October 2009
AFRICAN COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS
Twenty-first Session
Accra, Ghana, 28 – 31 October 2009
Strategy for mobilizing funds for agricultural census good practicesTanzania
1. Background
Most developing countries have recently expressed their commitment to their countries economic reforms. This is the situation where countries are laying out strategies aiming at reduction of poverty and creation of wealth to the majority of their people who are living below the poverty line.
Because of lack of skills and resources most of these developing countries are managing their economic reforms in partnership with development agencies. In most developing countries including Tanzania, agriculture plays a significant role in employment as well as in wealth creation of the people and the Nation. It is therefore imperative that Agriculture sector development be given a foremost important priority by developing countries in terms of development resource allocation, planning and measurement of outcomes.
In Tanzania a vision 2025 Poverty Monitoring Master Plan strategy has been formulated. In order to properly gauge its success and progress, the government has planned a series of censuses and surveys to assist in policy formulation, planning and to track changes in the wellbeing of the population of Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.
Demands for reliable and timely agriculture data have become significantly increasing for monitoring outcomes and progress of the Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP) and performance of respective MDAs (ASLMs).
In order to meet this pressing demands, a series of Agriculture Surveys have been planned, the first one was undertaken in 2002/03 agriculture year, the second is planned for the year 2007/08 and the third in 2012/13 and so forth. These series of censuses will serve as a monitoring and evaluation tool for rural development interventions.
2.0 Why conduct Agriculture Surveys and Censuses?
Regional Estimates Vs District Estimates
In Tanzania and most developing countries a sample survey with regional estimate is cheaper to undertake than a Sample Survey with District estimates, the following reasons justifies why a sample survey with district estimates is desirable than the one with regional estimates
· In Tanzania, prior to the last agriculture sample census (2002/03), agriculture surveys were undertaken every year. However, due to the requirement of district estimates and the need for a wider dataset the cost of these surveys became too much to conduct annually, under the framework of the poverty monitoring master plan it was therefore decided to carry out a comprehensive Agriculture Survey every 5 years instead.
· Following Local Government Reform Programme, the centre of activity as far as development planning is concerned has shifted to the district level. It is imperative therefore that accurate data for use in planning should be available at this level.
· The government decentralization Programme has made the district the focus of administration and development planning. A whole spectrum of agricultural data is required for planning and decision making at this level.”
· Agriculture data forms a critical part of any data available for planning at district level owing to its importance and potential in income generation and poverty monitoring.
· The Agriculture Sectoral Development Programme (ASDP), which is the focal point of the Poverty Monitoring Master Plan (MKUKUTA/MKUZA) implementation strategies, is in progress. In order to be able to correctly gauge its effectiveness in achieving its objectives, we need to have indicators on state of production, services and resource use on which to assess progress. Such indicators should be district based since the ASDP is being implemented at district level.
· According to the MKUKUTA/MKUZA plan of operations, agricultural census surveys should be held every 5 years. The last agriculture sample census was in 2002/03, hence the planned agriculture sample survey/census with district estimates will provide census data within the recommended time frame.
· The Agriculture Sample Survey will be conducted in the context of the poverty reduction strategy (MKUKUTA/MKUZA) which will have a ‘core poverty module’ embedded. The aim of such a module is to produce trend data on key poverty indicators and to allow cross-tabulation of variables covered in a given survey with poverty indicators. In 2007/08 agriculture sample census, for example, we will be able to look at agricultural production, access to markets and inputs, etc by poverty status. Trend analysis with 2003/03 agriculture data can be done at district level for rural households.
3.0 Soliciting Funds for Agriculture Surveys and Censuses?
It is important to note that surveys and census in particular are resource intensive and most developing countries cannot fund these exercises from their own resources. In Tanzania particularly funding for Agriculture Surveys and Censuses has been through the poverty monitoring master plan, a program which draws funds from development partners and the Government. It has not been easy to secure funds from these sources; however the following strategies are always being employed.
