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,

Transforming gender relations in rural Ethiopia through community conversations

Poster prepared for a share fair, Addis Ababa, May 201

Current status of agricultural extension services for market oriented agricultural development in Ethiopia: Results from a household baseline survey

In Ethiopia, the public extension service has a key role in the introduction and promotion of value chain development interventions to transform the rural sector. The Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project conducted a household baseline survey to assess the current status of the public extension service from a market oriented development perspective. A total of 2502 (2025 male- and 477 female-headed households), randomly selected from LIVES intervention peasant associations (PAs), were interviewed. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis. The survey results show that, while extension services in Ethiopia have recently focused on the production of high value commodities, advice, training and linkage facilitation support on market information, storage, processing and marketing of value chain commodities is not generally strong. The use of innovative extension service delivery methods and tools for market oriented agricultural development has not yet been widely used in Ethiopia.Keywords: market oriented extension, value chain developmen