Towards More Effective Use of External Assistance in Building Agricultural Research Systems

Support for building agricultural research systems has been a priority of many development assistance agencies, including bilateral and multilateral donors,1 private agencies, and the development banks. On reflection, it isn’t surprising that these agencies have given such attention to agricultural research. First, in the 1960s, it became apparent that in low-income countries, broad-based agricultural growth could be the engine for overall economic development. Technical change in agriculture, especially in basic food crops, is now accepted as a prerequisite for rapid increases in agricultural productivity. The Green Revolution in rice and wheat in Asia and some parts of Latin American beginning in the late 1960s was a vivid demonstration of this effect. Second, at about the same time in the 1960s, several economists began to estimate the rate of return to investments in agricultural research. These studies, which soon extended to the developing world, provided convincing evidence that investment in agricultural research paid high returns in many settings and was an outstanding investment, both for national governments and external assistance agencies.