Module 2 - Senegal: Making Research Demand-Driven

Evaluation of the Second Agricultural Research Project, completed in 1996, highlighted poor performance of the Senegalese Research Institution (ISRA). Despite considerable investment since the mid-1980s, with two successive Bank and two successive USAID-funded research projects, ISRA was still not responding to farmers’ needs. Management reforms, including incentive systems to reward performance and financial management improvements, remained pending. Investments in important subsectors of postharvest technology and agroprocessing had been neglected because they were the responsibility of a different research institute, the Food Technology Research Institute (ITA).

Project Objectives and Description

The Agricultural Services and Producer Organization Project is a shift in approach from supporting only the supply of services to supporting both the supply of and demand for services. Without strong demand from end-users, public research institutions were unlikely to make essential, but difficult, reforms to improve responsiveness of research to clients. The project sought to (1) strengthen producer organization (PO) capacity to become effective research partners and (2) establish mechanisms to make research institutions accountable to clients. The project design recognized the need for:

• Capacity building for two research institutes (ISRA and ITA).
  
• An alternative to “institutional” or core funding for research operating costs.
  
• More effective utilization of scarce human and physical resources for research.

The project established the National Agricultural Research Fund (NARF), a legally independent entity that separates its research funding function from the execution function and enables qualified entities, public and private, to access funds for research. Parallel core funding provides ISRA and ITA with funds for infrastructure, training, and management strengthening.

NARF finances research proposals submitted through two mechanisms: researcher-developed proposals related to ISRA’s or ITA’s strategic plans, and responses to calls-for-proposals issued by NARF on themes identified by end-users. The two types of proposals undergo the same two-tier screening procedure: first, by a scientific and technical committee of 15 scientific resource persons (6 from outside Senegal), who screen proposals for scientific quality, and then by a management committee with a majority of  (PO)  and private sector representatives. Once a proposal is approved, NARF signs a contract with the lead research institution.