Meeting Notes 10 October 2012
Site selection meeting
ILRI, Addis Ababa, 10th October, 2012
Participants Leonard Oruko IFPRI - ATA Alan Duncan ILRI Beth Cullen ILRI Gerba Leta ILRI / IWMI Abera Adie ILRI Steffen Schulz CIP Kiros Hadgu ICRAF Jane Wamatu ICARDA Seid Kemal ICARDA Simon Langan IWMI
1. Review of research component plans by partners Centers expressed interest in various research components as shown below:
| Center | Preferred research component | Focus |
| ILRI | 1 | Characterization Innovation Focus on livestock |
| ICARDA | 5 | Validation and integration of best practices of crop-livestock production systems |
| IWMI | 1, 2 | Baseline assessments Biophysical benchmarking Scaling innovation |
| CIP | 1,3 | Participatory problem identification Value chain characterization & analysis |
| ICRAF | 1,2,5 | Tree-crop-livestock characterization, community knowledge exchange and technology uptake |
Action: Centers to send their final expressions of interest to Peter Thorne for compilation so that research teams can be formed to allow for further development of research component plans.
2. Site selection criteria • Areas/regions where centers have previously worked • Suggestions to consider areas of that have limited previous intervention but with opportunities • Consider kebeles undertaking crop, livestock and/or tree activities • To captures gradient in terms of productivity from high to low
Action: Leonard to request IFPRI to:
- relax selection criteria by reducing threshold for cereal growing areas under wheat to below 25% to accommodate areas of interest expressed by some core partners in Amhara region (ICRAF in particular).
- include LGP in the site selection criteria
3. Site selection • Selections were made from the existing AGP Woredas shortlisted by IFPRI • Selection was random • Sites proposed (one Woreda per region) included: Kebeles to be identified during site visitations
- Tigray (Southern Tigray) – Endamehoni
- Oromia (Bale) – Sinana Dinsho
- SNNPR (Hadiya) – Limu
- Amhara – no selections were made. Will be included once IFPRI provides information on tentative sites in that region
Action: Leonard to request IFPRI to remodel the site selection and come up with suggestions for Amhara
4. Site visitation • Regional Agricultural Bureaus were suggested as the first level of engagement with woredas. Leonard to facilitate using ATA employees in respective regional bureaus. • Engagement with Federal/regional research institutes will be facilitated by Geletu. A meeting with EIAR was recommended. • Site visits to take place by the 1st week of November by the following persons:
- Bale: Geletu (ICARDA) , Gerba Leta (ILRI)
- Tigray: Gebre Hawaria (IWMI), Gebre Hiwot (CIP), Kiros (ICRAF)
- SNNPR: Adie Aberra (ILRI), Abiot (CIP), Kinde Getinet (IWMI)
Action: • Beth to develop (or adopt from LIVES/IPMS project) a protocol/checklist to be used by the site visiting teams by Wednesday, 17th Oct • Geletu to arrange a meeting with Drs. Solomon, Iain and Peter as soon as possible
