Addis project boundaries

Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems to improve food security and farm income diversification in the Ethiopian highlands Project Design Workshop 30 January - 2 February 2012, Addis Ababa Ethiopia

Group work results / Project boundaries - What not

This workshop provides an opportunity for a broad group of important stakeholders to both learn about the project plans and to share their views on expectations from and opportunities for synergies with the project (days 1 and 2) and for the core project team to finalize the project details (days 3 and 4).

Presentation by Diego:

File:addis_boundaries.ppt

Our boundaries included scale, sustainable intensification
Scale:

Decision units are household/farm and communal resources/process Focused scale would be household/farm

Sustainable Intensification:

The plot is not our focus, farm production is; We look at biophysical / socio-economic drivers but don't do research on it (e.g. climate change could be a driver, we'll include it in the research but will not conduct more research about it); Diversity of households = typologies; We are not focusing on the poorest of the poor (no means to test technologies, it's difficult).

Research - development:

We will not do reserach on development components (we will improve and combine current technologies). The link is with development, research + policy programs. This is not a value chain project but we have to be aware of it; More integration with national and regional partners. Ideas for R4D: * Participatory selection of basket of opportunities; * Farmers/communities decide which ones to implement (understanding decision-making, co-learning); * Assessment at farm, but also down/up scales. Qualitative and quantitative (difficult) analyses = process & social research (M&E) Note: this is a time demanding process No pilot studies/projects Rather than linking with on-going projects (whose paths might be difficult to change), link with projects at design phase (eg LGP); co-designing and co-learning with partners; Funding institutions' role on leverage for this process; review of coming initiatives/project (site selection); Risk of quick wins - no sustainable unless linked to strong current processes. Better focus on processes than on numbers.

Comments:

(on SI) Looking at PSNP, there's a program focusing on direct beneficiaries and we need to look at that group, not the safety net group.
(on R4D) household members are in the same scale;
The presentation makes us realise that there's a whole sub-part of the project that is much more about institutions - the people around the table are not that sort of people - where is the disconnect. Is this a key part of the project that needs to be addressed?
We can't have more than one focused scale.
The farm, as the unit, is very different to what we usually as bio-physical scientists - we need to be aware of this.
What about the spillover/benefit effects for the poorest of the poor;
The word 'development' brings about different images: not crop development but development work. Here we were just saying we were not working on plant breeding. We are also not working on fertilizer response tries.
No value chain project because we don't have the resources;
Regional here means 'Ethiopian regions' not Eastern Africa region - sub-regional research organizations are important.
It's better to focus on development projects at design phase and start working together e.g. LGP.
No pilot studies etc.: but we are focusing on farm level so how do we combine this? --> we're not going to sites where there is no other project going on;
No link with ongoing projects might be a problem, it's misleading. Many dev projects are flexible and looking for tech options --> the experimental design we foresee will require funding and activities from dev and research projects. We focus on 'basket of technologies', not technologies. This will not be a stand-alone project.
The point here is to emphasize the embedding of the research in starting projects.