africa-rising-wiki - User contributions [en]

File:Minutes Africa RISING West Africa Project Steering Committee Meeting final.docx

2018-09-20T19:11:41Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 Planning WUR.docx

2018-09-20T18:39:36Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 Planning Kongwa Kiteto.xls

2018-09-20T18:39:34Z

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File:Revplan2015Participantsfinal-0608.xlsx

2018-09-20T18:39:25Z

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File:Travel guide for participants - ESARevPlan2015.pdf

2018-09-20T18:39:24Z

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File:ESA RP2015 Odhong Using Africa RISING Templates.pptx

2018-09-20T18:39:23Z

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File:ESARP2015 Sseguya scaling.ppt

2018-09-20T18:39:21Z

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File:ESARP2015 Hoeschle-Zeledon.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Richardson.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Kotu.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Fischer.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 SEARLA Lamboll.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Mahuku.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Mupangwa.ppt

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File:ESARP2015 Nyoka Joyce.ppt

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File:ESARP2015 DominicK.ppt

2018-09-20T18:38:59Z

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File:ESARP2015 Kihara.ppt

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File:ESARP2015 Jumbo.ppt

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File:ESARP2015 Setimela.ppt

2018-09-20T18:38:25Z

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File:ESARP2015 Okori.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Lukuyu.pptx

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File:ESARP2015 Nyoka.pptx

2018-09-20T18:37:39Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 Reporting Zambia.xls

2018-09-20T18:37:38Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 Reporting Zambia adoption adaptation 2015.ppt

2018-09-20T18:37:37Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 PlanningReporting Malawi.xls

2018-09-20T18:37:33Z

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File:AR-ESA RP2015 Reporting KongwaKiteto.xlsx

2018-09-20T18:37:32Z

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File:ESARP2015 R4D Hilbur.ppt

2018-09-20T18:37:31Z

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File:ESARP2015 Groot.pptx

2018-09-20T18:37:30Z

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File:ESARP2015 Azzari.pptx

2018-09-20T18:37:19Z

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File:AR-SIMLEZA partnership spreadsheet.xlsx

2018-09-20T18:08:58Z

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Esa wa strategic planning

2018-04-30T16:37:30Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=Africa RISING ESA & WA projects joint strategic planning meeting=
'''24 - 25 April 2018'''
'''Livingstone, Zambia'''
----
'''Goal''':
Improved implementation of Africa RISING ESA and WA projects given the new donor context and requirements

'''Objectives''':
* To reflect on the research agenda
* To review the implementation strategy
* To identify critical technical and operational issues
* To develop solutions to overcome the issues

'''Agenda'''
1. Phase 2 proposal stock-taking
* Reflections on farming systems research in Africa RISING.
* Are we addressing the right research questions with the right activities? WAS NOT DISCUSSED.
* What relevant research-in-development gaps do we still have and how can we close them?
* What steps can we take to have more overt youth involvement in Africa RISING R-in-D activities?

2. Relevance of research outputs
* How can we make ESA & WA research outputs regionally relevant?
* How do we provide evidence of the project’s beneficiaries and the impact of our technologies?

3. ESA & WA project structure
* Is the current project structure working for us? What are the existing gaps/challenges?
* How can we strengthen it and make it more responsive to what we need to deliver?

4. Scaling
* Are the approaches we have taken so far going to guarantee us reaching our target numbers? What other efforts do we have to make?
* Do we have a sufficiently robust screening process in place to give us confidence that our technologies are scalable and have no negative impact? Do we need a checklist for assessing scalability of technologies?
* How can we mitigate potential negative consequences of our technologies?

5. Cross learning
* What opportunities exist for cross-learning between the ESA & WA research projects?
* Prioritize the opportunities for cross-learning.

6. Effective partnerships
* What are the leadership and management challenges in our geographic teams and how can we address them?
* Partner reporting quality and timeliness. What long term mechanisms can we put in place to improve this?

