Research Policy Briefs and Guidelines

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Browsing Research Policy Briefs and Guidelines by Author "Adong, Annet"

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    Access and Use of Credit in Uganda: Unlocking the Dilemma of Financing Small Holder Farmers
    (Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), 2012) Munyambonera, Ezra; Nampewo, Dorothy; Adong, Annet; Mayanja, Musa
    This policy brief is about access and use of credit in Uganda by small holder farmers. The brief uses the secondary data to shed light on the extent of the problem and further uses successful case studies in agricultural financing to demonstrate how improvements can be achieved. The major problem established from available information is that despite several agricultural financing initiatives and other reforms in the financial sector in the last 20 years, access to credit by small holder farmers in Uganda has remained very low in the region of about 10 percent. Examining the several agricultural financing initiatives since 1990s tends to suggest that the problem could largely be attributed to weak institutional framework and policy inconsistency on agricultural financing over the years, notwithstanding household demand factors. The key policy recommendation drawn from this assessment is that if agricultural financing is to improve, there is need to have strong institutional framework that focuses on financing frameworks, monitoring and implementation. A better option is for government to support the establishment of a rural or agricultural development bank that prioritises agricultural financing.
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    Is Implementing Uganda’s Single Spine Agricultural Extension Reform Feasible?
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2017) Barungi, Mildred; Adong, Annet; Guloba, Madina
    Uganda has undertaken a number of reforms in extension service provision, ranging from a commodity-focused extension system in the colonial times to a farmer demand-driven extension system (National Agricultural Advisory Services-NAADS). Due to the challenges and unsatisfactory impacts associated with NAADS, in 2014 Cabinet approved MAAIF’s position to develop a more integrated, coordinated and harmonized public extension system—the Single Spine agricultural extension service delivery system. However, the feasibility of implementing the Single Spine reform can only be realised if challenges faced by predecessor agricultural extension systems are addressed immediately. This calls for increasing public financing for agricultural extension service delivery or exploring new financing options, recruiting more staff to fill the vacant technical positions, expediting the development of a framework for implementing the Single spine reform, and creating and maintaining good relations among institutions that contribute to delivering extension services to farmers.
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    Targeting Right: Regional Variation In Food Crop Commercialization
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2014) Adong, Annet; Muhumuza, Tony; Mbowa, Swaibu
    Policy initiatives in Uganda have continuously laid emphasis on the need to transform the agriculture sector from subsistence farming to commercial. The country is also zoned into production regions for purposes of intensifying production based on comparative and competitive advantages. Focusing on the five major crops in Uganda, this policy brief provides evidence on the variation in regional food crop commercialization. It provides evidence in support of the commodity focused approach of targeting specific crops in selected agricultural zones. For example it shows that cassava is a viable crop enterprise for large scale commercial production in Northern Uganda while bananas is a viable enterprise for intensive production in Western Uganda. The policy brief emphasizes the need to pay attention to the agricultural zones in guiding interventions in crop farming.
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    Universal Health Coverage in Uganda: The Critical Health Infrastructure, Healthcare Coverage and Equity
    (SPEED Initiative, 2017) Odokonyero, Tonny; Mwesigye, Francis; Adong, Annet; Mbowa, Swaibu
    Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has gained popularity within the global health policy and academic circles as countries strive to meet the UHC target established under the Sustainable Development Goal agenda. To accomplish this goal, developing countries such as Rwanda, Ghana and others have pursued bold policy initiatives including the introduction of health insurance schemes. In addition to financing, presence of critical health infrastructure and Human Resources for Health (HRH) are crucial to achieving UHC. Using administrative data from IntraHealth Uganda Country Programme (as well as document review) and the Demographic & Health Survey data, this paper analysed Uganda’s critical health infrastructure (including HRH) needed to attain sustained progress towards UHC. It also reviewed UHC progress and analysed equity by computing Composite Coverage Index (CCI) and Coverage Gap Scores. Results show fundamental challenges with the health infrastructure needed to deliver UHC in Uganda. Spatial inequality exists in health facility population coverage and private sector health infrastructure investments. Low health workforce density imply that the existing health workforce is deficient and unable to expand populationbased healthcare services. Progress towards UHC [considering reproductive, maternal, new-born, and child health (RMCH) interventions] has improved marginally over the reviewed period, although the CCI remained low, and regional and socio-economic disparities in coverage remained. Findings also demonstrate that improved healthcare coverage corresponds to better health outcomes. Accelerating progress towards UHC require; increased investments in health infrastructure and strengthening Public Private Partnership arrangements to establish health infrastructure in disadvantaged regions; and improvement in health workforce density by reviewing current staffing norms for critical cadres as well as increased deliberate investments in HRH using similar initiatives like the HRH programme model of Rwanda. To scale up healthcare coverage for RMCH, interventions should aim to maintain successes obtained for immunization and address existing gaps in lagging intervention areas. These objectives can only be achieved if the country institutes and effectively implements a coherent set of health sector policy reforms, regarding health financing, for instance, while drawing lessons from the successful policy efforts observed in the Rwandan case scenario.
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    Why have majority of farmers in Uganda remained in subsistence?
    (Economic Policy Research Centre, 2014) Adong, Annet; Muhumuza, Tony; Mbowa, Swaibu
    Uganda strives to transform the agriculture sector from subsistence to commercial agriculture, in part, to increase household incomes. While a number of policy interventions have been designed to this effect, the sector has remained largely subsistence. In this briefing, we show that for small holder farmers in Uganda, food self-sufficiency goals override the need to earn income from the market for most households in the second season. Food sufficiency goals could be addressed by improving crop productivity and storage. Interventions could also target crop varieties that perform well during short rains to encourage smallholder farmers to actively engage in production throughout the year. For commercialization drive, infrastructural development remains crucial