"This paper provides an assessment of information flows and the acquisition of knowledge in water governance of the Upper East Region, Ghana. These flows are patchy, often parallel, disconnected or slow. In many cases a great deal of information is gathered but for a number of reasons not...

"Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. By analyzing the role...

"Decentralization has the potential to improve the accountability of government and lead to a more efficient provision of public services. However, accountability requires broad groups of people to participate in local government. Thus, voter turnout at local government elections is an important...

"Many countries have recognized the need to revive agricultural advisory or extension services (the terms are used interchangeably here) as a means of using agriculture as an engine of pro-poor growth; reaching marginalized, poor, and female farmers; and addressing new challenges, such as...

Participatory approaches in natural resource management are increasingly being criticized for their tendency to neglect power relations and conflicts of interests. Negotiation approaches have been proposed as a strategy to overcome such shortcomings. Using the case of negotiations on...

A major rationale for conducting policy research is the contribution the results can make to policy improvement efforts. Over the years, funders of international policy research have placed increasing emphasis on making sure that the research they fund influences policymaking, challenging...

Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they are frequently criticised for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. This article concludes from a study of...

Providing safe drinking water in rural areas is a major challenge because it is not easy to establish institutional arrangements that will ensure that drinking water facilities are provided, maintained, and managed in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable way. Like many other countries, Ghana...

Summary As the experience of the 20th century has shown, implementing policies that increase agricultural productivity among smallholders is a particularly promising strategy to achieve pro-poor growth. However, history also reveals major political challenges to adopting this strategy. The paper...

A number of factors favor a collective strategy for African countries to build their reputation regarding improved governance and commitment to agriculture. These include negative spillover effects of poor governance (for example, obstacles to developing regional markets), improved bargaining...