7. Reflections & any other business

'''Background materials'''
* [https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/77114| Africa RISING phase 2 umbrella proposal]
* [https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/77113| Africa RISING East and Southern Africa project phase 2 proposal ]
* [https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/77116| Africa RISING West Africa project phase 2 proposal]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/10568/82852| Africa RISING East and Southern Africa phase 2 project log frame]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/10568/82851| Africa RISING West Africa phase 2 project log frame]

'''Participants: '''Asamoah Larbi, Mateete Bekunda, Gundula Fischer, Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, Lieven Claessens, Francis Muthoni, Haroon Sseguya, Christopher Mutungi, Jonathan Odhong’, Bekele Kotu.
----
NOTES
----

'''Day 1''' [24 April]
Morning [start 8:30]
''Agenda 1: Phase 2 proposal stock-taking''
''Process:''
* ''Bullet point 1: A 15-minute presentation by'' ''Lieven'' ''Claessens to stimulate discussion about Farming Systems Research in Africa RISING, followed by some discussions and brainstorming [in plenary] about the ideas from his presentation.'' 
* ''Bullet point 2 & 3: A diluted world Café process. 2 tables (without table leaders) to focus on bullet point 2 and 3 ''''(topical area). 2 revolving teams. 2 stops for each group. Structured debrief at the end of the rotations ''''about each topical area - discussion & prioritization by the whole group of the ideas generated.''
* ''Bullet point 4: 1-2-3 for all reflection about bullet point 4, points from each group of 3 noted down on flip charts and then reflected on by the collective group.''

Mid-morning [10:30]
''Agenda 1 cont’d''

Afternoon [14:30]
''Agenda 2: Relevance of research outputs''
''Process: Idea storm exercise. Two flip charts hanging on the wall. Packs of card’s (different colors) on the table for people to write down their ideas on and post to the flip charts where everybody can see them. No censoring of ideas.'' ''Crazy ideas are welcome.'' ''No discussion or comment on others' ideas during the brainstorming part of this session. End the exercise by doing some structured thinking and organizing the ideas.''

Late afternoon [15:30]
''Agenda 3: ESA & WA project structure''
''Process: Open discussion around the table of the first bullet point item. Start with a structured go-around for everybody to raise issues/challenges/gaps with current AR WA/ESA structure. End the exercise with general discussion and consensus building about how to address each of the issues raised [what is within our control]. Have someone taking notes on the flip chart to note issues raised and how to handle them.''

End of day [17:30]

'''Day 2''' [25 April]
Morning [start 8:30]
''Agenda 4: Scaling''
''Process:'' ''A roving ideastorm excercise. 3 flipchart stands. Participants to rove the room freely, list ideas on any of the topics for discussion, they can also avoid those they wouldn’t like to contribute to/have nothing to say on. General discussion by the whole group on the topics raised and agreements on way forward.'' 

Mid-morning [10:30]
''Agenda 5: Cross learning''
''Process:'' ''Paired listening exercise. Participants go into pairs and discuss individual views about inter-regional cross-learning, identify potential areas for cross-learning and list them (1-2 top ideas) on cards and then pin them up on flip chart at the end of the exercise. Do a prioritization by the whole group – immediate, mid-term and log-term.''

Afternoon [14:30]
''Agenda 6: Effective partnerships''
''Process: Open discussion around the table of the first bullet point item. Start with a structured go-around for everybody to raise issues/challenges/gaps with leadership and management within the regional teams. End the exercise with general discussion and consensus building about how to address each of the issues raised [what is within our control]. Have someone taking notes on the flip chart to note issues raised and how to handle them. Repeat process for the second bullet point. ''

Late afternoon [15:30]
''Agenda 7: Any other business''
''Process: Structured-go around for all participants to raise AoB.''

End of day [17:30]

'''Day 3''' [26 April]
Team building - a separate agenda will be shared.

'''Day 4''' [27 April]
Team building - a separate agenda will be shared.

