Country Studies

Visit our Ethiopia Study page to learn about our work in the country and download the report SPIA Ethiopia Report 2024: Building Resilience to Shocks

Ethiopia, where SPIA has been working since 2015, was the first focal country for SPIA’s country-level approach to documenting the adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations linked to CGIAR research.

• The stocktaking work in Ethiopia led to detailed documentation on 52 different CGIAR-related innovations from the past two decades related to the work of 10 CGIAR Centers and their partners, including the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR).
• In the second stage, methodological experiments and pilot tests of data collection approaches were used to select the best data collection approach for each innovation.
• In partnership with the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team and the Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) work was carried out to integrate 18 CGIAR-related innovations into nationally representative surveys.

In 2016 and 2019, SPIA supported the CSA to field the third and fourth rounds of the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey. The 2019 round included, for the first time, DNA fingerprinting of crop varieties, alongside detailed protocols for livestock and natural resource management.

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• Gathering Pieces of the Adoption Puzzle: Induction Meeting for the Small Grants Program SPIA Researcher Frederic Kosmowski reflects on the virtual induction workshop with the 14 early-career researchers selected to received grants to analyze the datasets of the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey (ESS)
• Better Data on Agricultural Innovations: A Journey Into the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey - Alemayehu Ambel and Asmelash Haile Tsegay (both members of the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team at the World Bank) on the work in collaboration with SPIA and the Central Statistics Agency in Ethiopia
• Taking A National-Level Approach to Impact Assessment in Ethiopia Former SPIA Member, J.V. Meenakshi, explains why she sees the report Shining a Brighter Light: Comprehensive Evidence on Adoption and Diffusion of CGIAR-related Innovations in Ethiopia as a textbook example of how to document adoption and diffusion of innovations at scale.
• A Distinctly Empirical Search for Evidence of Diffusion: SPIA’s Country-level Approach in Ethiopia SPIA Special Initiative Member, Professor Travis J. Lybbert offers his reflections on the report Shining a Brighter Light: Comprehensive Evidence on Adoption and Diffusion of CGIAR-related Innovations in Ethiopia.
• Meeting CGIAR Data Needs in Ethiopia: Report from a Stakeholder Consultation - Solomon Alemu, SPIA pre-doctoral fellow, reflects on a consultation workshop with stakeholders from various Ethiopian government agencies and the CGIAR centers operating in Ethiopia

Visit our Uganda Study page to learn about our work in the country and download the report SPIA Uganda Report 2025: Agricultural Diversity Under Stress

SPIA’s current work program in Uganda includes the following five components.

• Household-level data collection in the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) – SPIA is working in partnership with the World Bank LSMS-ISA team and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBoS) on household-level data collection in the UNPS. The work includes a new refreshed sample of up to 5,000 households and the integration with the Annual Agricultural Survey of the 50x2030 initiative. One of the key deliverables from this work will be DNA fingerprinting-based estimates of the adoption of improved crop varieties for six crops.
• Community-level data collection in UNPS – Through the same partnership with the World Bank LSMS-ISA team and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, this component addresses multiple agricultural innovations that are best measured at a community level (tree nurseries, milk collection centers, sustainable land management practices, etc.)
• Contributions to the National Service Delivery Survey – This component is centered around a different survey fielded by UBoS. SPIA has helped design instruments for data collection on topics such as agricultural extension, crop pests, and diseases, etc.
• Diffusion of biofortified crops – Under this component, SPIA has led a process of convening regional workshops to construct a database on the diffusion of orange-fleshed sweet potato and biofortified bean varieties. The goal is to construct a dataset that is spatially and temporally explicit and to try and link that with the forthcoming Demographic and Health Surveys to see if we observe impacts on consumption of biofortified foods (and possibly on nutritional outcomes).
• Seed systems survey – This project arose following the initial Uganda consultation meeting in October 2019, where the topic of poor-quality planting material was highlighted as a priority and major constraint to agricultural development. With support from the Ministry of Agriculture and National Agricultural Research Organization, SPIA Special Initiative Member Professor Travis Lybbert (UC Davis) is leading an effort to collect maize and bean seed samples at different seed system levels. These will be subjected to a range of quality tests (including genetic purity testing using genotyping methods) to understand at which points in the seed system seed quality may degrade.

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• "Don’t Look for a Donkey in the Lake" - SPIA Senior Researcher James Stevenson reflects on the first country consultation workshop in Uganda.
• “Smallholders’ adoption of innovations – an agenda for learning” - SPIA Chair Professor Karen Macours and Senior Researcher James Stevenson provide an overview of the research agenda on understanding adoption of agricultural innovations
• "Panel Data Takes Partnership and Patience: First Field Visit of the Uganda National Panel Survey" - SPIA Researcher John Ilukor and SPIA Senior Researcher James Stevenson on the work with UBoS and how it has been adapted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Visit our Vietnam Study page to learn about our work in the country and download the report SPIA Viet Nam Report 2024: Global Ambitions, Sustainable Pathways

The SPIA team are working together with the General Statistics Office of Vietnam to build the SPIA country-level approach around the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS).

After an initial stocktaking exercise of CGIAR-related activities in Vietnam, the team identified three rice-based innovations to be the focus of improved data collection efforts:

• Improved rice varieties
• “One must-do, five reductions” (1M5R) and Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)
• Adaptive rice-based systems and cropping calendars, derived from Climate-Smart Maps and Adaptation Plans (CS MAP)

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• Qualitative study to design a survey module for measuring a natural resource management package in Vietnam - SPIA Special Initiative Member Monica Biradavolu, Research Consultant Phuong Thi Minh Nguyen and Pre-Doctoral Fellow Thao Thi Nhat Bach write about the approaches used to design questions on adoption of 1M5R for the VHLSS.
• Vietnam's Dramatic Agricultural Transformation: Discussion on CGIAR's Role - SPIA Pre-Doctoral Fellow Thao Bach and Senior Researcher James Stevenson report from the consultation meeting on data collection of CGIAR-related innovations in Hanoi.
• The Year of the Tiger and a Leap Into Action - SPIA Researcher Frederic Kosmowski and Research Consultant Oanh Thu Thi Nguyen tell us about the work in Vietnam and the partnership with the Vietnam General Statistics Office.

Bangladesh will be the fourth focus country for the SPIA country-level approach to documenting the adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations linked to CGIAR. The SPIA national data systems team started the process of recruiting team members in Bangladesh in early 2022. 

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• SPIA's Workflow Reaches the Land of Rivers - SPIA member Kyle Emerick and Senior Researcher James Stevenson share thoughts on what the country-level approach may include in Bangladesh