Extension system reform and the challenges ahead

Public agricultural extension services around the world are being pressured to adapt to new funding constraints and a changing agricultural sector. The global perspective on extension is no longer that of a unified public sector service, but of a multi-institutional network of knowledge and information support for rural people. This reality and its ensuing issues were discussed at an international workshop on ‘Extension and Rural Development’, sponsored by the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development, in collaboration with the Neuchâtel Group, and held in November 2002 in the IFPRI headquarters in Washington, DC. One output of the workshop was the compilation of 44 edited case studies organized into sections as follows: (1) decentralization systems, (2) privatization of extension systems, (3) demand-driven approaches to agricultural extension, (4) revitalization within public sector services, and (5) national strategy and reform process. The case studies portray extension within the context of a wide rural development agenda; their composite view of extension recognizes the need for a sophisticated and differentiated set of services. From the policy standpoint it implies that governments need to act to redefine extension and implement coherent extension policies to advance pluralistic systems of extension providers. The authors believe that policymakers and extension practitioners and those in related disciplines will find the result of the World Bank/USAID/Neuchatel workshop relevant to the design of future reforms.