ESA ScienceImpactsReviewMeet 2022

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Africa RISING ESA Project Science Outcomes and Impacts Review Meeting/ Tanzania Project Close-Out Event
24 - 26 August 2022
Dododma, Tanzania
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Objectives

  1. Present and critically assess the major research and development outputs and deliverables of the project.
  2. Explore opportunities for further scaling of project outputs and outcomes beyond Africa RISING


Science Meeting: Morena Hotel
Day ONE [24 August 2022]

  • 08:30 Participants registration
  • 09:00 Introduction of participants/ overview of agenda for the day
  • 09:30 Welcome & Opening remarks
  • IITA Eastern Africa Hub Director – L. Tripathi
  • USAID leadership - - Jerry Glover/Zachary Stewart
  • 10:00 Timeline presentation of Africa RISING, specific focus on ESA – F. Kizito, Project Manager
  • 10:30 Break
  • 11:00 What we promised at the start [the ESA project proposal] – M. Bekunda, Chief Scientist
  • Market Place I:ESA Technologies applying genetic intensification as an entry point
[4 bus stops, 20 mins. each + 20 mins. discussion]
  • Drought tolerant quality protein maize – Bright Jumbo
  • High yielding disease resistant groundnut – Patrick Okori
  • High yielding drought-tolerant common beans – Rowland Chirwa
  • Resilient vegetable varieties – Justus Ochieng/ Rosina Wanyama
  • Closing discussion from marketplace I
  • 12:40 Lunch
  • 14:00 Market Place II:ESA Technologies applying ecological intensification as an entry point
[5 bus stops, 20 mins. each + 20 mins. discussion]
  • Doubled up legumes & crop sequencing – Regis Chikowo
  • Mbili mbili – Michael Kinyua
  • Soil fertility management through fertilizer application – Job Kihara
  • Soil and water conservation in Tanzania – Fred Kizito
  • Conservation agriculture in Malawi and Zambia – Christian Thierfelder
  • Closing discussion from marketplace II
  • 16:00 Break
  • 16:30 Wrap up day one [1-2-4 all exercise]


Science Meeting: Morena Hotel
Day TWO [25 August 2022]

  • 08:50 Overview of agenda for the day
  • 09:00 Market Place III:ESA Technologies applying socio-economic intensification as an entry point
[3 bus stops, 20 mins. each + 20 mins. discussion]
  • Returns on investment in Africa RISING research and scaling – C. Azzarri, Julius Manda
  • Benefits of weaving gender into SI Interventions – G. Fischer
  • Overview from our Monitoring and Evaluation – D. Mgalla & C. Azzarri, M&E Lead
  • Closing discussion from marketplace III
  • 10:20 Break
  • 10:50 Market Place IV:ESA Technologies applying human condition intensification as an entry point
[2 bus stops, 20 mins. each + 20 mins. discussion]
  • Improved household nutrition (value addition) – Seetha Anitha, Y. Muzanila, A. Mwangwela
  • Technologies for reducing post-harvest losses and improving food safety – Christopher Mutungi
  • Closing discussion from marketplace IV
  • 11:50 Market Place V: Tools for scaling ESA Technologies
[3 bus stops, 20 mins. each + 20 mins. discussion]
  • Utilization of geospatial tools – Francis Muthoni
  • Sustainable recommendation domains (FARMDESIGN, Typologies etc.) – J. Groot, L. Claessens
  • Using the SI Assessment Framework learning lab approach for impact - S. Snapp
  • Closing discussion from marketplace V

13:10 Lunch

  • 14:30 Lessons in implementation
  • 14:30 - 15:10 Gaps and opportunities for further research – S.Snapp
  • 15:10 - 16:15 Panel discussion: Partnerships in Scaling – Lessons from selected scaling partners – H. Sseguya (moderate the discussion); Panel: Patrick Kiao (E-Soko Product Mngr), Leonard Sabula (TARI), DAICO Babati, Sylvanus Mruma (NAFAKA), Rep. from LEAD Foundation (check with Swai), DAICO Kongwa, Betty Maeda
  • 16:15 Break
  • 16:30 Next steps for closure of project and what follows (administrative focus) – F. Kizito
  • 16:45 Closing remarkS
  • Chief Scientist – M. Bekunda
  • I. Hoeschle-Zeledon
  • USAID leadership - - Jerry Glover/Zachary Stewart
  • F. Kizito, Project Manager
  • 17:00 wrap up/close of science outcomes & impacts review meeting

Tanzania Country Close-Out Event: Nashera Hotel
Day Three [26 August 2022]

  • 13.00-14.00: Registration and Public tour of exhibitions - Devotha Mawole
  • 14.00-14.10: Introductions
  • 14.10-14.20: Welcome Remarks - Dr. Leena Tripathi, IITA Eastern Africa Hub Director
  • 14.20-14.35: Achievements of AR Program in Tanzania: An overview - M. Bekunda, Chief Scientist Africa RISING ESA Project
  • 14.35-15.15: Exhibition tour - Guest of Honour and other guests
  • 15.15-15.30: Farmers testimonies - Three farmers (one each from Kongwa, Kiteto and Babati Districts)
  • 15.30-15.35: Remarks - Representative, DAICOs
  • 15.35-15.40: Remarks - Representative, Scaling Partners
  • 15.40-15.50: Remarks - TARI Director General
  • 15.50-16.00: Break with traditional dance group
  • 16.00-16.20: Remarks from USAID
  • USAID - Country Director in Tanzania
  • USAID - Washington Representation
  • 16.20-16.30: Remarks Dodoma Regional Commissioner - Dodoma Regional Commissioner (also, to welcome the Guest of honor)
  • 16.30-16.45: Speech - Minister of Agriculture (Guest of honor)
  • 16.45-17.00: Brief ceremony to unveil SI Handbook for Practitioners in ESA - Guest of honor & Chief Scientist
  • 17.00-17.10: Vote of Appreciation - Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon and Fred Kizito, Former and Current Africa RISING Project Managers
  • 17.10-18.00: Cocktail