3.1 User Producer Dialogues
This is a forum where users and producers meet to discuss various issues and in particular the data needs assessment, timing, quality issues and funding issues. In Tanzania these dialogues are normally done during the initial planning stage of Agriculture Surveys/Census undertakings to understand the actual requirement of the users and during the dissemination process of the survey results to find out whether the requested demands have been addressed adequately.
3.2 Dissemination Workshops
In Tanzania Dissemination workshops are done to inform the Government, donor community, development partners and the General Public of the results obtained from Agriculture Surveys and Censuses. It is very important to allocate a sufficient budget during the planning stage to be used for dissemination purposes. This is because an effective dissemination campaign requires that the intended end user of the Agriculture Sample Census Results (the District) is reached. As it has been said above, the Government decentralization Programme has made the district the focus of administration and development planning. It is therefore very important to inform the policy makers at district level of the availability of the information that the district cannot do planning without. Due to the effectiveness of this exercise the 2007/08 Agriculture Sample Census obtained about half of the operational expenses from the Ministries Responsible for Agriculture Development.
3.3 Timely Production of Reports and quality statistics
It is very important to timely produce the intended set of reports so that users could utilize the information efficiently. Also more importantly is the issue of quality statistics. The 2002/03 Tanzania Agriculture Sample Census produces a set of best reports and quality statistics as it is being reported by the users. This increases the confidence of the users to the producers and this is likely to attract the willingness of the policy makers (users) to provide funds for Agriculture Surveys and Censuses.
3.4 Methodology used to collect the information
The methodology used to undertake Agriculture Surveys and Censuses in Tanzania is a subjective method. That is carrying out direct interviews with respondents in order to complete the survey questionnaires. In early 90’s Tanzania used to carry out Agriculture Surveys and Censuses by using the Objective measurement method. But later a study which was conducted by experienced Agricultural Statisticians recommended that subjective survey method was cheaper in terms of cost and easy to manage than objective survey method. Since then Tanzania adopted the subjective method and it has proved to produce reliable, timely and cost effective results than objective measurement.
3.5 Adoption and use of new and modern technologies
The 2002/03 Tanzania Agriculture Census used OCR Scanning technology for capturing the data from the questionnaires (about one Million Documents were scanned). The same technology has been used for the 2007/8 Agriculture Sample Census. This technology is cheaper and has minimum data capture errors compared to manual Data entry. Use of this technology also helps to reduce the Agriculture Sample Census budget estimates and therefore makes the funding exercise affordable to Donors.
4.0 Conclusion and Recommendations
As outlined in this document, agriculture is of paramount importance as far as the economic and social performance is concerned. It is along that line that the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania has been continuously developing policies and striving hard to ensure that agricultural related data collection operations are being undertaken
There is massive demand for such data and this is what brings about the whole importance and attention that agricultural statistics are getting in the working circles of the Government. Given the whole understanding and context of the whole subject, it is a non-debatable issue that food and agricultural statistics in Africa are important in ensuring food security and poverty reduction thus calling for the strengthening the processes of their production. Hence, the processes of drawing up and reviewing the related policies and programmes will benefit from the strengthened data production systems.
On the basis of the current situation in Tanzania and many other African countries, the following recommendations are made:
· The design of a poverty monitoring master plan is instrumental in setting a coherent work programme for poverty monitoring. Making sure that costing of the programme is done properly and ensuring sufficient funds for agriculture surveys.
· A country level producer user dialogue should be encouraged so as to sensitize the users on available statistics and how to use them.
· Countries should adopt the use of cost effective data collection and processing methodologies (scanning technology) this will encourage the donor community and development partners to easily allocate funds for agriculture surveys and censuses.
· Data Producers should develop the spirit of timely production of Agriculture Census reports, this will be achieved by drawing up realistic timeline and work plans and this will also encourage the donor community and development partners to allocate funds for agriculture surveys and censuses.
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