Problèmes liés à l'évaluation de l'impact des programmes de réforme agraire: l'expérience des Philippines
Malgré plusieurs dizaines d'années de recherche sur la réforme agraire, il semble que l'on ne se soit toujours pas accordé sur le rôle de celle-ci dans la réalisation de l'objectif général de développement que représente la croissance fondée sur la justice et la participation. Pour être en mesure de formuler une politique en faveur de la responsabilisation des populations rurales dans les pays en développement, politiciens, responsables locaux, administrateurs et spécialistes des sciences sociales ont besoin d'études objectives et fiables, ainsi que d'informations précises sur ses effets possibles et effectifs, ainsi que sur les avantages et les inconvénients de programmes aussi radicaux et sujets à controverse que les réformes agraires. Dans cet article, l'auteur souligne qu'il importe de procéder à des études d'impact afin de donner aux décideurs des arguments en faveur d'une réforme agraire. Il est toutefois difficile de savoir si ces arguments convaincront ou pas. En l'absence d'une véritable volonté de réforme, même si les experts peuvent toujours concevoir des projets de démonstration coûteux, ils ne parviendront pas à obtenir une amélioration généralisée du sort des cultivateurs. Cette amélioration ne pourra être obtenue que par des groupes de pression tels que les membres d'ONG spécialisées dans la défense d'intérêts particuliers ou d'autres organisations ainsi que par des responsables convaincus. Selon l'auteur, ces deux groupes ont un besoin urgent d'arguments et de faits capables de prouver que la réforme agraire est à même - en tout cas à terme - d'atténuer la pauvreté dans les campagnes et d'avoir des retombées bénéfiques pour les communautés rurales et, partant, pour le pays dans son ensemble.
La evaluación del impacto de los programas de reforma agraria: el caso de Filipinas
La investigación sobre las reformas agrarias se ha llevado a cabo durante varias décadas, pero todavía no hay un consenso sobre el propósito de estas reformas, que es conseguir un desarrollo con equidad y participación. Con el fin de poder formular una política adecuada para el mejoramiento de la población rural en los países en desarrollo, políticos, dirigentes locales, administradores y sociólogos necesitan un objetivo, estudios fiables y una información precisa sobre el potencial, los efectos reales y las ventajas e inconvenientes de programas tan drásticos y controvertidos como las reformas agrarias. Es necesario evaluar el impacto de las reformas agrarias para ofrecer a los responsables de la toma de decisiones los argumentos para llevarlas a cabo. Parece, sin embargo, bastante dudoso que estos argumentos sean convincentes. Si no existe una iniciativa real de reforma, los expertos pueden presentar costosos proyectos de demostración, pero no estarán en condiciones de conseguir mejoras generales y auténticas en la situación de los cultivadores. Estas mejoras sólo pueden provenir de grupos de presión como las ONG y de funcionarios que simpaticen con las reformas. Ambos grupos necesitan argumentos que demuestren que la reforma agraria aliviará a la larga la pobreza rural y beneficiará a las comunidades rurales y al país en su conjunto.
H. Meliczek
Dr Hans Meliczek is Professor at the Institut für Rurale Entwicklung, Waldweg 26, D 37073 Göttingen, Germany
Despite decades of research on agrarian reform, there is apparently still no consensus about the role agrarian reforms play in achieving the overall development goal of growth with equity and participation. In order to be able to formulate an appropriate policy for the benefit of the rural population in developing countries, politicians, local leaders, administrators and social scientists need objective and reliable studies and accurate information about the potential and actual impacts, as well as the advantages and disadvantages, of programmes as drastic and controversial as agrarian reforms. In this article, the author stresses the need for impact assessment in order to provide decision-makers with arguments in support of agrarian reform. It seems, however, rather doubtful that these arguments will be convincing. If there is no real drive for reform, experts can produce expensive demonstration projects, but they will not be able to achieve any general and genuine improvement in the position of cultivators. This can only come from pressure groups, such as members of advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and political organizations and sympathetic reform officials. In the author's opinion, these two groups are in urgent need of arguments and facts that prove that agrarian reform will, at least in the long run, alleviate rural poverty and benefit the rural communities and, therefore, the country as a whole.
