Why Did Africa’s Most Acclaimed Agricultural Extension Reform Fail?

Abstract This chapter presents an application of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to the field of agricultural policy reform in Africa, taking Uganda’s agricultural extension policy as a case study. It focuses on the most celebrated agricultural extension reforms in Africa: Uganda’s National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), which was introduced in 2001. Strongly backed by the World Bank, NAADS was the first agricultural extension model in Africa that replaced a perceived “supply-driven public sector model” with a supposedly “demand-driven” service delivery system. In the process, NAADS gained worldwide acclaim. Yet, in spite of high hopes, NAADS increasingly ran into difficulties and was eventually terminated in 2014. Subsequently, a public sector model was reintroduced. The study analyzes the underlying reasons for this puzzle: why did such a highly acclaimed agricultural extension reform model fail? To resolve the puzzle, the ACF is applied to the entire agricultural extension policy process, starting in 1996 and continuing until its termination in 2014.