Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Hambulo Ngoma, Mywish Maredia, Nicole M. Mason, Milu Muyanga and Antony Chapoto, 2020. Changes in Stakeholder Perceptions of the Quality of Institutional Architecture and Quality of Agriculture and Food Security Policy Processes in Zambia, FSP Research Brief 110, East Lansing: Michigan State University.

Key Findings

• Despite sustained efforts by successive Zambia governments to implement policies that assure food and nutrition security, questions remain around policy coherence and consistency in the agricultural sector.
• This brief reports on the perceived changes in the quality and design of agriculture and food security policy processes, and on the quality of the institutional architecture supporting these processes in Zambia.
• Stakeholders in Zambia seem to perceive that policy analyses from research institutes is objective. This is important for evidence-based policy making.
• Stakeholders are also more satisfied than at baseline with the quality and content of, participation in policy design and implementation in policy processes, and the level of dialogue between government and other stakeholders.
• Stakeholders are also more satisfied than at baseline with the quality and content of, participation in policy design and implementation in policy processes, and the level of dialogue between government and other stakeholders.
• Stakeholder perceptions of the overall quality of agricultural and food security policies marginally declined by 0.27 points (on a scale of 0 to 3) between 2017 and 2019. This seems to suggest that stakeholders somewhat perceive a less satisfactory quality of dialogue, coordination, cooperation, and partnership between stakeholders in the agricultural sector and government for advancing policy reforms on agriculture and food security issues in Zambia.
• Stakeholder perceptions of the quality of the institutional architecture of agriculture and food policy processes in Zambia barely changed, declining just by 0.05 points on a scale of 0 to 3) between 2017 and 2019.
• These findings suggest that, among other things, there is scope for the agricultural and food security policy processes in Zambia to be more inclusive, engage more with stakeholders, and more effectively utilize the available empirical evidence to inform policy design.
• The perceived objectivity of current policy analyses in Zambia should strengthen the use of evidence to inform policy processes in the country