  • Day ONE [24 August 2022]

Welcome & Opening remarks

  • B. Mateete.
  • In his opening remarks, Mateete refers to the event as a reunion of the Africa RISING team at the end of the program. At the same time, looking forward to continuing benefits to farmers even after the project phases out.
  • He explained the purpose of the meeting was to review the research work and achievements. The meeting output would contribute to developing the end of phase two final report.
  • F. Kizito.Among the things that Kizito talked about during the opening remarks focused on the significance of the partnership; according to him, even though the project was ending, a partnership built along the way would ensure the sustainability of the good work done by the project.
  • He, therefore, referred to the ending stages as a transition stage, whereby partners are taking over.
  • Fred pointed out that more than 15 Africa RISING team members have been a part of the Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership. Through Africa NAFAKA, more than 20 thousand farmers in the Southern Highlands and Babati are reached.
  • H. Irmgard
  • In her opening remarks, Irmgard appreciated the work by the new Africa RISING management.

She expressed happiness in participating in the meeting and had a chance to meet with the team again. I am grateful to have the opportunity to meet you again because I felt sad when I left in December 2021 without meeting you again". Irmgard physically met the Africa RISING ESA team in March 2019. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, she has been meeting the program team virtually. According to her, virtual meetings missed the personal touch. Speaking about the progress of Africa RISING in 11 years, Irmgard noted that 11 years of the Africa RISING Program was possible through generosity by the donor long length of funding of the program." I don't know another program that has run for so long with such support from the donors marked Irmgard. She explained even with the up and downs, such as the financial crisis in 2017, the donor stretched for support and was highly engaged in overcoming the situation and ensuring the continuity of the program and referred to the support of Jerry Glover, the project activity leader from USAID. "This was proof of confidence in Africa RISING that something good is going on and something useful will be coming out of this program. This is what I am most grateful for during my leadership in Africa RISING. Also, having met nice colleagues and had good professional and personal interaction with everybody, explained Irmgard. According to her, the review meeting was significant since it provided an opportunity to review the project's results, achievements, and overall process. "The results from the meeting will contribute to developing the final report to the donor. The donor needs to learn lessons from the Africa RISING Program and get the assurance they have invested their money very well for so long in such initiatives, she noted. Irmgard explained that it was essential to take stock of what went well and what did not go so well and referred to the failures as lessons and would support other new initiatives in sustainable intensification. In a nutshell, she appreciated the efforts and commitment of the Africa RISING project team and scaling partners. She noted though there are some failures, the project team needs to understand that those failures are actual results, and nobody should have felt bad about it. "…it is not because we are personally failed. It is because maybe the technology did not work, and this is the role of science to find this out. "I am looking forward to this review, to refresh my memory and be able to reflect more critically and conclude that maybe in future how we could do it differently," she noted. "Thank you very much for coming to this meeting and having this opportunity to meet you all again and say bye in three days," concluded Irmgard while opening remarks on the first day of the Africa RISING ESA project science review meeting.

Timeline presentation of Africa RISING, specific focus on ESA – F. Kizito, Project Manager

  • Please download the PPT slides from the Link below.

File:ESA Timeline ESA Fred.pdf -F. Kizito (IITA)


Discussion Dr. Fredy Kizito highlighted common threats that the project addressed while in phase one of the project; he explained that the donor (USAID) focus was to make a difference primarily to regions threatened with a high level of poor-quality seeds and degraded soils (high labor inputs on the work done), insufficient use of fertilizers and resources (water) and big knowledge gap. Kizito explained the approach used to address those farmers' pressing challenges was the sustainable intensification systems that focused on five domains, including productivity: social, human, economic, and environmental. Talking about opportunities to address the knowledge gap for farmers and various stakeholders, Kizito noted the need to empower different stakeholders so they could also empower farmers and take up the technologies that could improve productivity and livelihood and limit poverty and malnutrition. Other opportunities discussed focused on better agronomy, automated environmental monitoring, technological innovation ICT, and improved Postharvest handling. Kizito stated the project's footprints from phases one and two of the Africa RISING ESA project and elaborated on each step in detail. According to him, the marked footprints were simply because the Africa RISING project has been awarded a prosperous partnership from people on the ground. He noted that the Footprints of the project were made possible through partnerships with the agro-dealers, development partners, universities, extension agents, and private sectors. He noted the partnership approach built confidence and would assure continuity of research works by the project, even after the project exit, while referring to an example showing commitment and willingness TARI and SARI while the project was looking for partnership on the integrating soil fertility management in Babati district, Manyara region, in Tanzania. Kizito explained that the project flourished in identifying critical partnerships. Therefore, it was an opportunity to continue identifying potential areas to work with partners in Tanzania. "We heard about NAFAKA KILIMO and other government entities introducing themselves in Malawi and Tanzania. We have a good presence as much as this transition. Based on the success, we need to think what can we do together that will accelerate information delivery and dissemination, he said. Along the path to transformation change, a lot of work was done around conservation agriculture, farmer-declared seeds, Geospatial tools, board of knowledge built on the economics of sustainable intensifications. Through the project;

  • Farmers' perception and knowledge of the use of fertilizers have positively changed. For example, farmers in Babati are now using fertilizers to improve cultivation and enhance soil fertility.
  • Extension officers in Babati can now quickly and timely access agricultural information through communication messages via ICT platforms like Mwanga.
  • Potential partnerships strengthened, for example, the Ile de Pax Island of Peace (IDP) and Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership projects. The partnership projects enabled the initiatives to benefit farmers outside the project's action areas. Despite the well-done work by the project, strengthening the value chain from productivity to postharvest emerged as essential to farmers because it would ensure farmers with the market.

Kizito noted that even though some of the initiatives were not intended for Tanzania, the tools, methods, and approaches developed in Tanzania could still gain traction in other countries, particularly Malawi. The project implemented a sustainable mixed farming system in Malawi, whereas Tanzania was not part of the initial country. While describing the merits of Phase two of the project (2012-2022), Kizito highlighted the following.