Since the Second World War, more than 60 countries have
enacted agrarian reform laws. While some of these have been executed
successfully, many others have been only partially implemented and have not
improved the unequal distribution of landownership. Advocates and antagonists of
agrarian reform have, over decades, passed positive and negative judgements on
the impact of agrarian reforms on the social and economic situation in their
respective countries, the former in order to prove that their policies were
right and the latter to prove just the opposite.
Despite decades of research
on agrarian reform, there is apparently still no consensus about the role
agrarian reform plays in achieving the overall development goal of growth with
equity and participation. The publication in 1996 of a controversial World Bank
study (World Bank, 1996) and the subsequent debate are expressions of these
diverging points of view.
In order to be able to formulate an appropriate
policy for the enhancement of the rural population in developing countries,
politicians, local leaders, administrators and social scientists need objective
and reliable studies and accurate information about the potential and actual
impacts, as well as the advantages and disadvantages, of programmes as drastic
and controversial as agrarian reforms.
In the last few years, agrarian
reforms have gained renewed recognition among development thinkers in
international organizations and research institutes. The World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), FAO and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) have established an Agrarian Reform Network that aims at promoting "negotiated land reform". The German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), has also recognized the importance of removing obstacles to rural development by improving the land tenure situation, and has published guidelines on these issues for its staff engaged in technical cooperation (GTZ, 1997).
Widespread resistance to the implementation of agrarian reform is based on the vested interests of the ruling classes which have prevented changes in the status quo of landownership distribution. Apart from this opposition from large landowners, which is based on narrow personal interests, there are also a considerable number of scholars who have no clear perception about the advantages, disadvantages and, consequently, the usefulness of agrarian reforms. The reasons for this ambiguous attitude towards agrarian reform can be summarized as: conceptual differences; multiplicity of reform objectives; multiplicity of reform components; comprehensiveness of the reform; multiplicity of implementing agencies; the time horizon; and the personal bias of the evaluator. These factors are examined in the following subsections.
Most rural societies are integrated communities in which
the various components - agricultural, non-agricultural, economic, social,
political, religious and secular - are closely interrelated and cannot easily be
separated. The same integration of components also applies to such measures as
agrarian reforms that aim at changing the situation.
Similarly, the
performance of the agricultural sector and the complexity of the land tenure
situation of a given country are subject to a wide range of external factors as
well as to the macro- and microlevel influences of other sectors of the economy
and should, therefore, not be observed in isolation. In the Philippines, for
instance, changing priorities in public investment in agriculture, trade
liberalization, changes in the exchange rate and changes in the price of inputs
such as fertilizer and crude oil have had a pronounced effect on the
agricultural sector (Gordoncillo and Batangantang, 1992, p. 79). In addition, it
must be recognized that in the course of economic development the rural
population no longer depends solely on farming activities but is engaged in
off-farm and non-farm activities as well. For many rural people, therefore, the
improvement of their living standard no longer relies on improved access to
land, but rather on better access to income.
Furthermore, even within the
agricultural sector a large variety of factors effect performance. Climatic influences, the introduction of new technologies in the form of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and the expansion of the area under cultivation and irrigation have also had direct impacts on agriculture, and these have to be taken into consideration when the impact of reforms is being appraised.
Most agrarian reforms pursue simultaneously a mixture of
political, social and economic objectives. The classification of these
components is somewhat arbitrary, since there is no clear delineation between
the objectives, some of which may even contrast with one another. Basically,
agrarian reforms are measures that aim at changing power relations. By
abolishing large landed property and feudal production systems, the rural
population should be appeased and integrated into society, and this would
contribute to the political stability of the country.
