and oriented to respond to country program demands. Still, in-country technical staff seem to me to be critical to maintaining effective dialogues with stakeholders, monitoring programs, and developing capacity. This has been a recognized strength of DFID. Pressures on budgets and the great diversity and specialization regarding technical issues generally require development agencies to out-source services on an as-needed basis. For this, USAID has made good use of IQC's (Indefinite Quantity Contracts) that can provide limited core support (including training and research) for a center of expertise with the option of drawing on additional services for work on specific country programs. [This may be the role of DFID's RNRRSs.] An advantage of the IQC's is that they are demand driven (at least in response to the demands of USAID country programs) and if they don't offer relevant, quality services, they aren't used. The same demand-drive principle seems important to other centralized technology programs or technical support services. This is true even for research, which often requires long term perspective and has limited immediate impacts, as central research programs still need to understand real-life problems to stay relevant. Without being forced to respond to country program needs, as a justification for a program, there is a real danger of centralized programs declining in relevance. The record on development of local institutional capacity for AST is decidedly mixed. Some countries-mostly larger ones-have developed sound public research programs and diversified AST capacity in the public and private sector. For many countries, the record however has been that of a cycle of institutional capacity development during a donor project and decay afterwards. DFID's continuous support for some institutions, such as CIAT (Bolivia) and Lumle/Pakhribas (Nepal), produced some good results, but resulted in difficult exit strategies. The need for country institutional capacity remains. Perhaps the clearest need and best option for donor support of developing country AST capacity is that of supporting human resource development (in-country programs and overseas degrees). Well-trained AST scientists and technicians may find employment in either the public or private sectors, thus potentially strengthening a variety of institutions and being available for support to development efforts. Gary Alex ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- Gary E. Alex, Farmer-to-Farmer Program Advisor, USAID/EGAT/AG/FTF, RRB 02.11.053, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, NW., Washington, DC 20523; Phone: 202-712-4086; Fax: 202-216-3579; Email: <address removed> <mailto:<address removed>>
Please visit dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org.