SUMMARY
In summary, Agricultural Extension Service is taking a
new dimension in Africa, from complete public services to
more private sector involvement. Certain features are
common among the operators of this new extension
focus despite differences in circumstances and
environment.
The four (4) countries reviewed operate:
i) Partnership extension services which involves so many
stakeholders, like the farmers, Non-Governmental Organizations,
Private Sectors and even the Government.
Though partnership of the above description is not very
popular in Nigeria.
ii) They also decentralize their programmes for more
popular involvement of people who were hitherto less
involved in extension work.
iii) The nature of participation is now more peoplecentred.
That is, participation through farmers’
organization which is more pronounced among all the
four countries reviewed except Nigeria where organized
farmers groups are still few and less active in accepting
the responsibility of recruiting agricultural extension
agents out of their own resources.
iv) The kind of participation adopted by these countries
permitted involvement of stakeholders’ right from
programme planning to implementation of action plan.
v) Fund mobilization common to all the nations under
review is that of shared responsibility among all the
stakeholders. However, Nigeria still needs to mobilize
individuals and private organizations to embrace public –
private partnership strategy of funding agricultural extension
services. If by so doing, it will enable the country to
harness more fund for their exten-sion activities.