In the social sector,
agrarian reforms aim at reducing inequalities in income, wealth and living
standards and at strengthening independent and self-reliant farmers. The
economic objectives of such reforms are to abolish inefficient production
structures, exploit the efficiency of family farms, increase agricultural
production, improve capital formation and increase demand for farm inputs and
services that stimulate development in the non-agricultural sector.
As well
as these national dimensions, agrarian reforms also have important international
repercussions. In the general trend of globalization and international
interdependencies, governments have to respect their international agreements.
For this reason, some countries are excluding transnational corporations from
their land distribution programmes, while others encourage the cultivation of
export crops to reduce their foreign debt burden rather than promoting
self-sufficiency in food production as a prime objective.
The Philippines
Republic Act No. 6657, which institutes the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP), declares two objectives in its title: to promote social justice
and to promote industrialization. Section 2 of the Act is more specific by pronouncing: "The welfare of the landless farmers and farm workers will receive highest consideration to promote social justice and to move the nation toward sound rural development and industrialization.... To this end a more equitable distribution and ownership of land shall be undertaken to provide farmers and farm workers with the opportunity to enhance their dignity and improve the quality of their lives through greater productivity of agricultural lands" (Government of the Philippines, 1988, p. 3).
Agrarian reform in its narrow sense comprises measures
that aim at the redistribution of large landed property in favour of the
landless rural population and small farmers. In the Philippines, as the
Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Ernesto Garilao, pointed
out: "The essence of an agrarian reform programme is land distribution. If you
are not doing land distribution, you are doing community development"
(Government of the Philippines, 1994, p. 13).
Yet, as experience in many
countries has shown, the mere distribution of lands is not sufficient to
guarantee an improvement of the living standard of the reform's beneficiaries.
Land transfer has to be accompanied by the provision of support services, such
as input supply, extension, marketing and credit. These two components, land
distribution and support services, form the core of any agrarian reform
programme.
The Philippine agrarian reform programme encompasses much more
than land redistribution and support services and covers the following
additional components: land transfer activities, land settlement, leasehold
operations, stock distribution options, production and profit sharing,
development of beneficiaries, and land use conversion.
This list of reform
components suggests a lack of clearly defined priorities. One section of the
reform facilitates the establishment of a class of independent small landowners,
while another aims at raising the income of tenants and agricultural labourers
without changing their social status. One component encourages the investment of
agribusiness firms and profit sharing arrangements in large corporations, while
another aims at strengthening small farmers' organizations.
As these various components of the reform have different consequences on different actors and different repercussions on production, productivity and the social situation of the rural population, it is not possible to assess their general impact. The impact assessment of CARP therefore requires the analysis of the specific components.
The impact of an agrarian reform depends primarily on
the intensity of the reform measures, i.e. on how much land and how many
landowners will be covered by the reform and how many rural people will benefit
from its various components.
Other issues are whether compensation will be
paid to the former landowner and, if so, how much it will be. It is quite
obvious that compensation payments at the market value of the land have no
immediate effect on the redistribution of wealth since the land transfer will
constitute, at least initially, a mere sales operation.
It has been estimated
by L. Cornista that CARP, if properly implemented, would benefit 60 percent of
all rural households in the Philippines. As poverty was estimated to prevail
among 50 percent of households, she anticipated that poverty incidence would be
greatly minimized, if not eradicated. Her estimates were based on the assumption
that CARP would be fully implemented, i.e. that 3.3 million beneficiaries would receive land through CARP (Gordoncillo and Batangantang, 1992, p. 177 and 191). As of December 1997, however, only 82 percent of this target had been achieved (Government of the Philippines, 1998, p. 1).
