Ethiopia partners meeting 20160404

Date: 4 April 2016 Time: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Venue: Jegol, ILRI campus, Addis Ababa

Attendees: Aberra Adie (ILRI), Amare Haileselassie (ILRI), Aster Gebrekirstos (ICRAF - Skype), Berga Lemaga(CIP), David Kahane (CIMMYT), Ewen Le Borgne (ILRI, notes), Frederic Baudron (CIMMYT), Kalpana Sharma (CIP), Kindu Mekonnen (ILRI), Kiros Hadgu (ICRAF) Lulseged Desta (CIAT), Mariama Fofanah (CIP), Melkamu Derseh (ILRI), Nigussie Tadesse (ICARDA), Peter Thorne (ILRI, Chair), Simret Yasabu (ILRI, notes), Tadesse Gashaw (ICRISAT), Teklu Kidane (ILRI), Tigist Endashaw (ILRI), Walter Mpangwa (CIMMYT), Zelalem Lema (ILRI).

Meeting Agenda Items

1. Institutional Progress update
2. Update on the proposal /partnership document
3. Next steps
4. AOB

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#Minutes of the meeting#Minutes of the meetingMinutes of the meeting

1. Institutional progress update

ILRI

Arusha workshop to work on the umbrella proposal and regional proposal.

Aberra and Melkamu attended thesis defence in Hawasssa Epidemiology survey done in all sites We organized nutrition training for Sinana and Basona groups.

CIAT

Since January we finished harvesting the trials in three sites. All data entered. Discharge/refiltration measurements in one watershed mostly. Diver installed there. Trying to analyse impact of certain interventions and collecting data for ?? and Debre Birhan. Calibrating SWAT to analyse impact of our interventions implemented by communities. More or less all data collected. Tesfaye attended IWMI training. Assisted to MSc students on irrigation and assessing intervention impact as perceived by communities. One PhD student trying to work on eco-efficiency in AR sites. These are major activities for us.

ICARDA

Complied the past season data and write-up in place and will submit to the coordination office. We attended the Africa RISING project in Ethiopia Annual review and planning meeting in February. We are now preparing ourselves for the upcoming IP meeting in Sinana.

IWMI

Two major activities: solar pumps are already installed and ??? is developed for data collection + someone developing a business model for delivery. The second one is on mechanization-assisted water delivery... Irrigation activities are operating and data collection is completed and the person in charge of this is???

CIP

We don't have much update on seeds but we did seed distribution in Lemo but not in Tigray due to drought. Some data collection activities are still going on. We collected a potato planter to see how we can make use of it.

ICRISAT

Working with EIAR and ATA and possible to identify nutrient needs with specific landscape farming systems. We are proposing to continue this work with ?? We are now conducting 2-year results with

CIMMYT

Last week was our final week in the field. All data compiled and we have good results and I hope we could show how mechanization can drive innovation. Would be great to talk about that. If there was a 2nd season we would have better publishable results. The irrigation scheme with IWMI is exciting for places where there is no irrigation at all. We also launched an Africa RISING outgrowth project funded by GIZ. Next week we'll look at the potato planter to test if we can do this in Melkasa. Welcoming Walter to the project as he will play more of a role in this project. The outgrowth of AR project by GIZ was supposed to be for 17 months.

We participated at the EIAR anniversary and we contributed posters and a tractor from CIMMYT. There will be another demo next week and we will display some more next week.

2. Update on the proposal / partnership document

In Phase 2 there will still be very much research but we are going to do some of our current research as 'backstopping research'. There's a lot of reflective discussions and the umbrella proposal is coming nicely. Progress made in Arusha about:

• Targeting through research and development partnerships
• Our theory of change
• Research questions (work in progress)
• Good first draft of the Africa RISING Ethiopian Highlands proposal

Within the next two weeks, the regional proposal will be worked on (early next week). The umbrella proposal, next week, should be in a good stage of development for sharing. If you have strong views about the way we're heading, it'd be good to raise this.

We want to spend a little bit of time today on the development partnerships. The majority of phase 2 will sink or swim on whether or not it is aligned with development partnerships. Does everyone understand clearly what we mean to do with Africa RISING?

All proposals that have been shared with us are on a good track.

