Failure to institutionalize public agricultural policy analysis units

Five major reasons are explored: (1) donor involvement challenging governmental intervention; (2) limited demand for agricultural policy analysis; (3) poor management; (4) austerity and sustainability; and (5) a lack of balance in agricultural policy research agendas. (1) It is most likely that structural adjustment and agricultural sector policy thrusts challenged prevailing governmental policies. As such studies exposed limitations on existing policies, many public decisionmakers were not supportive of such policy units. (2) The demand for policy analyses is related to who and how the policy analysis research agenda is specified. In the worst-case scenario, public policy research agendas are structured by advocates or benefactors of continuing governmental interventions. An equally ineffective agenda-setting scenario is one established by external donors typically advocating a more market driven set of policies. (3) The failure to institutionalize public policy units may be related to poor management. These administrative failures relate to the lack of leadership, lack of specificity, absence of relevant personnel policies and procedures, absence of competitive environment, the short-term time frame of policy decisionmakers, and the failure to disseminate/discuss policy issues with the general public. (4) The austerity conditions on public expenditures imposed by structural adjustment policies have clearly had a negative impact on institutionalization. (5) The failure to have balanced research agendas in public units on sectoral and intersectoral policy issues may have had two important consequences. One is that macro intersectoral policy changes may have been responsible for creating a more market-oriented set of agricultural policies. Also, host country priorities, given austerity conditions, were to continue support for policy units other than those directly tied to agricultural ministries. The paper concludes with a section on factors that donors might consider in realigning their support for agricultural policy. At least six factors are briefly reviewed; they include a concern for identifying and linking with prime public policy decisionmakers, a private sector policy research component, a linkage with individual university policy researchers, a matching grant funding mechanism for both recurring and long-term sustainability, a concern for the form and process associated with establishing agricultural policy research agendas, and a suggestion that agricultural policy research be supported in existing agricultural research institutions. (Author abstract, modified)