The implementation of an agrarian reform is usually the
responsibility of one government agency, ministry, department, institute or
authority. Assessment of the impact of operations is facilitated by access to
statistical data from a central office, which can be used as benchmarks for
impact assessments. If, on the other hand, as in the Philippines, several
institutions are in charge of executing specific components of the reform, the
evaluation process is impeded by the multiple sources of information. For the
purpose of collecting, processing and storing specific data that can be useful
for agrarian reform evaluation, a wide range of offices have relevance. In the
Philippines, the most important of these are: DAR, the Department of Natural
Resources, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Bank of the Philippines, the
Land Registration Authority, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the
National Irrigation Authority and the Department of Labor and Employment.
The
issue of multiple sources of information becomes even more complex because most
of these offices collect and store information at barangay, municipality,
province and region levels, and several national agencies have devolved
functions to local government units.
In recent years, DAR has involved a number of NGOs and political organizations in the process of land distribution, and their offices also collect and process information that can be tapped for the purpose of assessing the programme. Whenever possible, impact evaluation missions should obtain and use data from beneficiaries and beneficiary organizations to elicit their assessment of the reform (Asian Development Bank, 1991, p. 30). Such sources of information are particularly important, since the ultimate determinant of social and economic impact is the attitude of the beneficiaries themselves to the success or failure of the programme.
An important consideration in impact assessment is the establishment of an appropriate time frame. Data may be collected at various times, depending on the type of data and the purpose for which they are required. There are three main possibilities:
When the impact of agrarian reforms is being assessed, different time frames need to be considered.
Short- and long-term effects. It is frequently
observed that, immediately after the implementation of a reform, the marketable
surplus of agricultural products declines, mainly because the former landowning
class ceases to provide the supporting services they used to furnish to their
former tenants in the form of seeds, fertilizer, irrigation water and other
inputs, while the new institutions for providing these services are not yet in
place. However, as macrodata on agrarian reform accomplishments in Latin America
have shown, this is a transitory phenomenon. In the Latin American case,
marketable surplus was generated and exceeded pre-reform levels as soon as the
beneficiaries increased production and productivity (Thiesenhusen,
1989).
Differences in impact can also be observed in the case of
government income. While during the first years of implementation reforms have
to be funded out of the budget, increased tax revenue will be generated in the
long term when the anticipated increases in agricultural productivity
materialize.
Inception of the assessment. Impact evaluations are usually conducted five to ten years after the completion of the respective projects (World Bank, 1995a, p. 16). In the case of agrarian reform, such a time frame would considerably postpone the commencement date for impact evaluations, since many reforms, including CARP, are implemented over a period of ten years. As the programme started in 1988, it would still be too early to expect a valid assessment at present. Furthermore, reforms are frequently conducted in several phases, starting with the confiscation of the largest landholdings and then gradually covering smaller estates.
There are two basic policy perspectives regarding
agrarian reform. One approach presumes that reform is a viable and necessary
policy measure for achieving stability and for creating a more egalitarian rural
society since it will improve the social situation in the countryside and,
together with other support services, will lead to increased agricultural
production and increased rural incomes which, in turn, will promote rural
industrialization.
The other approach doubts the feasibility of implementing
an agrarian reform programme and contends that its enforcement may be
dispensable considering that other policy measures can produce similar
results.
One particular aspect to be considered in this context is the
support under CARP of two main types of productive organizations. RA 6657
promotes the creation of small farms producing food and other cash crops, on one
hand, and large agribusiness-operated farms cultivating essentially export
crops, on the other.
The preferential treatment of agribusiness plantations
under CARP is not compatible with the equity objective of the reform, but is
grounded (as well as on the convenience of plantation owners) on the belief that
there are economies of scale in farm production, processing and marketing of export crops. Many social scientists have disputed this assumption. Their views are supported by a recent report of the World Bank which states: "Data show a deep decline in income per acre as farm size increases, with productivity of the largest size category less than half that of the smallest" (Hoff, Braverman and Stiglitz, 1996, p. 236).
Despite the difficulties connected with the evaluation
of agrarian reforms described earlier, it is still possible to conduct
meaningful impact assessments, provided that evaluation concentrates on specific
aspects of the reform.