  • The ability of the program to close harmonize and work in different areas.
  • Program learning events, Kizito pointed out the Tanzania country mission of Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership project. He acknowledged Madam Elizabeth Maeda, the ambassador and advocate of the partnership project instrumental because her advice and guidance on what farmers care about streamlined and ensured the project was successful.
  • USAID Commissioned an external review
  • Virtual meetings organized during the COVID-19 pandemic were successfully implemented and valuable to track the progress of the ongoing research works.

Kizito also discussed Phase two of the program, which emphasized the sustainable intensification assessment framework focusing on five pillars; productivity, environment, social-human, and economical. The framework was launched in November 2017. According to Kizito, many stakeholders outside the Africa RISING project are using the sustainable intensification assessment framework; he then argued partners to take the SIAF forward. "The future of scaling for SIAF will lay on the nature of partnership we developed, also involving the theory of change because there will be challenges coming, and we need to adapt to the challenges to move forward, 'he said. In the end, Kizito appealed for support from the development partners in documenting and following up on where the opportunity for succession lies. He concludes by quotation. "To achieve the best results, the Africa RISING program has had to channel the wealth of experiences and lessons learned from Phase I and make them into successful implementation strategies and plans for the second phase.' Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, 2016 ‘’ Kizito commented the project was successfully implemented. He explained that the focus on scaling has resulted from the partnership, which has allowed the project to reach one million households by 2021. "We have achieved a lot in identifying best bit technologies in phase one of the project, and in phase two, more dynamic scaling approaches have been adopted. An example is reaching 20 thousand Southern highlands over twelve districts. This will allow us to get the technologies to the hand of millions of farmers, he said. "Now that we have made the promise for whatever has been done, I think it is time for us to transition to the question of how we deliver on the promises and how scaling helps us reach the targets. The most significant change to our work is not doing the research but looking at what has been done to accelerate information delivery and dissemination into the hands of people that need it, concludes Kizito.

What we promised at the start [the ESA project proposal] – M. Bekunda, Chief Scientist Download the PPT slide from the Link below

File:ESA Project Promised ESA Mateete.pdf -M.Bekunda (IITA)


Discussion

During his presentation, Mateete elaborated on the program guide, the project log frame guided by SIAF, outputs/outcomes, and the promised mainly; legacy materials, including publication as indicated in the program proposal. He explained the vital questions were to reflect on whether the team was paying attention to conducting the research activities and if the project had reached the promised according to our log frame. While discussing the implementation of research activities in line with the proposed five project outcomes and expected outputs, Mateete explained that the activities were to be written under outcomes, and scaling was to be under each outcome and not otherwise. And argues participants to be knee when writing proposals for future projects. Regarding legacy materials, Mateete acknowledges the project's tremendous work in producing publications, including journals, articles, book chapters, conference papers, technology labels, and others. "Because we did much research and the expectation was to have most of what we did, ESA has done very well in producing journals, and I believe at this time, we have more than a hundred publications. This is very good for a project like ours. The Sustainable Agricultural Intensification handbook is among the legacy publications of the project. According to Mateete, Betty Maeda (USAID) was one of the people who supported the idea of producing the handbook, and the project succussed in that. Follow-up action point raised while discussing the capacity-building aspect and legacy materials.

  • The final reports should include all the abstracts of all the publications. Some of the abstracts have been shared with Jonathan. Therefore, those who have not submitted the publications/ abstract TO Jonathan should do so.
  • To compile the abstracts of dissertations of the about 21 students
  • Capacity-building feedback the numbers are essential to the donors as the targets

Market Place I: ESA Technologies applying genetic intensification as an entry point

The market bus stops/places were stops that provided an opportunity for participants (referred to as customers) to shop for technologies/products and the output of the project research work. Most of the buyers were the national systems and colleagues who were part of other initiatives.
  • Drought tolerant quality protein maize – Bright Jumbo

Please download the file poster from the link below

File:QPM Maize ESA Jumbo.pdf - Bright Jumbo (ICRISAT)


  • High yielding disease resistant groundnut – Patrick Okori
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:QPM Maize ESA Jumbo.pdf - Patrick Okori(ICRISAT)


  • High-yielding drought-tolerant common beans – Rowland Chirwa
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:Groundnut variety ESA Willis et.al.pdf - Rowland Chirwa(IITA)

  • Resilient vegetable varieties – Justus Ochieng/ Rosina Wanyama
Please download the file poster from the link below

File:IPM Vegetables ESA Rosina.pdf - Rosina Wanyama(World Vegetable Center)

File:Vegetable varities ESA Rosina et.al.pdf - Rosina Wanyama(World Vegetable Center)


Discussion

C. Regis. The presentation was excellent. There was a difficult question I asked Jumbo about, how do we communicate with the farmers, market, and producers, to see the invisible? How will the product (s) penetrate the market?
C. Mateete. We should not be afraid of talking about our failures; again, I will take Jumbo as an example. The donor asked us to write about gaps. For example, if they were to support the continuation of Africa RISING, what problems would have arisen from what we have achieved so far? Sometimes we sit together as scientists and think without contacting our colleagues. When I was here, our colleagues from NAFAKA KILIMO pointed out the fundamental gaps that the seed group needs to address, and unfortunately, we are writing some papers from such gaps. So, I expect some contributions we get from colleagues should appear in those publications.
C. Mulundu. Going through the three marketplaces, I thought about one issue we could have done more about social economics. If we have an opportunity to go to the people we are working with and ask more about their expectations regarding the interventions we have done? This also related to what Regis asked about whether buyers buy the technologies.
C. Christian. It's about scaling. Besides NAFAKA probability, what we have reached in terms of numbers is not what the donor would like to see normally when it comes to scaling. CGIAR centers are not good at scaling. Have we engaged with NGOs or other scaling partners enough? Probability not, and what lessons have we learned in the scaling process? was that documented? Probability not and probability we could have learned much more about the scaling aspect of phase two.
C. Patrick. The main problem I had to hear from everybody was the critical question about sustainability. One of the significant challenges we had was building trust. It takes a while to build trust and engage with people to pick whatever you are doing and going with them. Africa RISING was a bit lucky that we had 11 years to do that compare to other projects.

