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Decentralization of Agricultural Extension Services in Colombia
Maurizio Guadagni, Elsie Garfield, and Daniel Moreau
Workshop on “Alternative Approaches for Funding and Delivering Extension Services”
Washington, DC. June 18-19 1996
Description and Special Characteristics
1.In a rather short period of time, Colombia has radically modified the way extension is delivered to small farmers[1]. The main responsibility for this service has been decentralized from the national to the municipal level. Several decrees, laws and regulations were issued during 1989-1993 for obliging each municipality to create its own extension office. This municipal extension office was called UMATA (Unidad Municipal de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria) and was made responsible to provide technical assistance to small farmers on agricultural, livestock, fishery, environmental, social, and gender issues. Responsibilities for the management of the UMATAs are located at the municipal level, and not in a chain of command stemming from the national government, whose role in extension is limited to financial and technical support. In terms of financial support, the UMATAs are funded by the municipal government, which receives budgetary transfers from the central government, and also has access to matching-grants from the national cofinancing system (Fondo DRI). The UMATAs receive technical support and training from the Ministry of Agriculture (PRONATTA[2] - Programa Nacional de Transferencia de Tecnología Agropecuaria).
2.The legal requirements have been followed by most municipalities, and an UMATA had been created in almost every municipality of the country (1,040 UMATAs out of 1,050 municipalities), with total staff ranging around 5,300 employees, of which 3,500 are technical or professional staff. The UMATAs are providing free extension services to some 450,000 small farmers out of an estimated total of 1,600,000. This represents a 28 percent of the potential beneficiaries, less than the planned 50 percent. Nevertheless, the major challenge faced by the new system is quality rather than coverage. In fact to assure the quality of more than 1,000 independent units is far from simple and the technical quality of the service runs a risk of deterioration. However, two considerations are important to judge the UMATA system: (i)this experience is very recent -- about half of the UMATAs were established after 1993 -- and a thoroughly evaluation is currently underway[3]; and (ii)the new system has to be compared it with the previous, centralized extension system.
3.During the period 1989-1995, when the UMATAs were progressively created, the previous centralized system was gradually dismantled. Before 1989, extension was provided by several institutions[4] the more important of which was the Colombian Institute for Agriculture and Livestock (ICA, Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario), directly under the Ministry of Agriculture. ICA was in charge of research and extension, with some 800 technical/professional staff employed full-time for extension, covering some 250 municipalities and 125,000 families. The improvement in coverage is evident, as shown in the following table.
Table 1 - Quantitative Impact of the UMATA System
Previous Centralized System (ICA ) / New Decentralized System (UMATAs) / Difference (%)Number of technical or professional staff / 800 / 3,500 / 338%
Covered municipalities / 250 / 1,040 / 316%
Beneficiaries / 125,000 / 450,000 / 260%
Beneficiaries per technical staff / 156 / 129 / -17%
Total cost per year * / US$12,000,000 / US$38,820,000 / 224%
Yearly cost per beneficiary * / US$96 / US$86 / -10%
* rough estimates (evaluation is still underway)
4.The challenge faced by the new system is quality. Within ICA, the linkage between research activities and extension was much closer, and the technical quality of extension agents was guaranteed by a single, professionally committed, and visible institution. Now that there are 1,000 newly created independent units this task is much more complex. Legally, there are several requirements which the municipality must follow, such as the level of education of its extension agents, the number of beneficiaries per technical staff[5], etc.. However, it remains difficult for the central government to guarantee several aspects of quality, and the political interference of the municipal government is strong. As a result, extension agents of the UMATAs are too often changed for political reasons, such as after municipal elections, creating problems of continuity. Furthermore, municipal governments rely less than expected on private consulting firms: although the law encourages the use of private sources of expertise, in practice these are rarely employed, since directly employed staff are more easily controlled (and manipulated). Unfortunately, the enforcement of legal requirements is cumbersome because it is politically difficult to sanction non-complying municipalities.
5.There is also an important aspect of quality which improved with the new system: the capacity of the UMATA to respond to the real needs of its beneficiaries. The extension agents of the UMATA are much closer to small farmers than those of ICA, as they are located in every municipality, and they are part of the local government, which is much more accessible to small farmers than the distant central government.
6.Two strategies are being implemented to cope with the risk of quality deterioration. The first one is an effort of the central and departmental governments to provide technical assistance and financial resources for research and training activities (PRONATTA and Agricultural Secretariat of the departments). The second strategy is an effort to develop the influence and control of final beneficiaries on the decisionmaking process at local level. The same laws which required the creation of the UMATAs also required the creation of Municipal Committees for Rural Development, with the function of coordinating and prioritizing rural development activities, including the activities of the UMATA. The interesting legal requirement is that rural community representatives should have the majority in these committees, reducing or counterbalancing the political influence of the municipal government. Unfortunately, only some 450 of these Committees have been created in the 1,050 municipalities, and it seems that most of them do not have a real decisionmaking power.
