Motivational Messages for Extension Workers in Rwanda Tree Program 2022
RWA -21 -1710Last modified on October 29th, 2025 at 12:04 pm
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Abstract
One Acre Fund (OAF) is an agricultural service provider that provides support for smallholder farmers in Africa to access agricultural inputs, training, and markets, to help the farmers increase their harvests and income. PAD and OAF began collaborating in 2016 on efforts to increase adoption of agricultural inputs and improve OAF operations in Kenya and Rwanda.
During the 2022A agricultural season, OAF and PAD collaborated on a digital messaging project that targeted volunteer extension agents known as farmer promoters (FPs) in Rwanda “Motivational Messages for Extension Workers in Rwanda Tree Program 2018”. We examined whether SMS messages could improve FP performance, using two approaches: goal reminders, and personality-tailored motivational messages. Using a randomized controlled trial with 10,187 FP volunteer extension workers, we found that goal reminders sent during the regular working period increased a productivity index by 0.08 standard deviations, while reminders sent late had no effect. By contrast, personality-tailored motivational messages showed no performance improvements. These results suggest that workers who set ambitious yet realistic goals are more likely to respond to reminders and increase productivity, which is consistent with prior evidence on externally set goals. Given the extremely low cost of sending SMS reminders (US$0.005 per message sent), digital goal reminders can be a highly cost-effective way to strengthen extension services. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q1 Feb 2021
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End date
Q2 Apr 2022
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Experiment Location
Rwanda
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Partner Organization
One Acre Fund (OAF)
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Agricultural season
Season A
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Experiment type
Impact Evaluation
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Sample frame / target population
Farmer promoters (FPs) for whom OAF has phone numbers
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Sample size
10,187
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Outcome type
Input adoption, Agent performance
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Mode of data collection
Partner administrative data, Phone survey
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Research question(s)
1. How do motivational messages and goal reminders affect the performance of volunteer extension agents (FPs)?
2. How do these effects vary by agent personality type? -
Research theme
Communication technology, Extension agents, Input recommendations, Message framing
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Research Design
OAF had phone numbers for approximately 13,000 of the approximately 14,500 FPs in Rwanda. To recruit participants, enumerators from OAF phoned FPs and asked if they consented to responding to a baseline survey. From June to July 2021, OAF and PxD conducted a 25-minute baseline phone survey to collect data on FPs’ demographic characteristics, motivations, personalities, performance in the previous agricultural season, and goals for the upcoming agricultural season. The 10,187 FPs who completed the baseline survey became the study sample.
The intervention took place in three settings: (i) a subsidized input promotion campaign, (ii) a demonstration plot, and farmer training campaign, and (iii) an agroforestry trees campaign. FPs received SMS messages from August to November 2021 shortly before and at the beginning of the 2022A season, which ran from September 2021 to January 2022. Endline survey data collection was completed in April 2022.
We randomized participants into one of four main groups with stratification by the district and the quartile level of personality traits variation in baseline responses:
– Control: FPs who did not receive any motivational messages.
– Random Message (T1): FPs who received motivational messages matching personality traits that were randomly assigned to them.
– Matching Message (T2): FPs who received motivational messages matching their personality traits.
– Mismatching Message (T3): FPs who received motivational messages mismatching their personality traits.Additionally, FPs in each of the four groups (C, T1, T2, and T3) were subdivided to either (a) receive a goal reminder based on their response in the baseline survey, or (b) not receive a goal reminder. The goal reminders were implemented for two settings: (i) the subsidized input promotion campaign and (ii) the demonstration plot, and farmer training campaign.
See Working Paper: Martin Abel, Tomoko Harigaya, Michael Kremer, Jessica Zhu. 2025 “The Effect of Reminders for Self-Set Goals on Productivity”
See previous trial: Motivational Messages for Extension Workers in Rwanda Tree Program 2018
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Results
SMS goal reminders significantly improved the performance of FPs by 0.08 standard deviations on an overall performance index that included metrics for the number of farmers registered, the number of farmers trained, and the number of trainings held (statistically significant at the 1% level), but only when suitably timed and only for workers who set ambitious yet realistic goals. For individual metrics, FPs who received timely messages held, on average, 0.16 more training meetings than control group FPs, who held 3.8 trainings on average (significant at the 5% level), and trained 1.81 more farmers than control group FPs, who trained 58 farmers on average (significant at the 10% level). The effectiveness followed an inverted U-shaped pattern: Reminders had no significant impact on extension workers who set very low goals (at or below their previous performance) and on extension workers who set overly ambitious goals (more than double their previous performance); reminders were most effective for those who set goals 25–80% above their previous performance. Importantly, the intervention didn't compromise the FPs’ work quality on other tasks.
By contrast, we do not find statistically significant effects of motivational messages on FPs' performance.