Poverty analyses in integrated agricultural research for development.

Abstract

It is essential for integrated agricultural research for development (IARD) to relate research on agricultural innovations to the demands of farmers with different livelihoods and farming systems, especially according to poverty and gender differentiation. Uganda has a relatively long experience with poverty monitoring at the level of the national and regional economy. The Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) and Uganda Participatory Poverty Assessment Programme (UPPAP). However ARD has done little to adapt innovations to demands of males and females or poverty groups. With support from DANIDA, the external monitoring unit (EMU) of DANIDA's Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS), has developed a gender and poverty analysis methodology, which supplements  poverty analyse based on the UNHS and UPPAP. This approach measures poverty statistically using a multidimensional set of indicators developed from the rural men's and women's own perceptions. In addition the approach can be used at the household level to analyse demands for adoption of and impact of innovations as expressed and experienced by male and female farmers and different poverty groups. The paper describes briefly how multidimensional and participatory poverty and gender well-bieng indicators were identified. A well-bieng ranking methodology was used to obtain the indicators. They were then extrapolated and tested statistically for representativeness and aggregated in a quantitative index. Based on a conventional questionnaire survey, poverty analyses are presented for five ASPS pilot districts in Uganda. Among other things, the analysis shows how different faces of poverty are expressed through different indicators, such as landholding, sources of non-agricultural incomes, food security, and standard of housing. Due to limitations of space, related analyses of gender inequality are not included in this paper. In the ASPS study as well as studies undertaken in other districts. The poverty analyses have also been to access the extent to which agricultural practices are adopted by farmers of varying well being categories, and how different agricultural interventions reach these categories. Finally the paper discusses the need to base poverty targeted IARD on similiar approaches.