Three essential requirements from USAID:

1. Innovations to be scaled and that can attract development partners for investment
2. Development partners with clear willingness
3. Targets (value for money) in hundreds of thousands. The rule of thumb is USD 10-20 / farmer (as opposed to USD 5,000 / farmer for phase 1).

We will submit 3 to 5 examples of partnership agreements with the full proposal. Not all 11 proposals that are currently expected will be fully mature by the submission of the initial draft to Jerry Glover (final submission by the end of May). People can make a case for being more lenient on the above-mentioned rule of thumb for backstopping partnerships. And in addition there will also be generic research around the processes of sustainable intensification (e.g. systems analysis across sites and protocols).

Questions to Peter and Kindu:

• Q: We haven't mentioned budgets in the protocols - but we need to think about the amount of farmers we'll be able to reach. It influences the money we need per protocol. How do you see that?
• A: At the moment, these proposals will be presented as examples of 'where we can go'. We don't want to put dollars on them as we won't be starting this before October and until then you'll all be working on these proposals. We'll come to October to the point of having to implement this work. You'll have much more clearly defined targets etc. and that will give you a much better ballpark. If we get 10-11 credible partnerships we may have an issue about how much we can allocate to each of them. If you get the opportunity to leverage more research funds off another donor that's great and we can see how we can co-fund.
• Q: What indicators do you need from partners to show that they're ready to collaborate and implement?
• A: The real indicator is your confidence that they will work with you. I'm trusting you that these partners are ready to run. If not the money won't flow. MoUs will have to be in place by the time you start. If you can go to the USAID mission and get them to give you USD 2 Mio, Africa RISING will backstop that. As long as partners are working with Africa RISING technologies on their own or together we can backstop.
• Q: Can we submit woredas/kebeles outside of AR areas?
• A: Yes, it's about scaling so you can go anywhere but if you need site coordinators' support you need to consider the broader areas where we've been working.
• Q: Can we link with other ongoing projects?
• A: Yes, you can do anything. It's very open-ended.
• Q: Is this how the projects will be appraised? Households have a lot of investments along the chain that have an impact on the household.
• A: I appreciate that there are many beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries and I'd be interested to see what the review says about this. We will have to show evidence of 'contribution', not 'attribution'.
• Q: There are several ways of putting together the targets e.g. primary beneficiaries and secondary beneficiaries etc.
• A: Yes but at any rate you need to have a consideration about the three types of targets on the phase 2 proposal diagram (the different dotted lines)
• Q: The rule of thumb was to work with at least 2 CG partners - is there any limit right now? Will you accept proposals from single institutions?
• A: Yes, I will accept that as it's difficult enough to get these development partners etc. In the first phase we were trying to glue people/institutions together. Some of these partnerships have cemented, others not so much but there's no prescription about this. No penalisation if there's a strong proposal with a strong development partnership but only one CGIAR centre. If we only submitting single centre initiatives I would regard that as a bit of a failure.
• Q: How do you partner with institutions that are interested in serious money. What kind of messages are we giving such partners?
• A: That they won't get money from us. The buy-in is based on them thinking that the ideas can really contribute to their programs. The MoA institutions in woredas, zones etc. will be our main partners.

But these institutions have finished their planning and they can't get money from anywhere else.

Peter asks if everyone is comfortable with what is being proposed? We have to do this. We won't get a phase 2 if we don't follow the approach outlined here. It's a real challenge working with development partners.

• Q:
• A:

3. Next steps

ISPC Science Forum: Debre Birhan field trip to be led by Africa RISING on Friday. 12-14 ISPC Science Forum and on 12 April we'll be working on the campus for a marketplace around gender, capacity building, nutrition etc. This Thursday we need to collect all materials for the booths. We'll collect and display the posters developed for the review and planning meeting. Your participation in the marketplace and field trip is very welcome.

Next IP meetings: The final IP meeting has been tentatively planned for the end of May. The meetings will focus on sharing results by farmers for specific sites. Evaluators have been praising IPs and seeing that technologies are taken to scale with the own budget of local organisations etc. For this final IP meeting we are looking for the results. Data has to be collected by then. Without protocol owners/researchers we can't really organize these. First week of June is good. Communication materials can be shared in different ways (briefs, posters etc.) to contextualize them to some needs.

If we organise ourselves to avoid partner fatigue it would be great.