Action - Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative - Taxation and price policies - All population groups
Programme: Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 4: ENABLING POLICY ENVIRONMENT
Contributes to IR 8: Improved enabling policy environment and good governance for both agriculture and nutrition
FTF Tanzania will support policy reform and address major agricultural policy and governance issues by building the capacity of the government and private sector to conduct analyses and take action to identify and address the binding constraints to agricultural development. The USG will promote policies that provide an enabling environment for private sector investment in agriculture, create more certain and consistent trade policies, develop and assist in the implementation of more gender equitable policies and focus on policies that enable the implementation of key nutritional interventions. These will include policies and legal issues related to agricultural inputs, credit, markets, and land and trade policy. In order for any of the investments in food security to have the intended impact, a supportive policy environment is foundational.
Tanzania has overarching policy challenges that can seriously impact its performance with food security and its possible role as a regional provider into the future. The recent AgCLIR assessment for Tanzania identified several key policy issues that currently inhibit transformational agricultural growth, including: policy instability, multiplicity of local taxes, and a weak legal framework to protect property rights.
FTF will actively work to develop the GOT‘s capacity to analyze and implement policy instruments that address both short and long-term food security needs. Possible interventions include:
To ensure that policies that cause market distortion are avoided, FTF will create a robust monitoring system for policy reforms and will promote mutual accountability based on a consultative process rather than imposing conditionality.
One of the main challenges to promoting good governance in Tanzania is access to information by the public and by pressure groups, which is necessary for holding the government accountable in use of resources for provision of public services such as rural roads or extension. FTF will establish a communications strategy that will enhance access to information on food security and agriculture so as to foster public awareness on the program, and on state and private sector performance in the sector. The program will build upon the existing processes for ―Agricultural Sector Review‖ and ―Public Expenditure Review‖ which are held annually.
The participation of civil society, media and NGOs in shaping an agricultural development program is essential to ensuring that a program articulates the needs of the majority, including vulnerable segments of the population such as women and children. Civil society and NGOs can also assist in holding the government accountable for its performance. FTF Tanzania will support some local NGOs and civil society organizations to champion policy reforms. USG has started, and will continue, to engage civil society in the shaping of FTF, and encourage them to participate in the implementation process. The U.S. Government advocated for more engagement of civil society in the CAADP process, resulting in the engagement of the Agriculture Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF) in the CAADP Task Force and the Drafting Team for TAFSIP. As the U.S. Government assumes the leadership of the donors‘ group for agriculture in July 2011, it will engage more NGOs and civil society organizations in the Agricultural Sector and Public Expenditure Reviews.
FTF Tanzania will advocate for policies that will address gender disparities in access to resources. For instance, the ―Secured Transactions Reforms‖ would create a legal framework to support the use of movable assets as collateral for accessing credit by small and medium enterprises. Such a system would enhance equitable access to credit, as the current system relies on the use of fixed assets such as land, and thereby often excludes women, who under traditional cultural practices have limited opportunity to land titling.
Enabling Policy Environment for Agricultural Sector Growth
The project‘s primary goal is to advance policy reform efforts in key areas identified as the critical barriers to transformation of the agriculture sector. The purpose of this project is to develop a policy partnership between government, private sector organizations, and research institutions to achieve key policy reforms in the agriculture sector and related business environment that will ensure successful implementation of the GOT‘s agriculture investment plan and FTF. The project will: strengthen the capacities of GOT institutions, the private sector, and other stakeholders for policy research and implementation of policy change that informs the CAADP process and FTF on constraints to growth; promotes dialogue among all stakeholders and partners; identifies and develops consensus on specific policies that need to be analyzed and changed; and monitors the implementation and impact of reforms intended to enable increased private investments in agriculture and trade.
Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
IR 9: Improved enabling policy environment and good governance for both agriculture and nutritionEase of Doing Business rank; Number of policies/regulations/administrative procedures analyzed as a result of USG assistance; Number of policy reforms/regulations/administrative procedures drafted and presented for public/ stakeholder consultation as a result of USG assistance; Number of policies/regulations/administrative procedures prepared with USG assistance; Number of policies/regulations/administrative procedures passed for which implementation has begun USG assistance.
| Date | Utilisateur | Registre | État |
|---|---|---|---|
| mer, 03/27/2013 - 16:16 | bloessnerm | Edited by william_nkoom. | published |
| lun, 03/18/2013 - 13:43 | william_nkoom | Edited by william_nkoom. | draft |
| lun, 03/18/2013 - 13:42 | AnnaLartey | Edited by william_nkoom. | draft |