The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture is co-author to a guide that ensures the right solution is selected to advising farmers and food producers in developing countries.

- Agricultural production is one of the potentially very big growth areas that developing countries can build their economy around in the future. And there is an increasing understanding that a positive development is conditional upon an effective advisory service being available, says Sanne Chipeta, senior adviser with International Advice, that is the International Department at the Knowledge Centre.

During recent years many advisory activities have and are being initiated, but until now it has been difficult to evaluate the value and the result of the different initiatives and projects, and therefore the risk of repeating old mistakes in advising has been great. That gap is now bridged by the new guide to evaluation of agricultural advisory services.

”The Guide to Extension Evaluation” published by GFRAS, an international umbrella organisation for agricultural advisory service providers. GFRAS - Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services. The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture is a member of GFRAS and Sanne Chipeta is co-author of the guide.

Ensuring sustainability
- In GFRAS cooperation a number of areas are defined that are central to ensure an effective advisory service. These for example are to ensure that advisory systems are sustainable and market oriented, that advisers can be held responsible for their work, and that the solutions selected meet the immediate needs of the clients. It is these areas that need to be evaluated, says Sanne Chipeta.

When we compare with Denmark the Danish system, where farmers own the companies that advise them, is a good example that advisers are held responsible for their work. But there are many other models to work with that can ensure responsibility.

- In the guide we present a number of methods and models within the different areas to be evaluated. It is a not a recipe book but an idea catalogue and tool that different interested parties can select from and use to ensure an effective evaluation of advisory services. Basically the guide is a tool to find out whether there is value for money – do the projects initiated provide a better value for the stakeholders and can they support the development of the agriculture sector abroad, says sanne Chipeta.

The guide is a first edition that will now be tested and the guide will be updated later and finalised by the end of the year.

Read more and download the guide from the GFRAS home page.