Adoption of and farmers’ exposure to soil and Water Management (SWMGT) Practices in the Sahel Savanna of West Africa: Average Treatment Effect (ATE) Estimations.

This paper approaches the soil and water management (SWMGT) adoption estimationfrom the perspective of the modern evaluation theory. As a result, the analytical procedureadopted for the study follows the Average Treatment Effect (ATE) estimation framework. Thedata gathered for the analysis are part of the baseline data collected from a sample of 572households in 20 villages in Maradi (Niger Republic) and katsina (Nigeria). Results showthat about 45 percent of the respondents have adopted the soil and water management(SWMGT) practices, out of 398 (70%) households that had knowledge or were aware of theSWMGT options. The joint exposure and adoption rates from three different models havebeen estimated at 39%. Results for joint exposure and adoption (within the SWMGT exposedsub-population) rate are also similar for the three models (59%) with similar range of 95%confidence interval (between 52% and 65%). With the intervention of the SSACP through the2IAR4D, it is expected that the adoption rate could be increased by at least 14% if an effectiveawareness of these SWMGT practices through the Innovation Platform system is undertaken.Key words: Adoption, Exposure, Average treatment Effect, Innovation Platform, IntegratedAgricultural Research for Development.