Impact evaluations build up an overall assessment of the situation from investigations of the following aspects:
The ideal way of overcoming the conceptual difficulties
outlined above would be to conduct experiments with random assignment of control
groups that effectively exclude alternative explanations (World Bank, 1995b, p.
22) but, in general, this procedure is too costly and very time-consuming, so it
is not suitable for agrarian reform evaluation.
Another, cheaper method of
assessing the impact of agrarian reforms is to describe the state of affairs, at
least at the lower levels of investigation, in terms of a "with and without"
situation, which means comparing the economic and social situations of those who
benefited from the reform with those who did not.
Data can be obtained from many different sources, and can
be divided into two main categories: primary and secondary. Primary data are
those collected for the particular purpose in question, while secondary data are
those that have already been collected as part of another data collection
programme and are then applied to the evaluation.
Collecting primary information. Most impact evaluations use relatively formal study
methods, in particular field surveys that use key questions to gather the
opinions of stakeholders, including the ultimate beneficiaries. Such surveys are
carried out by standardized questionnaires directed to a selected sample of
persons.
The reliance on aggregate statistical data based on sample surveys
may be a mechanism for regulation of the information flow from source which
ensures wide coverage and is representative. However, this approach to data
collection is highly selective, expensive and often too slow to keep up with the
pace of decision-making demands (Moris and Copestake, 1993, p. 12).
Despite the laborious procedures involved in collecting primary information, there is no guarantee that the results are always reliable. Even data collected from the same institution at different levels tend to diverge when computed at the national level. This also applies to the statistical data of the Department of Agrarian Reform, which are somewhat ambiguous (Putzel, 1992, p. 312). Confusion sometimes arises regarding the correct terminology - data on lands covered by CARP do not indicate how the land has been distributed and data on lands for which emancipation patterns and certificates of landownership award have been issued may be confused with those for which such certificates have merely been registered. This situation has a number of causes, including political motivation, inadequate data collection and transmission methods and pressure on field staff to report successful performance to the next administrative level (Foth, 1996,
p. 219).
Impact evaluation can also be
done by other, low-cost methods such as participatory observation and rapid
rural appraisal which operate with open question interviews and direct
observation. Participatory rural appraisals are normally carried out by members
of the community, not by policy analysts from outside the study area. Because
these are, in a sense, "short-cut" methods of data collection, the information
obtained is often not as accurate or comprehensive as that which would be
obtained from a conventional census or sample survey. However, this is not
always the case. The results of a good rapid rural appraisal are likely to be
far more accurate than those of a bad census or sample survey (FAO, 1993, p.
109).
Another method by which valid information can be
collected is through case studies. "Cases" may be households, villages,
watershed areas, or other units. Because sample sizes are small and samples are
not randomly selected, the validity of results is often restricted to the
specific case or area that has been investigated. Case studies are normally used
where high data quality is essential or topics are sensitive (von Braun and
Puetz, 1993, p. 52).
Use of secondary information. As the collection of primary information is costly and
time-consuming, recourse is often made to other, indirect ways of obtaining data
that could also be used for impact assessment although they were not collected
for this purpose.
Secondary data are available in published materials,
reports and records from private and government institutions such as statistical
offices, tax offices, banks, police records and trade statistics. The most
comprehensive official source of information on land tenure and land use in the
Philippines is the Census of Agriculture which is conducted every ten years and
issued by the National Statistical Coordination Board. With regard to
landownership distribution, the only available source is DAR's Land Registration
Program, Listaka I and II, which provides better data than the 1980 census,
although it is somewhat incomplete in its coverage (Putzel, 1992, p. 360).
Secondary data may take many
forms and their quality and value for impact assessment can vary considerably.
It is therefore advisable for those engaged in programme evaluation on a regular
basis to familiarize themselves with the kinds of secondary data available so
that they know where to go when the need arises. One problem connected with the
use of secondary data collected from different sources is that they are
frequently not comparable.
