Program targets

AFRICA RISING

Overall 'targets' for the Program

All the workshops discussed the need for high-level impact targets that participants could commit to. These generated MUCH discussion.

Below is the text emerging from Ghana/Ethiopia, with comments from a group in Tanzania:

Proposed Targets 100% increase in overall system productivity in target areas Reduce farmers risks from seasonal production variability by 50% 75% reduction in harvest losses and post-harvest losses 50% value addition to the harvest Lift X thousand people out of poverty Eliminate the hungry season in target populations

Assumptions Governments of countries involved invest in capacity building and relevant infrastructure to bring research outputs to end users. CGIAR and NARS partners deliver project outputs.

Comments from Tanzania group

About targets

First target: How realistic is the first target on?

How big is the target area? System productivity can be assessed in many ways (per ha, per hh etc.); The target ought to be limited to adopting households - in relation with development targets; Different approaches used in different contexts: let's use different targets for different sets of farmers;

Second target: Reduce system variability

Irrigation, drought tolerance, diversification, improve resource base (in association with primary gains by farmers), agroforestry and livestock, pest resistance for crop and livestock. This project is moving towards CRP 1.1 in terms of structure, partners, common sites etc.? We talked about equity

Third target: 75% reduction in harvest and post-harvest losses:

Post-harvest losses are not rocket science. Simple principles (keep harvest dry, kill pests etc.) In terms of quick impact, this might fit the bill. Consider indigenous knowledge; There are lots of knock-on effects from reducing post-harvest losses e.g. food safety, market flexibility etc. Links with other sectors through human health improvement via food safety

Fourth target: 50% value addition to the harvest:

This needs a lot more discussion as to whether it's possible or not; On-farm processing, co-ops etc. may be beyond the direct influence the project; Sorting etc. could be easy to do; Food preservation? Do we need to look at staple or cash crops?

Fifth target: lift x thousands of people out of poverty.

2 ways to measure poverty: head count and income increase; In that context, where income - in the broadest sense - is so far below, doubling the head count is still far below decent targets. We have to think carefully about how many people we want to lift out of poverty. Increasing their income is possible. How to measure this? USAid uses an expenditure approach. We are arguing for baseline data. Growth of the asset base is a way forward? Many other issues affect poverty so this might be either a project level target or a program level target.

Sixth target: eliminate hunger gap

We don't like this word 'eliminating' - it's possible to reduce it Food crops as potential bridge across seasons? Making food available beyond normal seasons? Indigenous knowledge matters here; How are households coping with this?

Some things missing in these targets:

Nutrition came back on the menu - it's implicit in the mission statement BUT causality is a big problem; NRM and sustainability should be a primary target perhaps? If we take on nutrition as a major objective, we need to describe pathways using improved nutrition;

Comments:

IFPRI has been working with BMGF on targets and goals. Where do people sit on the 1.25/2 USD/day. Clustering around 0.90-1.50 USD. In practice, many interventions are not targeting an extra USD/day but a mere 0.20 / 0.30 USD to lift them out of poverty. Given this, it may not be so difficult to lift them out.
Multiplier effect in rural income: it can be quite large e.g. you get 1.50 USD extra. There is also negative feedback.
The trick is also to 'contribute to' e.g. governmental and other donor interventions. The attribution issue is a way to be more realistic about our potential impact.
Let's have aspirational targets but seek to mobilise action and energy to find evidence behind that aspirational targets.
Two questions:

If taking the poverty line to USD 0.50, Africa pops out and Ethiopia even more. We need to be conscious of the target areas. Goals that we have were indeed called 'goals' in Ethiopia and now they have become 'targets' which sounds like they need to be achieved.

Poverty reduction is a combination of many factors. It is sthg we want to monitor over a long period of time but not pinpoint in figures like this.
We can mention women, children rather than households etc.
At the operational level, we cannot be held to account because poverty etc. are very high level outcomes. We're going to have to tell the high level story but we need to report in more detail the productivity growth and its link with poverty etc.
These are really not research targets.