Monitoring and evaluating agricultural research: A sourcebook. D. Horton, P. Ballantyne, W. Peterson, B. Uribe, D. Gapasin and K. Sheridan. CAB International in association with the International Service for National Agricultural Research, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE, 1993, 219 pp
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230150210 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Author | Colin Thirtle |
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
VOL.
15,
185-1
88
(1995)
Book
Reviews
MONITORING AND EVALUATING AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH: A
SOURCEBOOK
D.
Horton,
P.
Ballantyne,
W.
Peterson, B. Uribe,
D.
Gapasin and
K.
Sheridan
CAB International in association with the International Service for National Agricultural
Research, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8DE,
1993,
219
pp.
This well-presented volume from the staff of the International Service for National Agricultural
Research (ISNAR) and their associates actually has six authors and a further ten contributors.
The help of nearly one hundred other members of what may loosely
be
called the agricultural
research community is acknowledged. This pool of talent is drawn upon in an intelligent way and
the final product is assembled with considerable care to produce
a
highly professional document.
The result is not a scholarly paper, but an easy-access source of practical information on most
aspects of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of agricultural research. The need for such a
work was expressed by the staffs of ISNAR and the national agricultural research services
(NARS) who are ISNAR’S client group. In the opinion of this reviewer, they have succeeded in
publishing a sourcebook that agricultural research managers can use for improving monitoring
and evaluation in their organisations. This opinion has to be taken with the proviso that the
reviewer has evaluated research systems, but has never faced the far more daunting task of trying
to run one. Even
so,
it
is
hard
to
imagine that any but the most sceptical of managers will fail to
find something useful in this book, which at the very least serves as an up-to-date and user-
friendly checklist covering those areas that have become increasingly important in an era of tight
funding and demands for accountability. It should also be useful to anyone working in the area
of agricultural research and development.
The first part of the book provides a succinct, twenty-five page overview of M&E. The second
part, of one hundred and forty, pages, offers twenty-one ‘information digests’, which are brief
reviews of specific topics in alphabetical order. These follow the same six-part format of
definition, usefulness, description, example, sources and key references. Applications to both
industrialised and developing countries are presented. The last part of the book lists information
and training sources, with addresses. Finally, there is
a
useful glossary of terms and both author
and subject indices.
COLIN THIRTLE
Department
of
Agricultural Economics,
University
of
Reading
DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION: FROM UNDERDEVELOPMENT
TO
SUS-
TAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
0.
P.
Dwivedi
Macmillan, Basingstoke and London,
1994,
xvi and
161
pp.
Professor Dwivedi, along with collaborators, has contributed over the years a series of stimu-
lating articles on comparative and development administration, including two in Public Admin-
istration and Development. In this book herevisits topics that he has treated in those articles. He
surveys the changing concerns of those studying development administration over the past forty
years with particular attention
to
fashions, preoccupations and prescriptions deriving from
North America. He goes on to sketch more recent thinking underlying assessments of bureau-
cratic administration as an obstacle to development, rather than as the effective instrument for
0
1995
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
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