AR ESA WA Project Team Meeting 23Nov

2017-12-01T13:22:37Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

'''Africa RISING ESA and West Africa project team meeting'''
'''23 November 2017'''
'''IITA Ibadan, Nigeria (Vigna Room)'''

'''Present'''
# Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
# Asamoah Larbi
# Haroon Sseguya
# Mateete Bekunda
# Willemien Brooijmans
# Francis Muthoni
# Christopher Mutungi
# Lieven Claessens
# Gundula Fischer

'''Apologies'''
# Bekele Kotu

'''Agenda'''
# Updates from the project manager
# Follow-up on issues from the R4D week
# Any Other Business

Irmgard started off the meeting at 8:30 pm. She conveyed apologies for Bekele and Sibale. She also introduced Willemien to members of the team.

Agenda 1: Updates from the project manager
Irmgard briefed members that Jerry Glover recently went for a field trip in Ethiopia which she joined and as a result had a chance to get the latest update about the project’s funding situation. Also on the trip was the Associate. Dir. for Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab – Jan Middendorf. Currently we only have the funds received in Sept. of USD 400,000.

Jerry informed Irmgard that he is more confident now that funding will be restored in early 2018 (most likely around January). He however advised that we should wait until this information is communicated in writing. For this season, the ESA project funds have been used to implement the loose-ends activities that were identified at the review and planning meeting held in Sept 2017. Partners have however been advised that they will not get funds to implement these activities if they don’t contribute to the production of the ESA technologies handbook. For West Africa project the scenario is different due to carry-over funds from the previous seasons. So far despite the current funding situation there has been no significant change to activities. Irmgard also prepared a document outlining different funding scenarios for the IITA senior management. She has been advised to keep/protect the project staff at all costs with the funds available until additional funds come.

Other issues Jerry advised on during this meeting with Irmgard were as follows:
* Feed the Future countries announced earlier may still change….or more get added. This makes it necessary for us (Africa RISING) to indicate always how our work is applicable regionally. This is because central funds from USAID Washington DC are meant to produce regional public goods as opposed to country specific goods.
* Jerry also asked for more thorough details and rigor in the documents and reports that we disseminate as a project. These documents and reports are widely and keenly read in USAID and beyond.
* He (Jerry) also advised that research activities should‘t become development activities – we (Africa RISING) should not do development ourselves. Keep our niche as a research project. Going forward, there shouldn't be significant investment in backstopping research. Another example is seed multiplication activities. These are fine as long as it is for research purposes, but not to be implemented as an effort to address the seed availability/access gaps existing in our project countries.
* He (Jerry) encouraged more research on adoption and social dynamics for our technologies. We should seek guidance on that from IFPRI and also better use the beneficiuary tracking tool deployed by IFPRI in the project.
* Jerry also asked that we should move away from activities like introduction of varieties etc., but rather our focus should be on studying how to improve the systems research. Our work should inform USAID country missions on reduction of the risks.
* More gender studies of Africa RISING technologies is highly encouraged.
* GIS information should be available and present in all our Africa RISING works.
* Applying the SI indicator framework is a must. Work more actively to ensure that partners report on the SI indicators. The farmework was formally launched in November 2017. The indicators should be measured at as many levels as possible.
* Peter Thorne also informed that Ethiopia Project has hired a post-doc to do a household characterization survey using RHOMIS (rapid survey using standard criteria). They will add a module to that survey on the SI indicator framework. Jerry thinks this a great way to go. RHOMIS is cheaper than a full IFPRI mid-line or end-line surveys. '''Lieven to follow up on this and see if there is a possibility that we could apply the RHOMIS in the ESA and WA projects.'''
* Jerry re-emphasized that uploading of all data (on DataVerse) is a must and therefore must be made publicly available per USAID requirements. Every implementer should provide a list of every data that is going to be collected for any activity that is funded and being implemented. Reporting gaianst this list should be checked by project management before next fund disbursement.
* USAID and American Congress decision makers respond very well to farmer stories and more of these should be captured through short videos. Factsheets are also quite attractive and relevant.
* Jerry still interested in seeing the paper clarifying the use of adoption, reach and use etc.
* In general, we should think about what the missions can do for us in each of the countries where we are working. Ethiopia team are already attending to this, we should consider doing this as well.
* Going forward M&E positions may be recruited by each project team in ESA, WA and Ethiopia.
* The Africa RISISNG West Africa and ESA teams need to seek more collaboration with the SIIL. This is highly encouraged. Members reported a few collaborations (tentative) that have taken place in the past. There will be a field trip organized by SIIL in Tanzania in spring 2018 to SIIL and Africa RISING sites. Jerry Glover and Peter Thorne will join. '''Irmgard encouraged members to report all the minor/big collaborations with the labs in their reports. Irmgard to also follow up with the director of Post-harvest lab to follow up on the potential collaboration reported by Asamoah.'''
* We finalize the concept note for the East African USAID Missions

