Abstract

Although the Government of Ethiopia has developed a grand Five-Year Growth and Transformation Plan (FYGTP) for economic development, aspiring to achieve a middle income country status by the year 2025 through a transformation of the economy of the agriculture led industry, the shift of focus in the role of development from agriculture to industrialization has not altered the objective of enhancing agricultural production and productivity. To this end, the agricultural extension service which is determined by its institutional effectiveness and competency of the development agents (DAs) at field has pivotal role to derive the transformation process. This study was based on data collected from 108 DAs in SNNPR from 12 Woredas using structured questionnaire. Results indicated that manmade and natural factors are affecting the DAs effectiveness on their job performance. The challenges were found to have three categories, namely DAs capacity based challenges, farmer based constraints and infrastructure/ service based constraints. On the job training that would build the knowledge, skill and commitment level of the expertise and improve the working environment of DAs including availability of logistics, incentives in kind and promotion is recommended.

Key words: Development agent, effectiveness, performance, technology dissemination.