Pct42
Africa RISING PCT #42
15 July 2020
Skype call
Present
- Siboniso Moyo (SM) - Chair
- Bernard Vanlauwe (BV)
- Jerry Glover (JG)
- Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ)
- Carol Jenkins (CJ)
- Carlo Azzari (CA)
- Peter Thorne (PT)
- Mateete Bekunda (MB)
- Fred Kizito (FK)
- Jonathan Odhong' (JO) – Secretary
Apologies
- Kindu Mekonnen (KM)
Agenda
- Follow up on action points from #PCT41 meeting
- Update on changes at USAID-BFRS
- Quick updates about actions taken based on our responses to the Internally Commissioned Review Report
- Agenda for the mini-workshop
- Any other Business
Follow up on action points from #PCT41 meeting
- All action points from the previous PCT meeting were actioned.
Update on changes at USAID-BFRS
JG: Thank you everyone for being flexible and holding this meeting. We are at the final stages of this reorganization which implies some changes. I don't have any specifics on any new thing, but we are basically trying to enhance the coverage of our programs. I have been moved into a different position, where I will now have to as soon as possible bring someone on to manage the various activities that I currently manage. One of which of course is Africa RISING. It will probably be a couple of months before I can get somebody on, and I do assure you that once we bring someone on and I handover those responsibilities, I will still be engaged and active with Africa RISING. I am now the Deputy Director for the Center for Agriculture so my role will be to be more engaged in the technical leadership for the Center. We are looking at a similar budget reality coming up, this next budget cycle. So, there will probably be not a lot of changes to the Africa RISING budget and I do imagine that all the reorganization and the disruptions caused by COVID, we'll be very open to granting another year at least of Africa RISING beyond the 2021 end date. That is a long way of saying that we don't have any immediate plans of shutting down Africa RISING and we will be seeking in the coming year for means to leverage Africa RISING efforts to influence and set a trajectory for a larger group of partners.
SM: Thank you very much JG for that update and like we said last time, we really congratulate you on this new role and this is great news for the sector. We are happy to know that you will still remain engaged with Africa RISING. With regard to the change of dates, we are currently operating in very unusual times and we have learned to be available and flexible.
Agenda for the mini-workshop
SM: The draft agenda for the meetingwas developed and shared with all of us. It is clear that we will not be in a position to hold the mini-workshop this week as had been proposed. So, maybe before we even talk about the content of the agenda, could we please explore alternative dates for us to hold this workshop. Any thoughts?
- BV: Thanks, Boni. Even when we were putting together this draft program, we had lots of questions about the One CGIAR and the research agenda and how it will all be functioning. It looks like there is going to be the first draft of that new research structure available by the end of August 2020. So my feeling is that since we aren't able to have the meeting this week and we also have the summer holidays coming up, so if we aren't in a hurry then we could hold on a little bit until we are able to see how the One CGIAR research agenda is shaping up, then we'll be able to contribute in a more informed manner. So, my suggestion is that we postpone the meeting maybe until late September/early October 2020.
- IHZ: When I talked to PT and CA, we also felt that this meeting is coming a bit too early for us to understand the new One CGIAR structure. So I am in agreement with BV.
- JG: Postponing the meeting is alright, especially if the CG comes up with more concrete ideas. That would allow us to respond to our own meeting.
IHZ: We have talked about having the mini-workshop for quite some time before even the One CGIAR reorganizations took any form. For instance, in one of the past PCT meetings, JG had noted that he would like to see us discuss how we can clarify and be more specific about the work going forward in Africa RISING and what the deliverables would be. I think that is a bit different from the focus we have now planned for this mini-workshop. So my question then is - when will we discuss those topics?
- SM: My understanding was that we were planning to cover these 2 topics in the mini-workshop through a discussion on legacy products. So my impression was that they are interrelated.
- JG: Yes, SM, your understanding is similar to mine. These are separate but related topics.
BV: It will be good for us to also keep exchange between us (PCT members) in the interim if we hear any early feedback from the OneCGIAR TAG 2 regarding progress about the new research agenda. JG: At least one of the sessions at the workshop (probably a whole morning) should focus expressly on Africa RISING - what it has done over the years, and where it needs to go over the next couple of years even with significant changes within the CGIAR (transition phase or even transforming into a CGIAR program).
- SM: Thanks JG, this is noted. It should be an important part of the discussion. We will allocate sufficient time for this.
ACTION: Postpone the mini-workshop to late September/ early October 2020. PCT members to keep exchanges from the different networks they are in about the new One CGIAR research agenda.SM and JO to work on a Doodle to explore the availability of PCT members before a date is fixed. In the meantime, all members to review and provide inputs into the draft meeting agenda which had been circulated.
Quick updates about actions taken based on our responses to the Internally Commissioned Review Report
A Summary of the responses to the review by PCT can be downloaded here.
WA updates - update by FK
- With regards to reviewers' comments that there is too much focus on biophysical work. WA is now integrating more activities related to access to productivity, end-users, and markets. In the recently concluded Ghana planning meeting, we purposefully requested partners to explore how the components I mentioned earlier can fit into their work and this is so far working alright and will help us address this gap that was identified by the review team.
