In recent days, MDF troops have been deployed to the northern border to prevent the smuggling of maize into Tanzania and Zambia. While this action seems a natural response during a year of national food shortage, four factors should give us pause for thought.
Evaluating impact of participatory agricultural interventions: do we see what we want to see?
“Agricultural (research) programs without rigorous impact evaluation tend to focus on rapid testing (and rollout) of technologies with high-probability adopters to provide swift feedback to donor constituencies. Such programs also tend to favor numeric accomplishments over a deeper understanding of complex development processes with the unintended consequence of promoting solutions without strong evidence of impact […]