Agenda 2: Follow-up on issues from the R4D week
* Issue 1: Interesting presentation on scaling by Marc Schut, we should consider asking ourselves some of these questions (particularly considering our work with technology handbook being put together in ESA):
''' Are our technologies ready for scaling?
''' Do we know what hinders the adoption of our technologies?
''' Are targeting properly?
''' Are we working with the right people?

* Issue 2: The mechanization unit is promoting hand-held seeders, can we proceed with these for example in West Africa Project?

Agenda 3: Any Other Business
* Funds being remitted by USAID early 2018 presents a challenge for the ESA project team when the season will have already been concluded. What will the funds be used for? The west Africa team while not very affected by this scenario (due to their cropping season) may also experience some disruption in the planning and implementation of activities.

PCT-SAG meeting

2017-09-04T13:48:39Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=PCT/SAG meeting=
'''22-23 June 2017'''
'''Venue TBD, Arusha, Tanzania'''
[[events| Back to the event home page]]
See also: [[pct23| PCT23]] and [[Phase2-SAG1| SAG meeting#1]] (in phase 2)
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[[media type="custom" key="29269031"]]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/africa-rising/albums/72157685430788886| See more pictures of this event in our FlickR album].

==Topics and objectives==
* Africa RISING: SAG members acquainted with the program so they are clear about various aspects of the program
* Phase II so far: SAG members understand key differences between phase 1 & 2 and progress made so far
* CoPs: SAG members understand the rationale behind these CoPs progress so far - SAG member affiliated with different CoPs
* Reach, use, adoption etc.: All participants see where there are areas, propose tentative definitions and come up with a plan to engage others on this topic
* M&E: SAG members understand the M&E architecture and the surveys and analysis planned
* SAG/PCT: Respective objectives are met (to be defined for each of them)
* CoP champions work further on their CoP work and on supporting each other.

==Participants==
# Patrick Okori, ICRISAT
# Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon, IITA
# Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA
# Asamoah Larbi, IITA
# Mateete Bekunda, IITA
# Jonathan Odhong, IITA
# Haroon Sseguya, IITA
# Bernard Lukuyu, ILRI
# Kindu Mekonnen, ILRI
# Nancy McCarthy, LEAD Analytics
# Jim Ellis-Jones, Freelance consultant
# Eva Weltzien, Freelance consultant
# Moses Tenywa CAES, Makerere University
# Brigitte Maass, Freelance consultant
# Siboniso Moyo, ILRI
# Peter Thorne, ILRI
# Ewen Le Borgne, ILRI
# Carlo Azzarri, IFPRI
# Caroline Sobgui, World Vegetable Center
# Lieven Claessens, IITA