Qualitative versus quantitative indicators. The
wide variety of indicators can be grouped into two main categories: qualitative
and quantitative. The distinction between these groups tends to be drawn as a
sharp dichotomy. On the qualitative side are those used by anthropologists,
sociologists and historians. In the past, the approaches of these groups
entailed the use of primary data (from either participatory observation or
extended interviews), before the investigator formulated an inductively derived
picture of a specific situation, institution or system.
On the quantitative
side are the data used by agricultural economists, demographers and
census-takers whose main interest is to obtain empirical measurements (either
directly or indirectly) which can be analysed within the framework of a
deductively defined methodology. At the extremes, the two approaches -
qualitative and quantitative - are very different.
Problems arise when this distinction is
practically applied, because observational data go through several stages in the
process of utilization and quantification may occur at different points in the
process. Thus, any qualitative information may be transformed and treated
quantitatively at a higher level of analysis, if only to count the presence or
absence of some trait.
WCARRD indicators. The World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD), held in Rome in July 1979, stressed the need for comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of agrarian reform and rural development programmes. As a follow-up to this conference, FAO developed an extensive set of socio-economic indicators, pilot tested them in 26 countries over a period of six years and, in 1988, published Guidelines on socio-economic indicators for monitoring and evaluating agrarian reform and rural development (FAO, 1988). The guidelines comprise the following 11 core indicators:
In addition, FAO has proposed ten other primary indicators and 37 supplementary indicators. These have been used, to varying degrees, by governments for the preparation of four-year reports on worldwide progress (or the lack of it) in agrarian reform implementation. These reports have been reviewed by every second FAO Conference as an agenda item on the follow-up to WCARRD.
Indicators for Asia and the Pacific. While the WCARRD indicators were found useful by FAO, government officials and researchers, some difficulties arose from the non-comparability of the indicators among and between countries owing to the application of different definitions and methodologies (CIRDAP, 1993, p.1). As a result, the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific and the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, in cooperation with their member countries, developed a revised set of indicators which include (CIRDAP, 1993):
These indicators are more directly oriented towards the evaluation of agrarian reform programmes than the WCARRD indicators, but the latter have been designed as a basis for establishing benchmarks and provide more comprehensive information on the long-term impact of these programmes.
IAST indicators. In order to assess the effectiveness of CARP, the Institute of Agrarian Studies (IAST) of UPLB designed a monitoring and evaluation system that aims at keeping track of the progress of programme implementation while determining the effectiveness, impact and relevance of activities to their objectives (IAST, 1996, p. 2). The indicators that were used in interviews with 3 400 households of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) include some of those mentioned above, such as educational attainment of ARBs and their children, availability and use of social services, membership in ARB organizations and farming activities. They are, however, far more detailed and cover, inter alia :
These indicators seem to be the most suitable for assessing the impact of CARP. As they have been used in socio-economic surveys of a large sample of the rural population, their use would have the advantage that the information collected in 1995 could be used as a benchmark.
Other indicators. In recent
years, two additional types of indicators have gained prominence: ecological or
sustainability indicators and political indicators. The former measures a
programme's environmental impacts such as the indiscriminate use of fertilizers
and pesticides which is frequently found on large estates or the use of
integrated pest management methods as applied by small farmers, including ARBs.
The civil liberties, political rights and civil
rights situation can be assessed through political indicators that have been
developed by international NGOs such as Amnesty International or Freedom House.
They classify the legal and political situation in a country or region according
to certain criteria, and rank them numerically.
Assessment of external influences. In order to
understand the effect of agrarian policies on the living conditions of the rural
poor it is necessary to consider changes that are the result of external
influences. Selection of the appropriate appraisal methods will depend on the
cause of the change. Some factors are beyond the control of individuals, such as
droughts, floods, typhoons, forest fires and the eruption of volcanoes.
