Pct43
Africa RISING PCT #43
23 September 2020
Skype call[edit | edit source]
Present
- Siboniso Moyo (SM) - Chair
- Bernard Vanlauwe (BV)
- Jerry Glover (JG)
- Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ)
- Carlo Azzari (CA)
- Peter Thorne (PT)
- Mateete Bekunda (MB)
- Fred Kizito (FK)
- Kindu Mekonnen (KM)
- Jonathan Odhong' (JO) – Secretary
Agenda
- Follow up on pending action points from #PCT42 meeting
- Discussion about the AR mini-workshop
- We need to agree on a date. Two options proposed for consideration: (a) 27, 28, 29 October 2020 or (b) 3, 4, 5 November 2020
- Inputs to the draft agenda required. The latest draft is available on this google docs link
- Quick updates about actions taken from the Internally Commissioned External Review
- Updates on actions taken at the regional project level to be given by the Chief Scientists/Project Managers
- Task sharing among PCT members for recommendations that were labeled ‘PCT responsibility’. See attached word file.
- Any other Business
Action points from PCT 42
- There were no follow-up action points registered.
AR mini-workshop
- Mini-workshop date fixed for 3, 4, 5 November 2020. All Members are available.
- Feedback on the agenda draft:
- JG: What I am going to bring up may go into the sessions for day 1 or may fit better into that very last small session about the way forward. In terms of envisioning where Africa RISING is 2 years from now, at least by then we will have some dramatically changed how it's funded and the partnerships involved.I believe we will have to report back in some way the impact pathways in that graph that was presented in Phase II proposal. That impact pathway graph showed things like the targeted number of beneficiaries, the path and how to get there. I think if we frame our final report around that then we would come up with things like a scaling narrative - describing how things were scaled, the success of it or not, the numbers of beneficiaries reached, the potential benefits to those beneficiaries including economic, and then something around the return on investment (RoI) of the research investments. Now I know, that is not exactly what the agenda for this meeting is designed to do, but if we go through the workshop at least or even as we plan towards this workshop we should at least start thinking about how we are going to do that either as the separate regional projects or as the program together. So maybe at least in the upcoming meeting/retreat we start working through some of those issues. This can be done as the regional projects are presenting on their outputs/outcomes and lessons learned, how we might go through the next couple of years to revive that. This a very high-level priority right now within USAID to document the RoI through our research investments. I have a few ways to propose on how we do that , which I can bring out during the retreat. So let's at least start thinking about it and if we can present some outcomes during the retreat then it will be part of the way forward.
- PT: Thank JG, that sounds like a helpful steer for us. I like the idea that it is grounded on the Phase II proposal and what we envisaged then. As everyone knows, there have been some rocky times, but I think we have a general lay on how we would proceed along that impact pathway. I guess we are talking about 18 months or so to deliver some evidence-based observations on that and that is doable. We've been trying to think about how to pick up some of these impacts , especially some of the ones that don't come out through the FtF indicators, so I think that can sort of be firmed-up during this proposed retreat/workshop.
- BV: Thanks JG, I think this is a good comment. In terms of making progress would it make sense for some people to start thinking about this already so that we have some content that can be presented during the workshop. Just to move this forward in a more efficient way.
- IHZ: Yes, BV, that would be a more efficient way to go about it.
- PT: I think we have probably have some of the information around some of the specific components of the impact pathway that may be related to technologies and other kinds of value chains. I think that would give us an idea about kind of whether it is feasible that that could be discussed at this meeting. We could take some case studies and present some of those? It wouldn't be the full picture, but it will be a start.
- FK: The One CGIAR is taking off at a very fast pace. Let's make our plans and also keep up with this pace.
- BV: One of the more important elements of the One CGIAR is the fact that we currently have the Executive Management team for One CGIAR is already in place. One of their tasks is going to be to advance the research agenda into something more tangible and 'down to earth'. I think there will be quite a bit of activity in the coming weeks prior to the November meeting. So it will be important to stay in touch with those discussions. I am representing IITA in some of those meetings.
