Practical challenges and strategies for randomised control trials in agricultural extension and other development programmes

Randomised control trials (RCTs) can yield information about the effectiveness of agricultural extension and other development programmes, facilitating cost-benefit analyses and policy decisions under resource constraints. However, even after RCT design questions have been settled, a number of other practical challenges to successful RCTs remain. As a guide to those interested in applying RCTs more extensively, we outline several ethical, organisational, design and field-based challenges for RCTs, along with potential strategies for mitigating the challenges. We provide illustrations from our experience of an RCT of the Community Knowledge Worker programme, a novel agricultural extension model in Uganda.