ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors present a conceptual framework and a set of hypotheses which may enable to offer more meaningful advice once their study has been completed. They deal with an elaboration of the key concepts of the framework, and then discuss the criteria for evaluating performance. This is followed by analyses of the political, technical and organizational factors which affect linkage mechanisms in the development and transfer of agricultural technology. Foreign donors includes multilateral and bilateral aid agencies, externally sponsored non-governmental organizations and international agricultural research centers. Institutional agricultural technology system(s) which regularly make available relevant new technologies exhibit high levels of integration between research and technology transfer. For political reasons, governments are reluctant to allow farmers’ organizations to be formed or to become too powerful. In most low-income countries there is a marked difference between the historical legacy of the commercial agricultural sector and that of the subsistence sector.