The second problem is when we were starting, we were many biological scientists, the program introduced the social aspect later about gender and other things, and this put us quota half on the bit of the left foot. If we had a social element inbuilt from the begging, we could have captured many things raised; however, the interest was mainly in ton per acre while ton per acre is not everything. In the future, if we redo this thing again, I think starting with the best slice and then collectively identifying how to move forward involves the social aspect, in fact, using the SIAF domain. I found it to have been a handy tool to help me plan better. So, starting from that part will help us form on the right footing, crops, and technologies. On the side of partners, if something else might be necessary, it is easy to say that private sectors can roll out the technologies. Still, they usually see it as the first, and the truth is, there are no private sectors that are not subsidized. We should have asked from a smallholder perspective what model we need for delivering technologies in a sustainable way where public sectors still invest and partner with private industries and single societies to roll the technologies.

C.Betty. From experience with NAFAKA, most of the dealer's contract with farmers. And farmers turn out to be the best researcher and producers of quality maize and rice because they have market opportunities. Farmers need assurance, a ready-made market to abide by all the new technologies available. Something we need to look at first is the market availability to farmers.
Mruma: My concern going forward is now the USAID funded these initiatives are coming to an end; how about the African government's commitment going forward to trying to see the value of funding research when I looked at her, I questioned myself who next, Patrick Okori is, who is the next Matetee, NIKILIMO, Maeda in the current research systems, who is the next generation of these people in the system. That question is not answered. For how long will USAID continue funding these kinds of new initiatives?
C. Patrick (ESOKO). Having listened to groundnuts and the also QPM for the maize, one of the things is they said the varieties are not released while looking at the project is coming to an end. What mechanisms are in place to ensure the seeds are released and available to the market?

The second one is about dissemination and feedback, coupled with scaling up out of the project zone. As researchers, we focused on the research aspect and forgot the dissemination as the critical aspect. We cannot measure the impact of the entire technology that has not been adopted. There is a gap in how the technologies will be adopted and scaled out and the mechanism in place to get feedback from the end users adopting the technologies after the project phases out.

C. Jumbo. For QPM, the private seed company released high-seed breeds. The only step needed is for the company must go through the seed multiplication process. They must have the seeds for parents from the high breeds; after that, they can produce certified seeds. So, this process will depend on commercial interest, but it is ready to go.
Q. Matete. Jumbo, how long are materials released viable?
R. Jumbo. Once the variety has been released, we hand the seed (breeder seeds) to the seed companies for the parents. Hence, the seed companies maintain those parents. Every year they harvest fresh seeds for the parents, so when they want to make high breeds, they will have fresh seeds that they gathered.
C. Patrick. Reacting to the comment on legume seeds, in doing this work, we involved TARI. There are processes and standard processes that you must follow. Therefore, TARI Naliendele is responsible for the crops. We have written the release proposal, they have looked at the data, and now they should be able to present and move on.

ICRISAT, as a breeding institution, is responsible for making available seeds. The dry nut cereals are also with TARI Uyole. So, the process has been completed, but sometimes we have a bureaucracy that delays the process. We are working with TARI, but the process might be somehow long.

C. Nduguru. The project has developed very robust technologies. If diminished, it can create a substantial tangible impact on attending targeted beneficiaries. If we can go back to the review and planning meeting at the begging of the project, I think some constraints were highlighted. Among them is the issue of adoption. We found linkage elements between farmers, other stakeholders, extension agents, and policymakers. During the project, we saw farmers in village A have privileged priorities and preferences. For example, a farmer in Long will go specific type of beans verities and maize, whereas the farmer in Seleto tend to prioritize a different set of technologies. So, I think If we were to move forward much more effectively, we need to go back and see how we can strengthen the relationship between researchers, extension agencies, policymakers, and farmers, and for instance, toward the end of the project, we initiate some pilot functional stakeholder platforms in three villages. The farmers /stakeholders identified and prioritized their needs, and we could see the connection between agro-dealers and the farmers. I think we will have a better chance of high adoption rates.
C.Fred. I think from the perspective of Africa; there are some things that are not within our control. I think the government has a significant role to play. For example, RUNDER, they have developed ALIS (Agricultural land information systems), so they know every farmer on a parcel of land in terms of demographic, soil requirements, water requirements, and agroecology that could produce for you.

An example of what Ndunguru said is you have Long, which is high altitude, come down to Seloto, and go to Sabilo. These areas all fall under agroecological greeted high rainfall, and lower rainfall and the soil will be different. So, when you come to those ecologies, the government will tell the farmers type of land, seed verities that work for them, and agro-dealers to deal with. All that has now been digitized to know what is working for who, and now they are disseminating what is happening. Consolidate all scattered information into one place. Africa RISING was on a good path in documenting the legacy products; the question raised by Mruma is, who is the next Betty Maeda, Irmgard, Mateete, etc.? I think the government will ask who the next person can consolidate this information so it can be shared with agro-dealers, farmers, and donors. In a nutshell, we need to sit back and take a look and say, out of this reach research, can we develop the simple vital messages that we can communicate with the policymakers so that they can think how we can consolidate this information that will be beneficial at local, sub-national, national level?. I think we can play the role of how we can curate the knowledge, digitize it, and make it available to policymakers and broader audiences.

Market Place II: ESA Technologies applying ecological intensification as an entry point


  • Doubled up legumes & crop sequencing – Regis Chikowo

Please download the poster from the link below.

  • Mbili Mbili – Michael Kinyua
  • Soil fertility management through fertilizer application – Job Kihara

Download the poster from the link below


  • Soil and water conservation in Tanzania – Fred Kizito

Download the poster from the links below.

  • Conservation agriculture in Malawi and Zambia – Christian Thierfelder

Download the poster from the links below


Discussion

C. Swai. As we have identified the gaps, we need to think about how we can address those gaps.
C. Haile. Africa's RISING program has worked very well in validating technologies, which has been observed by scaling partners in the national systems and farmers.