Agriculture is also affected by international economic influences, such as
exchange rates, trade liberalization and world market prices for agricultural
inputs and agricultural commodities.
Poverty-oriented programmes frequently
have strong effects on the rest of the economy through backward and forward
linkages. Thus, a proper social accounting would label them as profitable
investments even when they are unprofitable for the individual households
involved. While the indirect effects of projects and programmes may be
substantial, they tend largely to benefit the non-poor (ILO, 1990, p.
13).
The influence of the large
number of external factors on the impact of agrarian reforms is not easy to
measure but, as they have considerable leverage, such factors should not be
ignored and should be taken into due consideration, possibly on a case-by-case
basis.
National-level indicators. An important indicator
of the state of development of a country is the gross national product (GNP).
Information on changes to GNP is easily available in national statistical
yearbooks and in the World Bank's World Development Reports. However, when a
programme that has both economic and social consequences is being assessed, it
is not sufficient merely to appraise the general level of GNP - the question of
how widely the benefits of increased GNP are being distributed across different
sections of the society also needs to be taken into account. This can best be
done by constructing the Gini coefficient which is a useful indicator of income
and landownership distribution. It ranges from 0 to 1, indicating an equitable
or inequitable distribution of assets.
In order to overcome the difficulty of
measuring national development merely in terms of the economic performance of a
nation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) developed the human
development index (HDI) in 1990. This is a composite of three basic components
of human development: longevity, knowledge and standard of living.
Another
frequently used formula is the index of human suffering which incorporates ten
indicators, including life expectancy, calorie supply, school enrollment, GNP,
political freedom and civil rights (FAO, 1993, p. 44).
The impact of an
agrarian reform can also be assessed by reviewing changes in the number of
individuals or households who live below the poverty line. In fixing the poverty
line, food intake is an important element, and allowance is usually also made
for expenses on non-food items, such as clothing, housing and fuel, as well as
education and health.
In the field of agriculture, changes in production patterns
and yields of the most important crops can be expressed in absolute terms or by
index numbers. These are published, for all countries, in FAO's annual
production yearbooks. On a more sophisticated level, FAO also produces the
Aggregate Household Food Security Index, which assesses, on a scale from 1 to
100, the nutritional situation in a given country.
Household- and district-level indicators. Many of the national-level indicators mentioned above are
based on investigations at the household level. The majority of these relate to
economic aspects and are measured by quantitative indicators. Appraising the
impact of agrarian reforms on the social situation is less easy and can best be
done through qualitative indicators. These are collected at the household level
and include information on beneficiaries' perceptions, degree of motivation,
adoption of better farming practices and incentive to invest in their
land.
Demographic changes, levels of education, health and nutrition of the
rural population, and the extent of their participation in decision-making also
have impacts on the performance of agriculture.
Several other appraisal
methods have been used in impact assessment, including anthropometric
measurements (such as weight-for-age, height-for-age and body mass of children).
These explore the nutrient intake and the nutritional situation and are
frequently used as proxy indicators, since an increase in caloric intake results
in a substantial increase in the efficiency and productivity of agricultural
workers. An improvement of the nutritional level of the rural population may be
used as an indication of improved living conditions.
In order to achieve the main objective of
agrarian reforms, which is the enhancement of the dignity of farmers and farm
workers, these groups should be given the opportunity to organize themselves in
self-help association or cooperatives and to participate in the design and
management of programmes that determine their way of life. The extent to which
such participatory bodies are allowed to function and to influence
decision-making can be taken as indicators for the social status of the rural
population. Investigations of this type should preferably be undertaken at the
district or municipality level.
As outlined above, most agrarian reforms pursue a
variety of diverse objectives which may complement or oppose one another.
Consequently, assessment of the impact of reforms cannot be summarized in one
aggregated conclusion but has to be component-specific. Review of a large number
of indicators that can be used for impact assessment of agrarian reforms has
shown that most of them pertain to narrow reform issues and are closely
interrelated with other parameters. As none of these indicators alone can give a
proper assessment of the reform's impact, for further investigations it is
expedient to use a mixture of the most relevant indicators.