==Agenda==

'''Thursday 22 June'''
* 08.00 Registration
* 08.30 Welcome, participants' introductions, agenda and objectives (BvL / ELB) [ELB]
''' ''Outcome: All participants are familiar with each other, particularly SAG members''
''' ''Process: SAG members sit at 3 different tables and groups of people (PCT, CoP champions, chief scientists and whoever else) come to visit them to introduce themselves (3x6')''
* 09.25 Overall introduction to the program (IHZ) [JO]
''' ''Outcome: SAG members are aware of the program and clear about its institutional arrangements, technical research activities and recommendations from the phase 1 external evaluation''
''' ''Process: Presentation 20' - Q&A 30'. [https:''www.slideshare.net/africa-rising/ar-pct-sagirmgard2017-77694924| See presentation]//
* 10.15 ''Break''
* 10.45 Phase 2 so far (PT / chief scientists) [JO]
''' ''Outcome: SAG members are fully aware of the choices made in the umbrella and regional documents against phase 1 and what has happened so far''
''' ''Process: Presentation 15' PT about the main differences between phases 1 & 2 - Q&A 15'. Presentation by the 3 chief scientists (20') about what has happened so far (on a physical timeline, and with pictures printed out to highlight key activities) - 25' Q&A.''
* 12.00 ''Lunch break''
* 13.15 Communities of practice (BvL / CoP champions) [ELB]
''' ''Outcome: SAG members understand the rationale behind phase 2 CoPs and get to hear what progress has been achieved with what members for each CoP. Each SAG member is affiliated with (at least) one of the CoPs - ideally covering all CoPs).''
''' ''Process: Presentation 15' BvL about CoPs - 15' Q&A. Quick go-around (30') of the 7 CoPs (each at a station with flipchart and if need be print out pictures, graphs etc.), each introduced in 5' by their CoP champion. Free roaming around for another 30' to ask questions and for SAG members to mention their affiliation with either CoP etc. 15' Final open discussion about CoPs''
* 15.00 ''Break''
* 15.30 Unpacking reach, use, adoption etc. (JG/BvL) [JO]
''' ''Outcome: Having a clearer understanding of what needs more clarity, of what definition we might tentatively offer and of the next steps we suggest taking in order to progress with this work and establish Africa RISING's thought leadership on this topic''
''' ''Process: Presentation by Haroon/Scaling CoP group 30' about tentative definitions and suggestions - 15' clarification Q&As - 45' World cafe on the key definitions [3x10' + recap] and how to develop these further into an engagement plan - 15' open discussion to discuss next steps including polling to go ahead. [https:''www.slideshare.net/africa-rising/ar-pct-sagharoon2017-77694923| See presentation].//
* 17.00 Wrap-up for the day [ELB]
''' ''Outcome: Key reflections from the day are captured''
''' ''Process: 1-2-4-all and final commentaries from SAG chair if elected''

'''Friday 23 June'''
* 08.30 Refreshing our memory [JO]
''' ''Outcome: Getting every participant back in the spirit of the meeting and ensuring we start with the whole group''
''' ''Process: Quick buzz among the participants about a) the challenges that we seem to be tackling well and b) the elephant in the room that we might be missing - sharing in plenary''
* 08.45 M&E (CA) [JO]
''' ''Outcome: SAG members are clear about the M&E architecture in Africa RISING phase 2, and know about the surveys and data analysis planned''
''' ''Process: 20' Presentation CA/team - 25' Q&A''
* 09.30 Getting started with parallel SAG/PCT/CoP meetings (CoP champions should work on their own plans and how they can support each other etc.) [ELB]
''' Outcome: Respective objectives of SAG/PCT meetings achieved (see [[pct23| PCT23]] and [[Phase2-SAG1| SAG meeting#1]]) and for CoPs: Feedback from SAG/PCT incorporated, updated plans with outputs made available, clear short plan developed for CoP champion mutual support.
''' ''Process: TBD''
* 10.30 ''Break (to be taken freely by each group)''
* 11.00 Parallel SAG/PCT/CoP meetings - see above. The CoP meeting is about getting going with the CoP work individually and if there is time and a need for it, to review how to ensure cross-pollination among CoPs.
* 12.30 ''Lunch break''
* 13.30 Parallel SAG/PCT/CoP meetings - see above.
* 15.00 Break
* 15.30 Coming back together [ELB/JO]
''' ''Outcome: Each group is aware of key reflections, recommendations and decisions made by other groups''
''' ''Process: SAG, then PCT then CoP champions each get 10' to give feedback on their respective work and to highlight things that need to be discussed. Open discussion to deal with the Q&As - possibly 'lean coffee' to address any remaining issue''
* 17.15 Close