- CA: The objectives of the meeting at the moment appear to be mixed. Day 1 is focused on legacy, day 2/3 - focus on One CGIAR and AR linkage. Shouldn't we also be talking about an exit strategy for AR? Or is it too. early for that?
- SM: The discussion on the impact pathway touches on an exit strategy.
- BV: I would suggest that we revisit the topic of AR exit strategy should be targeted sometime in early 2021.
- IHZ: It is not clear to me yet whether existing projects will continue as existing entities or will they be merged into bigger entities under the new One CGIAR arrangement? I think this will be an important point to get clarrity on before we start discussing the issue of an exit strategy.
- SM: The executive management of the One CGIAR will provide clarity on this. Still up in the air. This month the EMT is meeting with the CRP directors and DDG research for the centers.
ACTIONS:
- Revise draft agenda and add a session to discuss progress on AR impact pathways and AR RoI
- The Program Managers and Chief Scientist to put together region-based presentations to highlight AR progress along the impact pathways (as indicated) in phase II proposals and RoI.
- JG to share a proposed outline for the elements to be highlighted in the presentation.
- An initial meeting to agree on a common approach to be adopted by each project for this presentation to be convened/agreed upon by IHZ and PT.
- PCT members to add further inputs to the agenda via the Google Docs link shared by JO.
Actions taken from the Internally Commissioned External Review
West Africa< br/>
- We have initiated action to address the concern about the unbalanced implementation of the logframe - our impact pathways were heavily tilted towards biophysical outputs. So the current work plans have added aspects like linking value chain actors with greater and equitable access to markets through enabling policies. The other issue we have addressed is the building of effective partnerships with local communities and farmers and development actors as part of delivery and uptake at the scale of the innovations/ SI technologies. Our approach is now more balanced because we have a bigger representation of the socio-economic side of things. This enables us to kill two birds with one stone because the sustainable intensification assessment framework was maybe biased towards productivity.
East and Southern Africa
- IHZ: The ESA project review and planning meeting is being held next week and during this event, there will be some discussion to address partner actions to address the feedback from the review meetings.
- MB: We have held country-based partner review meetings and have already focused on how best to ensure we address the ICER comments. as indicated by IHZ, our plan during the upcoming review and planning meeting is to organize the work planning process around team leaders handling - (i) economics led by Julius Manda, (ii) Gender - led by Gundula Fischer, (iii) systems - led by Lieven Claessens, (iv) impacts assessment - led by Carlo Azzarri. This means that partners involved in each of these groups will discuss how the project work going into next year will address the issues raised during the ICER.
- The AR-NAFAKA project ended but we are still discussing with the partners from NAFAKA project who are interested also in capturing some of their impacts. So hopefully, we will be able to merge resources with them in order to capture some impact studies especially in areas where we had joint scaling activities.
Ethiopian Highlands
- Presented highlights and updates from KM can glance from this report.
M&E and Data
- Program synthesis and analysis - We are working with JG on a synthesis product that is at the moment pretty confined to Ghana, but we have also had some interactions with the ghana mission on the templates that we would like to scale to other countries starting from Tamale and then the rest of the program. We hope that this case will give us a great lesson learned that will be applicable to other countries as well.
- Monitoring and reporting on technology - both ESA and WA we are having recurring meetings with Chief scientists from all ESA and WA. The M&E officers have put together documents to guide the process. Our work for the remainder of the project is to have the officers constantly interacting with the scaling partners to collate the data we require to populate the scaling tools. These will be also conducted through some surveys which we have planned. The activities will start in mid-October in Ghana and early next year in Tanzania.
PCT related follow-ups
- IHZ: Was Gundula approached to work on recommendation no. 4.5 (a) - role of women in Africa RISING? I have not heard Gundula talk about this.
- SM: I haven't reached out to Gundula, but I am also aware that Kindu and a gender specialist here in Addis are already working on this. I will follow up on Gundula on this.
ACTION
- PCT action points to be reviewed by members during the next meeting [PCT 44]. Subsequently, the issues will be treated as substantive meeting agenda items.
Any other Business
No Other Business - end of the meeting.