In my opinion, the critical challenge is mechanization, especially labor-intensive technologies. So we must consider how we use the assistant technologies to scale further in the community-based. : So, I think it is something that we can make forward to further research or project implementation C. Patrick. We need to think about the way to integrate some of the initiatives because there are initiatives that were borrowed from CA For example, farmers need to save on the use of fertilizer by using CA and need to save soil erosions from using another initiative; I think this need to be simplified to farmers. Therefore, we need to think of a way to ensure these initiatives are combined and documented in a simple way for the farmers to benefit. Because I have noted what Job is doing, it compliments other presenters, for we should consider having a cocktail of technologies.

C.Irmgard. I would suggest that for the final report we are writing about the program, we should be open to describing the downsides of the technologies or challenges, not only on productivity, increased income, and nutritional things. Be open and have the courage to describe the problem, which makes us incredible.
C. Kimaro. We should focus not only on delivery and challenges but also on the way forward and recommendations. We should have something that puts a positive way forward. What are our recommendations? For example, what do we have to do if the land size is shirking? We should not have left that question unanswered. On the other side, about the deliverables, they lead us on how or what to put underrate. For example, if we say achievements, it could have been more than the publications/book chapters but include many other tangible things the farmer can take up. So let's put the achievements down and appear very strongly
C. Betty. Regarding the technologies, for example, Fanya Juu and Fanya Chini, we need to look at the cost of production and have a cost per unit area so that farmers can know how long it will last. This information could make him/her in a position to have an informed decision to adopt the technology. But, once we do an experimental, trial base or demonstration is just like we are showing them something that they are not going to adopt because it is laborious and might be time-consuming and experience. But if we show them in the begging, the cost in terms of time and finance will help farmers to be in a better position to adopt the technology.
C. Matha. We need to develop labor-saving technologies to enhance the adoption of the technologies. Also, little has been done on gender studies; we need to do gender studies to assess gender roles and how they have influenced the adoption of the technologies.

Day TWO [25 August 2022] Market Place III: ESA Technologies applying socio-economic intensification as an entry point

  • Returns on investment in Africa RISING research and scaling – C. Azzarri, Julius Manda

Download the poster file from the link below.

Overview from our Monitoring and Evaluation – D. Mgalla & C. Azzarri, M&E Lead

Download the poster file from the link below.


Discussion

C. Mateete. Julius has a fascinating presentation. I think the request from USAID was about the return on investments. For example, if you are using money with you to MSU to do the calculation and you forget that I am getting the salary to supervise Regis, you are not making the total investments; suppose you use the money for real investment, what would you get for comparison?
R.Imgard. Mateete, the project has a high overhead, but we could get the specific calculation for farmers.
R. Mateete. Irmgard and I don't think we have reached the break-even for these values because we are going to end, but the project impact, I believe, will continue, so when do you get to the break-even to say this is a return on investment?
R. Julius: Regarding the project cost, we are already in contact with Fred to see if we can get the total price for the project itself, so we will see how this came out. But, first of all, we wanted to validate the

methodologies we are using, and the way to do it is with the kind of data available. After you finetune the methods and bring down all the costs, the rates will reduce.

C.Patrick. I was discussing with Julius that if these trends are actual, you would see the technologies everywhere. Because they have dis- adaptation, they are having a warning signal that something must be done, which Julius accepts.
C.Haroon. The issue of capacity building, about the paraprofessionals, how we can link them into existing services, for example, the work of LEAD foundations and DAICO offices. Do they have any certifications? have they been linked there? We need to think about this going forward.

Regarding long-term training, do we have the status of the MSU, Ph.D. students? How many are in the country, are they still going on, and did they complete their studies? I think this information is missing, and it is crucial going the way forward as we close this phase.

C.Patrick. It might be helpful to disaggregate in the report what we mean by beneficiaries so people understand the meaning/content of what we are writing.

The second comment is on the capacity-building poster. The data is disaggregated per country. Secondly, it would be good for the posters to have targeted the government policymakers after we have disaggregated the information and clarified how many people and what capacity has been built at a different level. This is something to think about. The communication team can work with the team to develop. Also, I think the number going up is progressive if we could show the beneficiaries. The graphs presented by Daniel are not very different from Julius's poster, which shows the number of benefits is going high up. In that case, I think it can make an excellent communication piece because there is evidence that something was happening. I guess tying Julius posters and Daniels is a good way of selling the message, and the projection can be made.

C. Matha. Along with defining the beneficiary, it is also good to operationalize adaptors such as years of using the technology, level of implementing the technology, and so on.
C.Haroon. I wanted to clarify that USAID, under the Africa RISING NAFAKA, tried to avoid the term adoption because of the matter that Matha has pointed out (about adopters). Even when you go to the indicator definitions of USAID, they are talking about application rather than adaptation, while the focus is on how many farmers have applied the technology, whether they have tried or adopted it, so long as at that particular time they were applying and this makes the conditions or criteria of USAID. I think that saves us a lot of trouble. Applying is just enough.
R. Mateete. Patrick, the number we have shown for the beneficiaries, we got them from tools from IFPRI, the TTT tool. Those are the numbers and a clear definition of the beneficiaries.
C. Patrick (Esoko). I believe a project should be able to leave tools behind that could continue scaling work / This would help other stakeholders to make use of the data collected passively and have insights into what is happening even after the project phase out, for example, having the repository for digital content, accessibility use and traceability of the content. This could inform future interventions.

The project could also emphasize branding and advertising of its products.

C. Mruma. In my opinion on the way to go forward, I think the project and other CGIAR centers have shown excellence in agronomy. NAFAKA KILIMO project is exploring possibilities to partner with the excellence in agronomy within the framework of the Farm to Market Alliance initiatives in the Southern highlands, of which the WFP and NAFAKA KILIMO will be implemented in the next five years. The Farm to Market Alliance is willing to support part of production if private sectors offer the technologies. In the future, we might win the Mastercard Foundation initiatives in the Center and Northern Tanzania, and we need to develop some of the technologies. For example, some of the technologies we might adopt from Compendium Job Kihara have developed, and some will need to sit with Job to twist them how we want to take it to the farmers. Also, going forward, the government is looking to strengthen partnerships with the private sector, for example, the horticulture industries, in the next five years. This is another aspect we are looking to work on with World Vegetable Center.
C. Mateete. There is a need to continue learning how to work together, and we must work on that.

