Ways Forward? Technical Choices, Intervention Strategies and Policy Options 381results of a series of interventions whose focus and interest lie in other fields. As
Scherr (1998, p2) notes, ‘policy makers typically consider soil quality not as a
policy objective in itself, but as an input into achieving other policy objectives’.
The launch of the Soil-Fertility Initiative (SFI) by the World Bank, FAO and
other donors was intended to remedy this weakness (World Bank, 1996). One
objective of the SFI has been to identify more clearly those policies which are likely
to have an impact on soil-fertility management, where overlaps and contradictions
currentiy exist. National soil-fertility action plans are intended to promote greater
coherence in policy making by bringing together those bodies with responsibilities
which are likely to affect soils, and focusing on ways to encourage longer-term
investment in improving soil quality. Thus, for example, the steering group for the
elaboration of national plan of action to address soil-fertility management in Mali
comprises representatives from the Ministries of Planning and Rural Develop-
ment, as well as from the CMDT, the Office du Niger, the National Environmen-
tal Action Plan, the agricultural research sector, the World Bank and the Dutch
Embassy.
It is important to examine both the content of policy (statements and instru-
ments) as well as its process (elaboration, implementation and review) and to try
and understand differences between what is said, and what actually happens (Kee-
ley and Scoones, 1999; Mayers and Bass, 1999). It is clear that:
The policy-making process is by no means the rational activity that it is so often held up
to be... policy research over recent years suggest that it is actually rather messy, with
outcomes occurring as a result of complicated political, social and institutional proc-
esses. (Juma and Clark, 1995, pp128–129)Several points emerge from examining the policy process in the three countries
studied. First, policy changes have stemmed largely from the demands of a range
of international actors, rather than from internal debate and consultation among
stakeholders at national and local levels. In many African countries, agenda-setting
tends to be done within a very limited group of people, largely within government,
with little or no public consultation, making it much more difficult to introduce
alternative views and perspectives. The World Bank, IMF and major donors have
also been able to maintain a highly influential role in policy directions because of
the high level of indebtedness amongst many sub-Saharan African states, and their
consequent dependence on development assistance. Governments remain heavily
reliant on, and reactive to, new international initiatives (such as the Convention to
Combat Desertification and the SFI), often in the hopes of gaining renewed fund-
ing rather than necessarily feeling committed to the objectives of the initiative in
question.
Second, the data which drive such policy debates are heavily reliant on a very
limited number of documents, which are repeated time and time again. These
include the FAO survey of 1990 (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990) and research
which attempts to put an economic estimate on soil-nutrient losses (Bishop and