Evaluation of National Agricultural Advisory Services in Improving Livelihoods of Households in Mayuge District: A Case of Bunya West Constituency

ABSTRACT Understanding livelihoods begins with understanding how people structure their means of living, and poverty indicators show that the poor are still increasingly suffering under poverty. The study was to conduct an evaluation of National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) in improving livelihoods of households in Mayuge district in Bunya West constituency. The research questions were to examine as to what extent NAADS activities and enterprises have to improving households’ income; the challenges the program is facing in improving households’ income and the strategies in place to improve the standards of living. The study adopted a case study design and used mainly qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. This was supplemented by quantitative methods to get percentages and means. Purposive sampling was used to select the thirty two (32) NAADS officials and thirty one (31). Stratified random sampling was used to select the ninety nine (99) beneficiaries and simple random sampling was used to select the beneficiaries per Sub County. Data collection was done using mainly unstructured interviews and other instruments namely: observations, focused group discussions and self administered questionnaires were used. Secondary data analysis was also done by reviewing documents and records of activities carried out in the previous years. The findings of the study indicated that there were important activities introduced by the NAADS program, but due to the many challenges, there was no increase in households’ income as a result of the interventions by the NAADS program. Also, despite the many strategies put in place to address the challenges, the NAADS program did not improve the standards of living of the households. It is therefore recommended that the challenges are vigorously addressed in order to increase households’ income and improve the standards of living.