7.Financing mechanisms. At the moment, most of the costs to finance the system are sustained by the central government, through budget transfers and Fondo DRI. Budget transfers are based on a complex mechanism which provides financial resources to municipal governments, with several constraints such as maximum quota for recurrent costs and minimal quota for some categories of expenditures (such as education or health). As a result, the untied transfers, out of which the UMATAs has to be financed, are generally insufficient for all priorities. To solve this problem, Fondo DRI finances some US$17 million per year for demand-driven projects to provide equipment, training, and other requirements of the UMATAs (only in a few, poorest municipalitiesFondo DRI covers recurrent costs such as salaries). The cofinancing percentage of Fondo DRI is differentiated according to the poverty level of the municipality, so that poorer municipalities receive greater support.
8.Financial Sustainability. The costs for maintaining these services are considerable, and they increased significantly under the new system (see table 1). However, the financial sustainability issue has not yet been faced, and the following ideas are shared by few single persons in the government. The remote objective seems to be a gradual transfer of the fiscal burden to the municipalities (fiscal decentralization), once sufficient demand for extension services has been created. Preliminary ideas are based on the belief that the demand for extension by most Colombian small farmers does not yet exist. This is the same process required to introduce any innovation: the initial reaction is diffidence, but once this stage is passed, the innovation becomes essential[6]. Only at that moment do users become willing to pay for this service, whereas before they would not have used it, even it were free. Once demand is created, local financing will become possible. This rationale could explain the transition period as an investment in human capital, essential to change people’s demands. Ultimately, the laws which oblige each municipality to have an UMATA will have the possibility to be gradually revoked, so that local governments will be free to decide. The objective of the investment could be to end up with a significant number of municipalities which will continue to provide this service even without legal obligation.
Reproducibility and Conditions of Success
9.The major critical factors for the success of decentralization of agricultural extension services are (i)the existence of a representative local government, together with the willingness of the central government to decentralize, and (ii)the availability of resources to finance these activities. In Colombia, the UMATAs have been created in connection with several constitutional changes which opened the way to a broad decentralization process. Starting in 1988, mayors and municipal councils have been popularly elected. The parliament and the central government gave more resources, responsibilities, and decisionmaking autonomy to municipalities. This was possible as a consequence of specific circumstances, where rural based guerrilla influenced these decisions.
10.Of course, the availability of financial resources is a critical factor. However, given the current trend of fiscal rigor, it is not easy to find governments which are willing to spend such resources. Therefore, a thoroughly reflection on financial sustainability is essential. On the one hand, the Colombian experience is extremely useful for comparing the efficiency of centralized versus decentralized delivery mechanisms and also for its interesting financing mechanisms. On the other hand, this experience has not yet determined whether local governments or final beneficiaries are willing to pay for these services.
11.The following conditions, though critical, are open to improvement: (i)accessibility to an active research program which is able to generate the technologies to be transferred; (ii)the supply of technical and professional extension agents; and (iii)an efficient quality control and monitoring system. The Ministry of Agriculture, through PRONATTA (Programa Nacional de Transferencia de Tecnología Agropecuaria) and with the support of the Bank, is financing demand-driven research activities to improve accessibility and relevance of agricultural research. Extension agents were already available in Colombia: those who were laid off from ICA became available, and the professional and university educational system is able to supply the market. Quality control and monitoring responsibilities are distributed among different institutions, mostly within the Ministry of Agriculture. The Departmental Agricultural Secretariats also play a key role in quality control although, given their relative independence, coordination problems are not uncommon. The active participation of beneficiaries and civil society in monitoring and quality control is also essential.
Contacts
Colombia:
Elberth Ardila, Director, Technical Assistance, Fondo DRI. Bogotá. Tel.(571)2817867
José Luis Gomez, General Coordinator, PRONATTA, Bogotá. Tel.(571)3341199
Gullierth Patiño, Director, Institutional Development, Fondo DRI, Bogotá. Tel.(571)2817509
The World Bank, 1818 H St. NW, Washington, DC 20433 (USA):
Maurizio Guadagni, Agriculturist, LATAD. RoomI6109, Tel.(202)4587155
Elsie Garfield, Sr. Agricultural Economist, LA3NR. RoomI5097, Tel.(202)4735007
Daniel Moreau, Sr. Agriculturist, LA3NR. RoomI5113, Tel.(202)4739562
[1]small farmers are defined as those with less than two Family Agricultural Units. The definition of this unit is based on the requirement of extra-family labor and on the share of family income from agricultural activities, which should provide at least 70 percent of total family income.
[2]Fondo DRI and PRONATTA are supported by two Bank projects.
[3]several evaluation efforts are underway in Colombia, and most of their results will be ready in May 1996.
[4]such as the Caja Agraria (Agrarian Bank) and INCORA (Instituto Colombiano de Reforma Agraria). Several other organizations were and are still involved in extension, as for example the Coffee Producers Association, NGOs etc. Their efforts are, however, very localized.
[5]the required maximum number of beneficiaries per technical staff is 150, though one could argue that this is limit is low and therefore costly.
[6]new software is a typical example.