Transforming rural livelihoods: Lessons from the Africa RISING program

Sustainable agricultural development has long been heralded as a vital pathway to alleviating poverty and hunger in Africa, where smallholder farming predominates across diverse landscapes and local conditions changing due to climate impacts and other factors. Sustainable intensification (SI) approaches—tailored to local conditions—offer a range of farming techniques designed to improve growing conditions, yields, and measures of well-being including food security.

The Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING or AR) program aimed at producing more output per unit of land in a way that also enhances soil, crop, and ecosystem health for smallholder farming systems. For more than a decade (2012-2022) it operated in six countries in three geographically distinct regions: Ethiopian highlands (crop-livestock-based farming); West Africa (cereal-legume-livestock-based, in Ghana and Mali); and East and Southern Africa (maize-legume-livestock-based, in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia).

The program introduced a range of projects to integrate SI technologies into local smallholder agricultural systems. These included improved seed varieties, different fertilization use intensity (quantity of fertilizers per hectare), various intercropping practices (cereals-legumes as well as short-term with long-term legumes), natural resources management strategies, enhanced livestock integration into farming systems, intensified use of manure, enhanced livestock feed and fodder, small-scale mechanization, soil conservation, and advisory services—each tailored to local contexts.

These efforts, funded by the U.S. government, were carried out by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in West Africa and East and Southern Africa, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in the Ethiopian highlands. IFPRI conducted program monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment.

These assessments offer valuable insights into the multifaceted effects of agricultural innovations on rural livelihoods, natural resource conservation, and economic empowerment. Here, we summarize the key findings and lessons on the effects of the program across five SI domains. Overall, the Africa RISING program was successful in improving sustainable smallholder practices and enhanced a range of agronomy-, livestock- and environment-related, and economic outcomes for participants, including improved yields, household crop and livestock income, and more diversified livelihoods.

More details can be found by viewing this interactive.

A two-phased approach to sustainable intensification

The AR program was implemented in two phases. Phase I (2012–2016) emphasized the validation of demand-driven sustainable intensification innovations, while Phase II (2017–2022) scaled up a subset of the more scale-ready innovations in partnership with local development partners.

The program’s overarching goal was to enhance incomes, food security, and nutritional outcomes for smallholder farmers. It placed a particular focus on women and children and on conserving the natural resource base. Impact assessments, conducted through household panel surveys in all countries except Zambia, provide a rich dataset to evaluate the program’s achievements. These assessments employed rigorous methods to provide quantitative impact estimates, including the difference-in-differences approach and, for Ethiopia, simple comparative analysis.

Data used

The IFPRI-AR Monitoring and Evaluation team collected primary data as part of the Africa RISING Baseline and Follow-Up Evaluation Surveys (ARBES/ARFES) in 2013 and 2019 from Malawi; 2014 and 2022 from Tanzania; 2014 and 2020 from Ghana; and 2014 and 2021 from Mali. Two rounds of panel data were collected from 54 communities and 985 households in Malawi; 50 communities and 1,196 households in Ghana; 25 communities and 712 households in Tanzania; and 20 communities and 612 households in Mali. Highly comparable (across space and time) microdata were collected on a wide range of areas across the five SI domains discussed in the Sustainable Intensification Assessment Framework (SIAF) (Musumba et al. 2017): Environmental, productivity, economic, human, and social. The choice of SI indicators for the impact assessment was guided by the SIAF and data availability, as well as country-specific details about program interventions.

Key findings across SI domains

Malawi: Broad-based success

In Malawi, the AR program positively impacted all five SI domains. Program beneficiaries who benefited from agricultural advisory services adopted improved legume varieties, increased fertilizer usage, and diversified livestock. These improvements led to higher legume yields (+0.23 metric tons (MT)/ha), enhanced household net livestock income (+$173 in purchasing power parity (PPP)), and improved household dietary diversity (+0.8 food groups). Additionally, beneficiaries reported greater household consumption expenditure, asset ownership, and livelihood diversification compared to program non-beneficiaries.

