Pct32

Africa RISING PCT #32
15 November 2018
Virtual [Skype]

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Present

1. Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon [IHZ]
2. Peter Thorne [PT]
3. Siboniso Moyo [SM]
4. Bernard Vanlauwe [BV]
5. Carlo Azzarri [CA]
6. Jonathan Odhong [JO]

Apologies

1. Jerry Glover [JG]

Agenda

1. Follow-up of action points from the previous meeting
2. Africa RISING learning event plans – see the current draft agenda here -<a href="http://africa-rising-wiki.net/Learning_event_2019">http://africa-rising-wiki.net/Learning_event_2019</a>
3. Any Other Business

Follow-up of action points from previous meeting

Authorization to spend in 2019

• JG to follow up internally at USAID with Eric Witte.

Soil health consortium

• A meeting about the consortium was held in early November. Fred Kizito joined the meeting via Skype. BV [on request of JG] prepared some ppt slides on the current status of soil health initiatives across Africa that JG presented at the meeting. A follow up meeting regarding the consortium is planned for 6 – 9 January 2019 on the sidelines of America Soil Science Society Meeting and BV will attend. BV will give an update to PCT members at the next meeting.

Feed the Future indicators and targets

• Data upload into the FtF indicators system is ongoing and being led by CA, PT and IHZ. There are question marks about some of the indicators, but these may not be resolved immediately. ''IHZ, PT and CA plan to have a detailed discussion about some of the indicators on the sidelines of the Africa RISING learning event in February 2019. The team will also use the opportunity to discuss the issue of FtF targets for 2020/2021 which some partners are reluctant to commit to at the moment.

Revised Data Management Plan

• The revisions proposed during the expanded PCT meeting have been effected, but the revised data management plan is yet to be circulated to the PCT members as promised during the previous meeting. CA will circulate the document once the IFPRI CDA has revised the Africa RISING data usage agreement to be compliant with the global data protection regulation [GDPR]. Issue to be revisited at the next meeting.
• IHZ and PT to remind respective Chief Scientists to revise their regional workplan templates.

Overview of Africa RISING web presence

• Revamp of Africa RISING website is underway. The target is to have a new web face for review by PCT members in early February 2019. JO following up on this, to give an update at next meeting.
• New wiki is still being formatted. The process is expected to be concluded by end of December 2018. JO is following up on this, to update at the next meeting.

Opportunities for integration of ICT tools/platforms into Africa RISING R-in-D approaches

• VIAMO already has an agreement for working with CGIAR in addition to the collaboration that is underway with Regis and the Africa RISING team in Malawi. For the moment Africa RISING should follow up on how these partnership activities with VIAMO and evaluate them. A concrete decision about this to be made later.

Internally commissioned external review

• Correction to the minutes of the previous meeting - the internal commissioned review to take place between December 2019 – February 2020 for ESA.
• IHZ, CA, and PT to prepare first draft of the terms of reference for the review team and circulate to other PCT members for comment by January 2019.
• PCT members to suggest names of possible reviewers via email with IHZ, CA, and PT who will prepare a longlist to be discussed and agreed upon at the next PCT meet.

Taskforce to promote harmonization across Africa RISING and SI domain stewards

• IHZ, PT, and Chief Scientists to have a follow up discussion [in the first week of December 2018], and share their ideas with the PCT members via email thereafter.

SRA advocacy document

• BV, PT met in Accra and revised the document on 2 – 3 Nov. The revised version of the document was sent to JG for additional input.

Way forward – working group of BV, PT and JG to have a meeting [in early February 2019 during the annual learning event] regarding how to finalize the document.

Implementation of action point

• The Chair noted that only few action points from the previous meeting were acted upon. Members noted that it has been a busy period and the present meeting came too soon.

Extended PCT meeting notes review

• All decisions and action points from this meeting were reviewed and upheld.
• It was also noted that the minimum data/indicator for the environment domain [soil erosion] is not easy to measure. PCT should reconsider replacing it with another indicator that can be easily measured by all project partners. This issue to be revisited in the next PCT meeting.

Annual learning event

• An advanced draft for the meeting in place now, but there were still some sessions which are still vague. PT, IHZ and JO to have a Skype call to refine and finalize the agenda.
• All PCT members to review the draft agenda and make inputs to it.
• BV apologized in advance that he will not be in a position to take part in the learning event in February 2019.

Any Other Business

• Technical support for new Africa RISING wiki is low, but BM following up internally with the ILRI technical team for improvements.

Next meeting

• PCT Chair and secretary to send out a doodle about when to hold the next PCT meeting.