Review of agricultural extension in India: Are farmers' information needs being met?

Despite a wide range of reform initiatives in agricultural extension in India in the past decades, the coverage of, access to, and quality of information provided to marginalized and poor farmers is uneven. This paper aims to ascertain why farmers are not accessing information and where information gaps exist, despite the variety of extension approaches in India. Using information provision and access as the basis for analysis, the paper reviews some of the major agricultural extension programs in India by considering their ability to provide information and facilitate information sharing and use in farming communities. The review gives a broad overview of the current extension scene in India while providing a synthesis of recent debates and the observations of various authors as well as working groups in the Ministry of Agriculture and the Planning Commission. The paper examines the challenges and constraints of each agricultural extension approach as it attempts to provide farmers with access to information that is relevant to their farm enterprises. As a result of this analysis, opportunities are identified for increasing extension services' effectiveness and efficiency in reaching smallholder farmers. Research gaps are also identified. The review concludes that there is an increasing need to work in partnership and to share knowledge and skills in order to provide locally relevant services that meet the information needs of marginal and smallholder farmers in India.agricultural extension, Knowledge, information, Innovation, Public-private partnership, Gender, Education,

Making Poverty History? How Activists, Philanthropists, and the Public Are Changing Global Development

From August 1 to 3, 2007, fifty preeminent U.S. and international experts from government, business, academia, and the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors came together at the Aspen Institute to explore the changing contours of the global development community. By examining the common challenges development actors face -- promoting accountability, using resources effectively, and achieving scale and sustainability -- participants aimed to spur successful practices and establish foundations for collaboration among the expanding field of players determined to lift the lives of the world's poorest people

You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Data Access in US Small and Medium Sized Cities

abstract: This research examines data exchange between city departments and external stakeholders; particularly, why city departments have different capacity to access data from departments in the same city, other public agencies, private and nonprofit organizations. Data access is of theoretical interest because it provides the opportunity to investigate how public organizations and public managers deal with a portfolio of relationships in a loosely structured context characterized by dynamics of power and influence. Moreover, enhancing data access is important for public managers to increase the amount and diversity of information available to design, implement, and support public services and policies. Drawing from institutionalism, resource dependence theory, and collaboration scholarship, I developed a set of hypotheses that emphasize two dimensions of data access in local governments. First, a vertical dimension which includes institutions, the social environment - particularly power relationships - and coordination mechanisms implemented by managers. This dimension shows how exogenous - not controlled by public managers - and endogenous - controlled by public managers - factors contribute to a public organization’s ability to access resources. Second, a horizontal dimension which considers the characteristics of the actors involved in data exchange and emphasizes the institutional and social context of intra-organizational, intra-sectoral and cross-sectoral data access. Hypotheses are tested using survey data from a 2016 nationally representative sample of 500 US cities with populations between 25,000 and 250,000. By focusing on small- and medium-sized cities, I contribute to a literature that typically focuses on data sharing in US large cities and federal agencies. Results show that the influence of government agencies and the influence of civil society have opposite effect on data access, whereas government influence limits data access while influence from civil society increases capacity to access data. The effectiveness of coordination mechanisms varies according to the stakeholder type. Public managers rely on informal networks to exchange data with other departments in the city and other governmental agencies while they leverage lateral coordination mechanisms - informal but unplanned - to coordinate data access from nongovernmental organizations. I conclude by discussing the implications for practice and future research.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Public Administration and Policy 201

An Annotated Bibliography of Recent Literature on Current Developments in Philanthropy

As philanthropic organizations play an increasingly important role in societies around the world, the research on philanthropy – from giving and volunteering practices to regulatory frameworks to digital innovations – has also evolved in recent decades. It is important to develop a thorough overview of the relevant scientific discourses and literature on current developments in philanthropy. This will allow researchers and practitioners to enhance the understanding of philanthropy and to improve its practice worldwide. This report provides new insights on current developments and important changes in the global philanthropic landscape, including trends in global philanthropy and its interaction with other sectors of society

