Investments in agricultural technologies, capacity building and policy harmonization are needed to support sustainable development across Africa. Regional development projects can facilitate the adoption of agricultural technologies and innovations across nation‐state borders and generate benefits for shared prosperity. This paper uses panel data from 1,160 smallholder households including beneficiaries and non‐beneficiaries from five countries in East Africa ‐ Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. From a pool of over 90 projects implemented over a span of 15 years, 23 regional projects are included in this study. The major economic benefits to smallholder participants are higher crop productivity and income, access to adaptable technologies, access to markets, higher livestock and milk production, gender equality, enhanced food security, resilience and capacity building for uptake and scaling up of future innovation platforms. For example, the adoption of low‐cost tissue culture banana by the beneficiaries increased their incomes by 15% in Rwanda while the adoption of appropriate land and water management technologies increased the potato yields from 2.8 tons (USD 2,840/ha) to over 7.5 tons (USD 7,410/ha) in Kenya. The beneficiaries ensured value added to commodities like bananas (for export) and orange‐fleshed sweet potatoes (a nutrition‐sensitive intervention for enhancing domestic intake of vitamin A) in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Additionally, milk production increased from 6 to 11 L per cow per day in Uganda and from 6 to 8 L per cow per day in Tanzania, with increases in sales generating USD 115 per cow per month above the non‐beneficiaries. These results are supported by previous studies on technology adoption, investments in agriculture and well‐being outcomes. Our findings with the higher farm income Difference‐in‐Differences (DiD) estimator for the female beneficiaries compared to male beneficiaries might have important implications for investing in regional development projects that will close the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Africa. Regional projects can also support post‐conflict development efforts for food security and peace in fragile contexts such as in Burundi. Our findings might serve as an input to the African Union's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, localization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to food security and agriculture in Africa and an input to monitoring, evaluation and learning.

中文翻译：

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东非的可持续发展：布隆迪、肯尼亚、卢旺达、坦桑尼亚和乌干达区域农业发展项目的影响评估

需要对农业技术、能力建设和政策协调进行投资，以支持整个非洲的可持续发展。区域发展项目可以促进跨越国界的农业技术和创新的采用，并为共同繁荣创造收益。本文使用来自东非五个国家（布隆迪、肯尼亚、卢旺达、坦桑尼亚和乌干达）的 1,160 个小农家庭的面板数据，其中包括受益人和非受益人。在 15 年期间实施的 90 多个项目中，本研究包括 23 个区域项目。小农参与者的主要经济利益是提高作物生产力和收入、获得适应性技术、进入市场、提高牲畜和牛奶产量、性别平等、加强粮食安全、适应和扩大未来创新平台的复原力和能力建设。例如，受益者采用低成本组织培养香蕉使卢旺达的收入增加了 15%，而采用适当的水土管理技术将马铃薯产量从 2.8 吨（2,840 美元/公顷）提高到 7.5 吨以上（7,410 美元/公顷）在肯尼亚。受益者确保了布隆迪、肯尼亚、卢旺达和乌干达的香蕉（出口）和橙肉红薯（一种提高国内维生素 A 摄入量的营养敏感干预措施）等商品的附加值。此外，乌干达的每头奶牛每天的牛奶产量从 6 升增加到 11 升，坦桑尼亚的每头奶牛每天从 6 升增加到 8 升，每头奶牛的销售额增加了 115 美元，高于非受益者。这些结果得到了先前关于技术采用、农业投资和福祉结果的研究的支持。我们的研究结果表明，与男性受益人相比，女性受益人的农业收入差异 (DiD) 估计量更高，这可能对投资区域发展项目具有重要意义，这些项目将缩小非洲农业生产力的性别差距。区域项目还可以支持在布隆迪等脆弱环境中为实现粮食安全与和平而进行的冲突后发展努力。我们的研究结果可以作为对非洲联盟的非洲农业综合发展计划的投入、与非洲粮食安全和农业相关的联合国可持续发展目标的本地化以及对监测、评估和学习的投入。