Market Place IV ESA Technologies applying human condition intensification as an entry point

Improved household nutrition (value addition) – Seetha Anitha, Y. Muzanila, A. Mwangwela

Download the Poster file from the Link below

Technologies for reducing postharvest losses and improving food safety – Christopher Mutungi

Download the poster file from the link below


Market Place V: Tools for scaling ESA Technologies

  • Utilization of geospatial tools – Francis Muthoni

Download the poster file from the link below

  • Sustainable recommendation domains (FARMDESIGN, Typologies etc.) – J. Groot, L. Claessens

Download the poster file from the link below


  • Using the SI Assessment Framework learning lab approach for impact - S. Snapp

Download the Poster file from the Link below


Discussions Market Place IV & V

C. Jumbo. My comment is on technology tools. Looking at what has been done is so impressive; however, about data, I think we might have left out a lot of data that might still be there. If would still an opportunity after the official close of the project, if there is a mechanism that we can still mobilize the data and try to use those tools, it would be good. So, maybe the leadership could comment if there would still be an opportunity to get the data. For example, the tool we saw presented there by Lieven, if we can use our data and see how it informs, it will be good.
C. Matha. Capacity building is required, especially in those models as presented by Francis, so the layperson, including the local researchers, can understand better.

C. Swai. I was interested in geospatial information addressing issues of land degradation, the way the information is packed, and it should be made available for the end users. The geospatial information is an excellent output to the policy makers for informed decision making.

C. Francis. Yes, Swai, we have made a compendium of maps showing the suitability and sustainability of the technologies. We may have new labels for land degradation. And this information can go up to the village label.
C. Betty. I would advise the compendium of maps should be printed too so the Minister could get a copy.

Panel discussion: Partnerships in Scaling – Lessons from selected scaling partners – H. Sseguya (moderate the discussion); Panel: Patrick Kiao (E-Soko Product Mngr), Leonard Sabula (TARI), DAICO Babati, Sylvanus Mruma (NAFAKA), Rep. from LEAD Foundation (check with Swai), DAICO Kongwa, Betty Maeda

Discussions

  • Q.What could be done better in partnerships in scaling
C. Leonard (TARI). There were unique things in maize farming systems in Babati strengthened by the Africa RISING project. What I have learned, soil testing is essential to address soil challenges. One of the concerns of farmers is about the results of the experiments. We need to share these results with them so they can apply in the future.
C.Haroon. Sure Leonard, when we started scaling in most of Tanzania, we found that the government had done an excellent job on soil testing and had returned the results to the communities.

Information about how to use the results was missing because there was no link between agro-dealers and seed suppliers, and that was the gap that we tried to fill before we could expand further.

C.Jackson (Kongwa DAICO). A lot of good work has been done on land degradation, among the pressing challenge to us. Despite the effort, we must continue searching for sustainable solutions to water and soil management constraints. There are recommendable results from the project, farmers have the knowledge, and this is a long-term output from the long-term investment by the project.

For example, the livestock initiatives by the project lead under Kongwa and Kiteto cluster improved livestock productivity, we now have fast-growing poultry, and the work is still ongoing. Food safety and nutrition work has led to tremendous changes to our community. Thanks to Prof. Muzanila and the team. Through the project, we managed to have sensitized the community issue of Aflatoxin, and even the initiatives of the government have been built on that, and fortunately, Kongwa is among the beneficiary of this initiative. Interm of Community seed multiplication (millet, sorghum, pigeon pea). This initiative has benefited us; it has made the seed accessible, and now Kongwa is the largest producer of Pigeon pea crops. You can find these seeds sold at the Kibaigwa Market; these are the results of the work by the Africa RISING program. We have made progress for the Sorghum crop and have now contracted with the brewer's company to purchase our sorghum. For the past season, sorghum was worth more than 7 billion. The production of QDS for sorghum is going on in all villages approached. I am sure of the continuity of the work done by the project because we have been working with other partners. However, the issues about farmers' compliance with good agriculture practices, as emphasized through the project, needs observation.

Capacity and delivery issues Experiences on the mode of delivery

  • Leonard ( TARI Uyole). Leonard (TARI Uyole).In the begging, we found it difficult because of the high I project impact expectation.

The Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership mode of delivery was a good one because it brought in synergies. For example, it engaged other seed companies, which made it possible to scale our technologies to farmers, agro-dealers, and VBAA.TARI -Uyole benefited much from the Africa RISING-NAFAKA partnership project. For example, we could access seeds from TARI Seliani. Our technologies in the basket were now found to the farmers; we also did the same to another TARI center to support the project. We also adopted the use of community programs to train farmers. Although there were issues around, we managed to copy. The training model was beneficial; for example, in the boot camps training (which involved training extension staff how to manage the technologies) where the focus was on climate agriculture, the knowledge gain has shown changes; you may find the demo in Wanging'ombe differs from the one from Mufindi.On the side of QDS, more than 150 QDS producers were trained to produce QDS seeds. We produced 41 metric tons per year through the AR-NAFAKA partnership. The AR-NAFAKA partnership made TARI technologies to be used by farmers. The partnership also increased the selling of QDS seeds.

C. Haroon. Bootcamps were cost-effective and ended up providing quality services due to the Bootcamps. Trainees remain with the knowledge even after the project ends. The TARI Uyole, an institute responsible for many districts in the Southern Highlands, was the center for us to move forward.