- Make better use of the SIAF. We are also encouraging partners to focus on how technologies can impact high-potential outcomes within households like nutrition, food security, and incomes. Partners are therefore doing meta-analysis and identifying areas for tradeoffs where specific farm and landscape contexts can be communicated to end-users.
- To address gaps in monitoring data for effective project management and program-wide learning. we are working closely with IFPRI (the team led by CA) to address how some of the partnerships we have onboard can address the gaps identified by the review team.
ESA updates - update by MB
- The ESA project is more at the planning stages now. In the next couple of weeks, we will have a series of country meetings that will lead up to a planning meeting in September where we will address most of the reviewers' comments. More so, the ones relating to having more socio-economic data/work.
- The meeting /collaboration with IFPRI that FK updated about is also happening with the ESA project too. Good thing is that in ESA we had a long term scaling project - AR-NAFAKA. We are trying to encourage IFPRI to make use of this to showcase how we impact can be the effect if we make partnerships with development partners.
Ethiopia updates - update by PT
- Through the site coordinators, We have been able to reasonably implement our activities in the field following the COVID Guidelines for field extension staff. We have been for example to secure seed for the proprietary agronomy trials and some of the forage productions.
- In terms of the specific responses to the review team, we have not yet managed to put together actions.
- We have a more detailed study of gender outcomes associated with the adoption of SI. It was supposed to start a month ago, but this has been delayed by COVID 19 restrictions.
- We did collect a lot of data on the SIAF through a data collection exercise that we did about 18 months ago. The data is right now coming through quite nicely and we are making ready to showcase the use of the SIA framework since we have about 30 indicators in that study and it is showing quite interesting information about our top 5 hypotheses.
M&E/Data Management - update by CA
- We are finalizing the study on the association between agricultural market integration, adoption of agronomic practices, yields, food security, and poverty in northern Ghana. We would like to extend it to other countries. The first additional AR country will be Mali.
- With regards to data, we are currently exploring the possibility of implementing Ghana follow up a survey which was planned for earlier on in the year (between spring and summer) but was now disrupted by the COVID restrictions which meant that we couldn't go to the field. We are therefore seeking local IRB authorization from the University of Ghana to start the fieldwork because the research involves human subjects. From the IFPRI protocol, we also need authorization from the donor, so in this case, will be from USAID Ghana Mission.
- We are currently analyzing the data we collected from Malawi follow-up to be able to have a longitudinal study of course among beneficiaries and among control households.
- We are having recurrent meetings with the regional Data Managers/M&E officers, to strengthen the M&E systems across the program. We had intense interactions with the ESA and WA officers and we're of course we're following up with colleagues on the reporting for the FtF indicators and entry into FtF-MS.
- For the program-wide analysis and synthesis, we are currently collaborating with the WA team (as reported earlier by FK) on specific studies for now, but we would like to narrow these down to scaling. A more or less similar effort with the Tanzania team (Francis Muthoni) and the Wageningen Group on the Spatial typologies.
Additional comments
IHZ: There was a document prepared by the Chief Scientists IN ESA and WA about how we intend to respond to the balance of domains in the SIAF. The document was shared with PCT members for comment, but we haven't heard back. This could also apply to Ethiopia?
PT: The issue of One Health has become important, probably we should consider having indicators around that in the SIA Framework. We should probably consider doing that. We can consider developing a suite of indicators focused on One Health.
MB: We are pushing and doing quite well with regards to custom indicators. For example, in ESA we are making great progress with the production of the technologies handbook, peer reviewed publications and the medicine labels.
JG: I looked through the line-by-line responses to the ICER review recommendations and I was very pleased to see the thorough explanation/action for each recommendation. You are doing a great job by responding. one thing on the Ghana analysis referenced by CA, depending on how that works out, it will be a significant topic for the proposed September/October mini-workshop, but I will revert on that later.
FK: Further to the earlier point by PT, we have also taken note in the WA team that there may be some indicators that it would be great for us to add to the SIAF. These are mainly from the livestock side, environmental, and economic. Previously, there was a discussion about how we can make this a living document and ensure that it is updated over time and I am also cognizant that it is representative of significant investment in resources. So JG, I was wondering whether there is a plan for opening another round for updating the SIAF guidebook?
- JG: That is a great point FK. Sieg and Cheryl Palm have been doing some additional work on things, so that would be a good topic to address.
- PT: We have made a number of attempts to get further interest/ investment into SIAF, but we have been struggling. But I think it is great that even amongst us, we can already take note of some of the gaps in the SIAF. We can still take it forward with what we have, and we need to work together to look for funding opportunities. So far we have tried with the EU.
Any other Business
SM: I hope that all of us have seen the link to Africa RISING annual progress report 2018-2019. I want to express appreciation to all for the great document with leadership from the comms. team. Please could we also share with JO our planned leave days, just in case we need to plan a PCT in August? Otherwise thank you everybody for your participation on the call.
CA: I was just wondering whether we can explore dates in early September for the mini-workshop. Just an afterthought.