Tanzania: Comprehensive impact

Tanzania mirrored Malawi’s success, with positive outcomes across all the SI domains. Beneficiaries adopted soil conservation practices, used improved legume varieties, and reported reduced soil erosion. Higher legume yields (almost +1 MT/ha), net livestock income (+$352 in PPP), and durable assets (+6 percentage points) underscored the program’s agricultural and economic benefits. Beneficiaries also reported higher consumption of animal-source foods (meat and dairy) and fewer months of food shortages.

Ghana: Targeted advancements

In Ghana, the program’s impact was evident in four SI domains but fell short in the human domain (i.e., individual and household indicators including nutrition status, food security, and adaptation capacity). Beneficiaries reported higher likelihood of conservation practices adoption such as fallowing and cereal-legume intercropping (+13 and 4 percentage points, respectively), achieved higher groundnut yields (+0.22 MT/ha), and increased net crop income (+$519 in PPP). Membership in farmers’ groups also rose among program participants, fostering social cohesion and knowledge exchange.

Mali: Productivity and environmental gains

Mali’s results aligned closely with Ghana’s, with notable gains in agricultural productivity and environmental domains. Beneficiaries utilized improved varieties and agricultural advisory services (+16 and 30 percentage points, respectively), resulting in higher yields among crops such as green bean and okra (+15 and .7 MT/ha, respectively). Economic benefits included higher daily per capita consumption expenditure (+$1.3 in PPP) and diversified livelihoods (+13 percentage points). Beneficiaries were less likely to be asset-poor as a direct result of AR.

Ethiopia: Encouraging results

Several indicators along the five SI domains showed improvements among beneficiaries in Ethiopia, albeit evaluated through a methodology that did not address potential temporal differences in outcomes by beneficiary status. Beneficiaries reported higher yields for crops like fava beans and wheat (+0.3 and 0.7 MT/ha, respectively), improved dietary diversity (+0/5 food groups), and reduced food insecurity (-20 percentage points). The integration of enhanced innovations such as irrigation and improved varieties played a significant role in affecting these outcomes.

Challenges and lessons learned

While the assessments show that AR successfully enhanced agronomic outcomes, they also indicate that the program faced challenges in translating these gains into improved nutritional outcomes for women and children. Anthropometric data revealed no significant improvements in maternal and child nutrition among beneficiaries. The overall findings reinforce the need for complementary interventions, such as nutrition-focused behavior change communication, to maximize the nutritional benefits of agricultural investments.

Moreover, the diversity of agricultural technology packages across countries led to impact heterogeneity. This result underscores the importance of tailoring interventions to local contexts and addressing systemic barriers such as market imperfections, value chain inefficiencies, and social inequalities. Explicit attention to empowering marginalized groups and fostering human-centric development is crucial for sustaining long-term impact.

Towards a food-secure and sustainable future

The Africa RISING program stands as a testament to the potential of sustainable intensification to transform rural livelihoods. By combining cutting-edge agricultural research with local traditions and practices, AR has charted a path toward more resilient and productive farming systems, with lessons learned applied by the new CGIAR Sustainable Farming Science Program. However, the journey is far from complete. Addressing entrenched inequalities, investing in small-scale mechanization and irrigation, and prioritizing human and social outcomes are pivotal steps toward creating inclusive and sustainable agricultural economies. At the same time, building a stronger culture of impact assessment remains central to this journey.

As Africa continues to grapple with the dual challenges of poverty and environmental degradation, programs such as Africa RISING offer a blueprint for leveraging agriculture as a catalyst for change. The insights gleaned from AR’s impact assessments not only illuminate the program’s successes but also chart a course for future initiatives aimed at building resilient, equitable, and food-secure societies.

Carlo Azzarri is a Senior Research Fellow with IFPRI’s Innovation and Policy Scaling (IPS) Unit based in Rome; Beliyou Haile is a former IFPRI Senior Research Fellow currently with the International Finance Corporation; Sedi-Anne Boukaka is an IPS Research Coordinator based in Nairobi, Kenya. This post is based on research that is not yet peer-reviewed. Opinions are the authors’.