for its implementation. Decisions on which seats to reserve in panchayat councils are frequently challenged in court. State election commissions have to fend off considerable political pressure to implement the reservation policy in an impartial manner. Implementing quota policies for FBOs may be difficult without a similar institutional backup mechanism. This may explain why none of the surveyed farmers cooperatives and only 11 percent of the dairy cooperatives had a female chair, despite the fact that many of them had a provision to include female members in their executive committees. In view of the difficulties of making the short route of accountability functioning and inclusive, it seems worth placing more emphasis on the long route and increasing the authority of the panchayati raj system with regard to agricultural programs. The fact that users of extension services may prefer this route is also indicated by the fact that the few (male and female) farmers who actually complained about agricultural extension all approached either elected gram or block panchayat council members or members of the legislative assembly. This may indicate that in rural areas, elected representatives are more accessible than the actors along the supposedly short route of accountability. The situation in Ghana is similar to that in India, in the sense that the council of political representatives, the district assembly, has little authority over the agricultural extension system (or any agricultural program). Agriculture has been decentralized to the district level, but it remains a deconcentrated rather than a decentralized service. The directors of the district agricultural offices have more authority and discretion than they did before the system was decentralized, but the lines of accountability for both staff and funds remain within the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The case studies suggest that neither the assembly nor the district chief executive have full information about the budget of the district agricultural offices. The plans of the agricultural offices are supposed to be integrated into the district development planning process, but this provision seems to be implemented partially, at best. Better integration will probably be possible once the composite budget and Local Government Service are implemented. Both provisions have been discussed for a long time, however; whether they will become a reality remains to be seen. District assembly members are more accessible to rural people than ministry staff is: only 4 percent of all households interviewed had ever visited a Ministry of Food and Agriculture district office, the only place where they could launch complaints regarding agricultural extension if the agricultural extension agent does not visit them. The district assembly member seems to be the most accessible person—often the only person—rural people can access as their link to the government in Ghana, where the “reach” of the state is not very deep. In India, at least one government agent, the gram panchayat secretary, is located in each cluster of villages. In Ethiopia, as discussed below, the reach of the state goes even farther than in India. These observations point to a more general problem. In countries in which the reach of the state is not deep and the coverage of user organizations limited,
COMPARING THE THREE COUNTRIES
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