=Meeting notes=

==Welcome and introductions==

==Program overview==
''[https:''www.slideshare.net/africa-rising/ar-pct-sagirmgard2017-77694924| See presentation] by Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon//
Q&A
* '''Question''': Capacity development for students - how is it organised? It can really help with the quality of research, publications, scaling capacity etc.
* '''Answer''': We have an open approach system to directly support students in areas where we think we need their participation. We have resources for that. In ESA (and esp. TZ) we also support institutions that do capacity building e.g. USAID project EAGRI (helping students with classroom work). We linked with them and they sent us students. We are also working with students who come to us directly. We mentor them. In Ethiopia we have an MoU with Ethiopian universities and with federal and regional research institutes and extension system. We have student attachments from those local universities e.g. 30 PhD students working for 6 months with us and specific CG centres to supervise them
* '''Q''': I was surprised by the point about scaling as it's key in phase II. How will you go about it. You have set up a CoP on scaling but what beyond that?
* '''A''': In CGIAR we are not best placed to determine what is the best scaling approach. We don't have much experience in that. We have been discouraged to do research on scaling but we are working with development organisations. We work with FAO, Wageningen UR (Cees Leeuwis) etc.
''' Meanwhile we continue with scaling the best way we can. Where we have funding for dissemination of technologies we are quite successful. In phase 2 we're using different approaches and that's a good opportunity to assess these different approaches.
''' We are creating a big lab on scaling approaches and there's a risk of not capitalising on this. We are wondering if we should have an output on scaling research and we decided we were not best placed to do that and we haven't cracked that.
''' We need to take some comments with a pinch of salt. e.g. in the whole mix, the CG is the gearbox driving or slowing the system. We have a fundamental role but maybe because CGIAR has not boldly come out and talked about it we are not positioning ourselves frankly on this. But for technology roll-out we need to talk more boldly about it. We need to scale out and do research about it and CGIAR needs to look more intimately into it.
''' From FAO interactions, I got the signal that Africa RISING (AR) is very specific etc. It's hard to set up only one mechanism for scaling. We need to talk about this.
''' Sometimes I wonder if it's really worthwhile to do research on scaling methods given our limited resources. If we work with scaling partners, they know how to do it. What matters is that we scale, not that we know how to best scale.
* '''Q''': The governance and participation of local partners. There are steering committees with these local partners?
* '''A''': We have in e.g. West Africa some partners in Mali and Ghana who are engaging with us...
''' In Ethiopia, our partners in each region came from research institutes, ministry of Agriculture and universities. Now 50+ universities. Those partners were always involved in the annual planning. In the first phase they were adequately represented. In phase II we reviewed that and we are widening out to many development partners and we have a project advisory committee which will address this.
''' In ESA we work with the regional institutions ASARECA, AGRA etc.
* '''Q''': In the first picture when you showed the activities, it seemed very linear but it's different from reality.
* '''A''': I will introduce this in my presentation.
* '''Q''': Where is the donor uncertainty in the US with this program?
* '''A''': The donor was very much involved in the first four years, Jerry Glover came to our annual meetings etc. he's part of our program coordination team (PCT). I'm always in contact with the donor. We get informal information a lot. We are being sensitised to what could happen. There's no information to what could happen. These changes are not going to happen abruptly.
''' Until September 2018 we have secured funding but things could change after that. We just don't know for now.
''' It looks like the cut is not going to be across the program but in focused ways on specific aspects (e.g. climate change will be cut considerably).
''' We were always required to respond flexibly. We were very elastic and a lot of things happened throughout phase 1 so we are also a laboratory for USAID and we can continue to do this. When we started we didn't have a program framework right ahead.
* '''Q''': To what extent are the lessons leading to principles. Which principles are derived from phase 1.
* '''A''': A program like AR, dealing with farming systems, needs multiple partnerships. No one institution can deal with all of it e.g. IITA doesn't do livestock. So we ended with a broad range of implementing partners. Each partner has their interest, agenda etc. To balance that for the program benefit, it was a learning experience. We stopped some partnerships etc. Partners identify with the program.
''' The process usually involves a lot of diagnostics and small pilot activities. AR started off with situational analysis so we could look at all the options with Sustainable Intensification. It's been a very nice opportunity to participate in that whole process. What lessons are from that we didn't document to see how repeatable it might be.
''' We started with the RISING acronym but we didn't really know what it meant and now we start to understand it and if we come up with innovations that address sustainable intensification it's good.
''' One of the things that worked was the coordination of the program. In many other programs it's expected to happen but there are not enough resources for it but in Africa RISING it's one of the factors that was important to have that energy going into coordination.
''' We talk about lessons learned and principles, one thing that I thought would have appeared is that if we continued with our scaling agenda we would never reach the USAID targets so we are much more responsive to the development community etc. rather than focus on best bets etc. Integrating farming system components requires efforts. We had good support from WUR but we are here in Africa.
''' We need a certain infrastructure for coordination from Mali to Zambia, Ethiopia etc. and it doesn't work without resources.

