The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) is the outcome of an extensive diagnostic study of Ethiopia’s agriculture sector led by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and facilitated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2009. The study found that traditional approaches taken to change the sector were too narrow, with many projects and programs only focusing on selected aspects and leading to disconnected interventions that did not address the root causes of problems. One key finding of the study, based on the experience of other countries in East and Southeast Asia in the 1960s to 1980s, was the need to establish a dedicated organization to help catalyze and drive accelerated agricultural development.