C.Patrick (ESOKO). The challenge was how to scale and reach out to more farmers. There was a cocktail of things. One of the things was the use of SMS, with the main to direct the information to be dynamic, but also the messages were seasonal, and one SMS would go to all farmers at once. Then COVID 10 pandemic came while we started engaging with the system, and the specific SMS was going/sent throughout the seasonals. Like the seed varieties, also we sent information about the fall armyworm outbreak, which saved farmers. We also introduced details featuring the production from land preparation to market. These videos were recorded from Iringa and Mbalali. Within the same systems, we provided the package for the Mwanga platform. We tried to ensure everything Mwanga was to do worked from the backhead/package. Currently, we are working with Fred to ensure we bring out the front of Mwanga to access it without going through the backend systems, which is ESOKO. We have provided a data collection element in the Mwanga system where multiple data collections can be done. Lead Foundation experiences working with TARI

  • Comment from the Lead foundation representative.

The LEAD foundation has been working on Reforestation projects in Dodoma in more than 300 villages. Some of the villages are the Africa RISING project's action research areas. According to Patrick, a reforestation project takes time to grow, and the LEAD foundation's target was to have something that farmers could benefit from in the short term. Therefore, it was necessary to look for other reinterventions to combine with their interventions, for example, dry lands, which works better in semi-arid areas. To have an additional intervention to work well in semi-arid areas integrated with the LEAD foundation interventions, the natural generation, farmers management intervention" Kisikihayo." LEAD Foundation also conserves soil and water in communal land, less like "Fanya uu and Fanya chini."When we were visiting other villages in Malali and other villages, we saw intervention like Fanya Juu and Chini on farmland; we did know anything about those, we started asking our farmers, and they informed us they were working with TARI. We were interested in the interventions and opted to pick the technology as an addition to soil and water conservation. Another intervention we included was that of Gliricidia. We enjoyed the partnership with TARI and ICRISAT, and now we scale out the technologies everywhere we go.

Key messages and challenges when it come to partnership for scaling

Betty: For my experiences, while I was the supervisor of the Africa RISING NAFAKA partnership project, the key challenge was to convince my supervisors of the importance of Africa RISING NAFAKA in our economic growth. Thanks to Jerry Glover, who was there to convince them
Patrick (ESOKO). The dusty digital shelves is one of the challenges; we need to look for ways to clear the shelves and ensure the data developed for years does not end up on shelves but reaches the end users.

The key message: There is a need to start having a business mind; as part of the professional in a project, there must be a business professional to push out the brand within the program cycle so that they can bring out the element of the service better.

Leonard (TARI). The main challenge was capacity building as there were few extension officers we have in our districts.

COVID 19 was another challenge, the plan we had on demonstration and field days changed because of the pandemic. My key message is that those synergies are the best practices to support farmers.

Lead Foundation representative: The interventions ware scaling is labor intensive; we should find solutions based on mechanization. The Key message is research projects should consider having a budget for scaling out.
Jackson (KongwaDAICO). The major challenge is how to resolve the issue of land degradation, It needs the severe commitment of political people, and the challenge is how to convince them to join the effort to mobilize the community; if we can mobilize local resources, we can make major achievements, but the essence should not only be to please people, but sometimes we need to force people and must have to agree together.
Mruma. The Biggest challenge is the willingness and resources of the scaling partners. The donor might have different agenda, and you must navigate the politics within the donor cycles for the success of the scaling project. When we started, we had challenges for some of the organizations because they wanted to design demonstrations like the trial so that they could collect data and do publication instead of doing research, and this needed to change. The key message IS; We need more of the Africa RISING collaboration project and beyond the Africa RISING project. we can come up with exciting ideas, but there are lots of unfinished projects that need to be taken further.
Haroon. We should extend the partnership to ensure the outputs are scaled out along the value chain to ensure sustainability.

For sustainability, we should make sure we work with extension officers at the village level at a minimal cost to make sure the technologies are scaled out. Also, continue to build the capacity of extension officers. Mateete. We had the effort to develop the platform in Babati, but the moment Africa RISING let the platform work by itself, It died. My worry is when these things are going to die.

Fred. The session was excellent. Moving forward, we can allow the engagement of extension agents.

The next top step after the project phases out

Q: If Africa RISING was to start again what would we do differently?

  • Suggestions and comments from the participants are as below;
  • Consolidate and expand partnership to fast-track the scaling partnership
  • Engage other Communication tools such as the community radio programs and produce the extension materials
  • Encourage local government authorities to have a budget for sustaining the update of the Africa RISING technologies
  • Make time to read the handbook and understand it
  • Assimilate what the Africa RISING did. To continue using the data from Africa RISING open sources
  • Integrate the Africa RISING tools/ products initiatives in the university curriculum
  • There are still a lot of publications still need to be completed
  • To think about how the outputs of the project are sustainable. The means to make projects' products more known. It will be useful for producing technical materials. Africa RISING was not very ambitious in :::advertising.
  • If we were redesigning the AR, we could scale from the begging instead of engaging the research in the development process.
  • We can scale technologies going forward to non-target districts.
  • As we engage scaling partners, we should produce technologies labels for different stakeholders
  • ROI at three levels, namely; donor, project, and farmers
  • Graduate students completing school will require continued support
  • Tracking supported students' status; where did they end up, and the sort of impact of the study.
  • From the panel discussions, there were good success stories from partners; moving forward, we need these stories documented.
  • For the partnership, there were success stories between the Africa RISING-NAFAKA partnership; we want to use the model and leaders what made the model work, so we can use the lesson to engage with other partners.
  • There is a need to package the SMS from the developed technologies in a simple language. Also, the SMS should be available in all possible resource centers, district offices, schools, etc., for easy access. For :::example, the message about integrating the return of investments could be presented per person per acre so that someone could simply understand if the technology is profitable or not.
  • Marketing the information, linking the farmers to the market, market information, as we know that marketing is one of the drivers of adoption
  • To emphasize the question of transition, the reach content developed by the project so that, by the end still, there will be more stakeholders in the group who would take the content to the next level, e.g. district level/village levels
  • There is a need to think of ways to sustain the culture of active data collection, for example, the tools developed so that the partners can still continue to use them; for example, ESOKO, will continue updating their phones under that? also, going to the system under overtime, there will be great content of more data accumulated.
  • It is essential to give feedback to the communities where we have been working. We should share information about the soil analysis, photographs taken by farmers, and other materials we have. Once taken back, we
need to socialize them so farmers can understand the information.
  • It is important to bring out key messages for policymakers; for example, when we go around the posters, there are messages that can be prepared for policymakers.
  • We need to exist from communities as guided by Africa RISING engagement standards.
  • We have a lot of materials generated; we need to have a centered responsory where one can easily access the information.
  • Policy engagement would be important for example, presentation from Francis, there were issues for example, on Land degradation, that the policymakers would be made aware of.
  • It is essential to support scaling of the scaling technologies by engaging the NAS, and local institutions for the efficient update.
  • We focused more on the value chain approach; for example, the vegetable came in only during the second phase, so what was happening in the past phases, it is essential to use the agri-system approach so that we could be able to look on the entire food systems broadly.
  • We could focus on higher other results, for example, nutrition and healthy results, we saw a very small corporate there looking at nutrition (small proportion for children), what about other populations, women productive, teenagers, etc. Because Africa RISING is about the next generation, but do we look at the next generation?
  • For the future, we would need something like Africa RISING alumni, which would be super nice.
  • Disseminate the Africa RISING technologies in scientific conferences and universities and share the legacy materials.
  • Get integrated into the ISFM/EIA initiative under one CGIAR.

