Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Food Security Group

IDWP 67. Edited by Julie Howard and Eric Crawford. 1997. 76 pp. Final Report--Workshop on Experiences and Options for Priority Setting in NARS, August 12-16, 1996, Nairobi, Kenya

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The motivation for this workshop came from two sources. First, under a project funded by
USAID (AFR/SD/PSGE/TDT Office), Michigan State University (MSU) has been carrying out
various activities to assist African national agricultural research systems (NARS) and regional
organizations to improve their capacity for strategic agricultural research planning, including
technology assessment and priority setting within a commodity sector framework.

Second, recent collaborative work by the International Service for National Agricultural
Research (ISNAR) and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) has focused on the
development of a process and methods for program-level priority setting. Of key importance is
the emphasis on assisting KARI to develop an improved process and practical, user-friendly
tools for priority setting and resource allocation in agricultural research. These include a
geographic information system to classify research target zones, and computer-based spreadsheet
models of alternative priority-setting methods.

Following from these activities, MSU, ISNAR and KARI agreed in early 1996 to jointly plan
and facilitate a regional workshop on experiences and options for priority setting and technology
assessment in NARS. The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and
Central Africa (ASARECA) agreed to sponsor the activity, and in June invited NARS directors
in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to nominate up to six persons each to participate in the
workshop.