Inclusive agricultural transformation (IAT) requires coherent, evidence-based, and data-informed policymaking. The right mix of policy interventions, regulations, and investments can accelerate countries toward a positive transformation trajectory.
The ‘Enabling Country Systems: Africa (ECS)’ team, which falls under the Agricultural Development (AgDev) Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supports the policy analysis needed to prioritize and reform policies hypothesized to drive IAT. ECS commits significant resources to support country demand-driven and evidence-based policy advocacy and reforms. Post-adoption, ECS is keen to understand what enablers and challenges support or hinder the implementation of these policy reforms.
Our role
Itad has been contracted to undertake a retrospective policy evaluation of recommended reforms to better understand when, how, and why some policy reforms are successfully implemented by governments. The results of the evaluation will inform the way BMGF develops future policy strategy and program decisions.
Our approach
Itad’s evaluation will centre on two investments by ECS that supported governments in identifying, analysing, and recommending potential policy reforms to promote IAT:
- Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP), and
- Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness (MIRA).
Following government approval – or not – of the MAFAP and MIRA recommended reforms, it was then up to the government to implement these reforms. The progress of both investments toward their milestones are well-documented; therefore, this evaluation does not endeavour to assess the performance of MAFAP and MIRA under the terms of the investment. Though the investments were never expected to be accountable for implementation, their ultimate impact depends, at a minimum, on implementation.
Itad’s evaluation aims to examine to what extent adopted reforms have been implemented by governments and their partners, why or why not, and to what extent governments and their partners have sustained implementation over time.
The project was implemented through a unique partnership with International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED), applying equitable partnership principles such as Southern leadership and two-way capacity building.