Next steps for closure of project and what follows (administrative focus) – F. Kizito

Africa RISING officially was to end at the end of September; we had a discussion with the donor, and the USAID would care for us to have no cost extension. However, it is still tentative until we receive the official letter, there will be official communication from me, and I shall communicate officially with you. Along the way, we are trying to develop something like the footprint of Africa RISING; Jonathan has developed the template as a guide. So kindly be supportive in developing the content. It would be good to document pending work, and it would be important for us as deliverables. The comment given on center repository, the repository is there, but we can find a way to consolidate this. Jonathan, if we can share with partners the Africa RISING engagement standards, it would help, because a lot of time is about managing the expectation of the communities where we were working, for example, to share information about the existing and share information as data, photo images etc. It would be important for us moving forward. What we are going doing to do we have captured photos when the process is on gonging and this would be part of the report that shows us , I would have a discussion with Prof. Mateete, on how we can put this insight into that document we would conclude the project in ESA. We intend to do the science and closeout meeting in West Africa in November. In February 2023, the Ethiopia, West, and ESA team will get together in Ghana, maybe on the first weeks of February, and this will give USAID sufficient value; at least they would need to have their physical presence with all partners from all three regions invited. We are grateful to USAID for this level of support for 11 years. I haven't seen a program funded by USAID for more than a decade. If there were no breached programs like the Sustainable intensification, I am sure USAID would have met upwards that another, why is this would be possible because you all have been doing excellent work.


Closing remarks-I. Hoeschle-Zeledon These two days have been helpful for all of us and were an opportunity to refresh our minds on what has been done and achieved and what challenges. I think we have a good overview of the successes and failures of the Africa RISING Project. I know what was presented was a flection of the worth of the work being done with Africa RISING. Some posters were prepared but not presented due to the presenter(s) absence. Other results are still on the shelves and were not documented for presentation, although two days being a limited time and not everything could be presented. What still hurts me most is our livestock work in Malawi and Tanzania is not known to anyone, not presented anywhere, and is somehow lost. We did an entire investment in livestock, and we also did excellent work. I think it was Jackson (DAICO) who mentioned the introduction of the crop feeds of chicken and how successful it was, in Malawi, we had to introduce goat feeds, housing work, and feed work, it was such good work, and we went to the village and see there were impact. Unfortunately, we could not document this because we had no data. I think this was one of our failures despite all our efforts to rescue this, it failed. I think, all in all, we can be sufficient with the project; we have done a good job. There is an opportunity for six months to fix these loose ends. The next steps should be around improving the extension and dissemination of materials, and the Africa RISING communication team must be enforced to do this. I was impressed and touched by the works from panel discussions; we heard testimonies of the usefulness of having had the Africa RISING project around and the value that the project adds to the NAFAKA program, this made me very happy, and I think we can be very sufficient n such kinds of statements. Let us be critical; I mentioned the failure of livestock work; since we have been working in farming mixed systems, it was done but not documented. I hope all the technologies and tools will continue to be used, and there will increase in their use over time, and that would be great, and we could see this kind of output in new CGAIR initiatives; there are various initiatives that our products could be used at a further scale that would be very nice. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of Africa RISING and also allowed me to do and make my job very easy. It was nice to work with all of you. I appreciate the opportunities that made me visit the field because this made me understand what you were doing.


Closing remarks from the Chief Scientist – M. Bekunda I think we mate the meeting objectives; if it was a pass mark, we got somewhere like 80%; we did not meet 100% of the meeting outputs since the livestock work has not been documented. People are asking how we would do Africa RISING if we started afresh; I think this project was unique; it allowed flexibility; I don't think many projects allowed adoption as it goes along, and to say that, we could plan it another way ! in my opinion, the project was unique. Regarding the ethical standards, when people submitted the sub-activities, I advised them to put funds into the existing activity. Several of you did not do it, and I don't know how you will meet the ethical standard. Some of you who have funds should put the funds aside to exit from farmers. I express my appreciation; it was an opportunity for me to be given to lead this project, and it was nice to lead people like you. So, I will retire in peace. "Betty you are so special, we treasure you, we have learned a lot forms you, the USAID use to call her you the Iron lady, and Tanzania should learn from this lady." We had a steering committee, and we have invited the steering country committee to come. Thanks to Dr. Pilirani Pankomera, representing the steering committee. Thanks to Irmgard for management, the illuminators project manager, and Fred. Thanks to Devotha for handling the administration, for the things going to work, and Jonathan for taking responsivity for organizing the meeting. People who haven't finished documenting their work. When I looked at the proposal submitted, there were more than 50, and I haven't seen very many going through me. IITA is hosting the project, the primary institution to contact if we want anything related to Africa RISING. IITA will guide you in getting the materials you need, which is also for our own good. Thank you all for coming and participating.