Making information and communication technologies work for food security in Africa

"Africa faces a difficult challenge in meeting the main target of the first Millennium Development Goal — to halve the number of people suffering from malnutrition and hunger by 2015. Bridging the digital divide through the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)—such as fixed-line and mobile phones and Internet services—will not directly solve this challenge, but it can make a significant contribution." from Text

The American Assembly: Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property

Examines intellectual property issues as the arts sector joins other sectors in the race to deal with an increasingly information-driven economy

International Profiles of Health Care Systems, 2011

This publication presents overviews of the health care systems of Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Each overview covers health insurance, public and private financing, health system organization, quality of care, health disparities, efficiency and integration, use of health information technology, use of evidence-based practice, cost containment, and recent reforms and innovations. In addition, summary tables provide data on a number of key health system characteristics and performance indicators, including overall health care spending, hospital spending and utilization, health care access, patient safety, care coordination, chronic care management, disease prevention, capacity for quality improvement, and public views

Structural Challenges of Knowledge-Based Economy in Iran

The knowledge-based firms can both flourish and grow and stimulate employment and economic growth. Iranian Knowledge-based firms’ protection law is the protection of small and medium knowledge-based firms which are at their elementary steps of growth and don’t have enough attraction to investors. Knowledge-based firms’ protection law in Iran faces to serious challenges that causes this law will not reach to its aim, same as the other protection laws for reducing unemployment and increasing the economic growth. The aim of the study is investigating of structural challenges of knowledge-based firms in Iran. First challenge is about the definition of these kind of firms which weren’t designed in accordance to demand and the knowledge economy and the learner's economy has been ignored. Second challenge is related to performance mechanisms in financial support and providing the facilities for these kind of firms, which reveals the weakness of mechanisms against the economic surplus and corruption. These challenges caused gaps including the weakness of needed mechanisms for the illegal subsidy banning, dependent situation of the innovation and prosperity fund, Khosoulati pressures, enterprise approach of the government, governmental inter-authority competition and the weakness of participant attraction of the public and private organizations that hinder the movement towards a knowledge-based economy

Agricultural extension services and gender equality: An institutional analysis of four districts in Ethiopia

Decentralized delivery of public services has been promoted as a means to enhance citizen voice and make service provision more responsive to users. Ethiopia has undertaken two rounds of decentralization, making first the regional states and then the district governments responsible for providing key public services. This paper explores whether decentralization has improved the quality of service delivery and citizen satisfaction with the services provided, focusing on agricultural extension. Specifically, we examine whether services are responsive to the needs and expressed demands of poor farmers, including women farmers. We focus on the institutional arrangements through which agricultural extension services are provided and how these contribute to efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in service delivery.agricultural extension, Decentralization, Gender, institutional analysis,

Setting partnership for climate change adaptation in the CCAFS Yatenga site, Burkina Faso: analysis of gaps and opportunities

This paper analyzes patterns of social interaction within the organizations working in the Yatenga province of Burkina Faso, and develops purposive partnership framework that can facilitate the scaling up of the action research outputs and outcomes. A diagnostic tool for evaluating group functioning was used to elucidate the current situation of partnership development in this province. Further, partnership and networking was analyzed using the network density which describes the portion of the potential connections in a network of organizations that are actual connections. The results suggest that the desired partnership as requested/expected by stakeholders is far from working as it could be. The stakeholders therefore agreed that network density need to be increased for future partnership, with clearly defined vision, shared responsibilities in generating knowledge and results, and capacities to monitor, evaluate and communicate on the program impacts. For this purpose, future partnership need to combine scale-based and competency-based frameworks to be beneficial at scale and pulling together organizations’ competencies. Implementing both frameworks would lead to an effective partnership on climate change adaptation in agriculture and food security. However, the successful development of this purposive partnership will require capacity development for the group of partnering organizations