In Spring 2017, the Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA) capstone team—Quynh Tong, Yang Li, Rafia Farooqul, and Jazlin Gomez, worked with and provided pro bono consulting services for the Global Livingston Institute (GLI), a non-governmental organization in Uganda dedicated to cultivating global understanding of poverty and fostering healthier communities.
Executive Summary
GLI is about to launch training programs on its model farm to introduce local farmers to new crops, techniques, and technology to improve their farming efficiency and overall production. The CIPA capstone team conducted a needs assessment to help GLI design better training programs to be launched in summer 2018 and collected baseline data to measure future social impacts generated by GLI's programs. The Cornell Capstone Team worked together with GLI to accomplish two Key goals: (1) Develop and conduct a survey to assess the training needs of local farmers to help design training programs to be launched in Summer 2018. (2) Gather baseline data from local farmers to measure future social impacts of these training programs.
Data Collection and Methodology
After reviewing the literature, the Cornell Capstone Team developed a survey and conducted it among 30 farmers who were randomly selected and recruited in Lira. From April 3rd-10th, 2018, Quynh Tong, Yang Li, and Rafia Farooqui traveled to Uganda. With the help of The Children of Peace Uganda, the capstone team conducted one-on-one interviews with 30 local farmers in Lira over a period of two days. The respondents ranged in age from 19 to 60 years and had varying years of farming experiences ranging from 1 to 60 years. The semi-structured survey was a combination open and closed ended questions. By conducting the survey, the capstone team collected baseline data which could be used to measure social impacts. The variables of social impact measurement included annual gross income, acres of land cultivated, household expenditure, variety of crops, yields of crops, etc. The capstone team also collected information about participants current farming skills and training needs, which could help to improve the design of the planned training programs.