It is recognized
that the national gains and losses from an agrarian reform depend not only on
the numbers of landowners and beneficiaries affected by the reform and the
extent of the area of arable land that is being redistributed, but also on the
extent of consequential changes in output, income and government tax revenue,
employment and patronage (GTZ, 1997, p. 83), yet: "after all is said and done
CARP will be evaluated on the basis of the changes in land tenure arrangements
that have resulted and the number of farmers that benefited from the programme"
(Gordoncillo and Batangantang, 1992, p. 91).
In the introduction to this
article, the need for impact assessment was stressed as a way of providing
decision-makers with arguments to support agrarian reform. It seems, however,
rather doubtful that these arguments will be convincing. A prominent agrarian
reform specialist, Doreen Warriner, once observed: "Land reform in its initial
and crucial stage is emphatically not a question of experts; it cannot be advised into existence. If there is no real drive for reform, experts can produce expensive demonstration projects, but they will not be able to achieve any general and genuine improvement in the position of the cultivators" (Warriner, 1957, p. 9). This can only come from pressure groups such as members of advocacy NGOs and political organizations and sympathetic reform officials. These two groups seem to be in urgent need of arguments and facts that prove that agrarian reform will, at least in the long run, alleviate rural poverty and benefit rural communities and, therefore, the country as a whole.
Asian Development Bank. 1991. Guidelines for social analysis of development projects. Manila.
CIRDAP. 1993. Report on national action for developing a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for agrarian reform and rural development. Dhaka, Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific.
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FAO. 1993. Guidelines on social analysis for rural area development planning. Rome.
Foth, H.P. 1996. Landreformpolitik auf den Philippinen. Hamburg, Germany, Die Aera Aquino, Institut für Asienkunde.
Gordoncillo, P.U. & Batangantang, H.C. (eds). 1992. Macro issues and policies: implications for CARP. Laguna, the Philippines, Institute of Agrarian Studies.
Government of the Philippines. 1988. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), RA No. 6657, Presidential Issuances. Quezon City, the Philippines, Diliman, Department of Agrarian Reform.
Government of the Philippines. 1994. Proceedings of the Conference on the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, 6 April 1994, Philippine International Convention Center, Manila. Quezon City, the Phillipines, Diliman, Department of Agrarian Reform.
Government of the Philippines. 1998. Accomplishment Report 1997. Quezon City, the Phillipines, Diliman, Department of Agrarian Reform.
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Hoff, K., Braverman, A. & Stiglitz, J. (eds). 1996. The economics of rural organization, theory, practice and policy, a World Bank paper. New York, Oxford University Press.
IAST. 1996. Agrarian reform beneficiaries performance monitoring and evaluation system, final report. Laguna, the Philippines, Institute of Agrarian Studies, in collaboration with the Department of Agrarian Reform.
ILO. 1990. The socio-economic impact of technical co-operation projects concerning rural development. Geneva.
Moris, J. & Copestake, J. 1993. Qualitative inquiry for rural development. London, Overseas Development Institute.
Putzel, J.A. 1992. Captive land, the politics of agrarian reform in the Philippines. London, Catholic Institute for International Relations.
Thiesenhusen, W. 1989. Searching for agrarian reform in Latin America. Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Unwin.
von Braun, J. & Puetz, D. (eds). 1993. Data needs for food policy in developing countries. Washington, DC, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Warriner, D. 1957. Land reform and development in the Middle East. London, Oxford University Press.
World Bank. 1995a. Assessing development effectiveness, evaluation in the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Washington, DC.
World Bank. 1995b. Key indicators for family planning projects, World Bank Technical Paper No. 297. Washington, DC.
World Bank. 1996. A strategy to fight poverty, Philippines. Washington, DC.
