in Egypt and the Ataturk dam in Turkey. There are also several medium-size dams designed for agricultural and electricity purposes, and small-size dams (as in Tunisia) for agriculture.

1.5.3 Extension and systems of technology transfers

Agricultural research and extension services are not playing their important roles adequately in many CWANA countries. A prominent reason is that in many countries funds have not been adequate to maintain salaries at reasonable levels, leading to an increase in absenteeism as scientists take up other jobs to supplement their income. As a result, extension services have suffered. Both research and extension services in many CWANA countries depend heavily on donor funding. Given the fragile economies and extensive demands on the public sector countries, donor support for research and extension will continue to be important for some time to come.

Links between farmers, extension agents and research systems in many CWANA countries are weak. Often researchers interact little with extension services and farmers, and do not reflect their priorities in the research agenda. In some cases the national research program is defined by donors or individual researchers and may have little relation to farmer needs.

In other cases, farmers never learn about new technologies the research systems develop because effective mechanisms to transfer innovations from research to the extension system do not exist. Finally, the extension services have often failed to reach farmers because their communication strategies are not effective. Thus, extension services often miss the farmers who would benefit the most from good advice-the women farmers who are responsible for the great majority of agricultural output in most CWANA countries.

Even when farmers recognize that new technologies will raise productivity, they are often reluctant to bear the risks associated with a new approach. Methods are needed to reduce the risk that farmers face when adopting new technologies and to increase their access to sound rural financial services, including savings, credit and insurance.

Finally, research and extension systems must be opened to more providers, strengthening links between universities,

NGOs, private firms, and others. Presently they lack coordination.

Present evaluation of research activities is not appropriate. Applicability of research findings should be evaluated. Presently, evaluation is only on the number of papers published and not on how research findings have reached farmers. In some places, research is farmer driven but its results do not go back to farmers because extension is weak.

Some messages for technology transfer are sent through the print media, radio and TV, but the messages are too technical as sent and cannot meet a wide range of farmer needs. Demonstration plots are rare and it is seldom feasible to scale up the new techniques. Farmers have no money for hiring labor, integrating new techniques, developing a marketing chain for new products.

Technology transfer occurs mostly through agricultural development projects as government agencies do not have financial or human resources to carry out adequate extension programs. There are some success stories about adopting new techniques, but they are rare and the impact of such projects is still limited. The Watershed Management Project, an FAO project implemented in three Tunisian governorates (Kairouan, Siliana and Zaghouan), introduced a type of water reservoir in the project area (FAO, 2004). Farmers settled in other regions adopted the same way of building their water reservoirs. This new technique has not been scaled up because capital is usually lacking within the small-scale farmer community. Sometimes there is farmer-to-farmer technology transfer through group farmer visits to groups of farmers in other regions, but more often transfer occurs in an agricultural development project. Resources are available while the project is ongoing, but after it closes, there is no way to upscale widely the new techniques the project has promoted.

Interest in agricultural education is decreasing. Education is becoming more knowledge based than skilled based. Little critical thinking is required, and the curriculum lacks multidisciplinary aspects. There is no holistic vision. Governments are not hiring people anymore. The main problem in the region that made past extension initiatives fail is that too many people are working in the ministries of agriculture, resulting in inefficiency and poor allocation of human resources.