==Phase II so far==

* '''Q''': Now that you are more engaged with development partners, they have their own M&E requirements. Is there integration and feedback/joint learning on this?
* '''A''': In Ethiopia, we will use where adequate the existing M&E requirements and supplement them if need be.
''' In the Africa RISING Nafaka project we do monitoring focusing on Feed the Future indicators (output level indicators how many households reached through quarterly report forms, outcome level indicators through surveys etc. It's very important because USAID are very keen on that data).
''' We do some things together and some separately, based on USAID recommendations.
''' We embed their mechanisms into our monitoring tool e.g. now we are working on custom indicators pre-populated for Nafaka. It's on a case by case basis. We are integrating with their reporting system but it's not full integration.
* '''Comment''': I picked two major words: learning and scaling. All components you mentioned are very intensive processes of data processing and reporting on indicators. A very innovative way to capture information through M&E linked with communication could enhance the efficiency of your approach to inform our learning. It could help go a long way.
* '''Q''': The advocacy and lobbying for Africa RISING funding might be difficult but with evidence of success it can be done.
* '''A''': I didn't see this as a structured activity but when you meet people you can bring a good word for Africa RISING in such meetings. It's an informal role.
''' (response) But it's a great opportunity. The potential is great if evidence is provided and gaps are very clear and somebody sees how targets are met and what the shortfalls are.
''' There was a meeting in October in Lilongwe and I (Bernard) had to give that presentation and there are a few different accents with this presentation by Peter. John Dixon (ACIAR) said 'we should move to research in development'. I think this needs to be much more prominent. A lot of people think R4D and RinD are the same but one of the things we can do is to develop these concepts. If we do RinD, for M&E we need to get farmers to decide what needs to be prioritised, we can't segregate the data etc.
''' Attribution is a real barrier and it stops us justifying what we've done. We must have that part as well. Part of our impact pathways is that we have identified where our technologies came from. It's a contribution. How can we market that sort of approach instead of just focusing on attribution. Can we not do something a lot more creative?
* '''Comment''': You've decentralised M&E and I was trying to find the new monitoring forms to see how it differed from phase I forms. You want some continuity and flexibility.
''' There are online and offline forms. We found in Phase I that providing only online forms was struggling with lack of connectivity etc. so we are using both online and offline forms now. I'll share the links with you.
* '''Q''': The development vs. research is an important and challenging element to explore.
''' One of the things we need to address here is capacity - capacity for delivery is much more than training scientists. What capacity do we need for development? We need to step back a little bit and think about the kind of capacities for change to take place. Maybe very few have to do with PhDs etc. and are more concerned with the 2ndary boundary partners who need human or hardware resources. It's that sociology element that is missing from this program.
''' On the capacity of the various scientists: we need to develop that as well and we want to find out about capacity gap analysis of not only NARS but also of our own capacities.
''' The way development partners package their work is different. They talk at us, not to us. This goes to the capacity. We need to think how we package our technology and how we deliver it.

'''Timeline from the regional chief scientists'''

'''In West Africa''':
We tried to document the work that happened in phase I. We had a legacy workshop to put things down in writing. 35 items submitted both internal and external. We identified journal communications etc. Only about 50% of the contents were accepted.
In January we had training on farming system approaches and data analysis in Accra.
In February we had our planning and review meeting with partners from national system, development partners. We discussed Phase II proposal and discussed how to implement it.
In March we had [...]
From February to May we refined our plans for 2017 and we were done last week. Sub-contracts have been submitted and planting for phase II is
* '''Q''': What was different with Phase I?
* '''A''': We ensured that people actually commit prepare the deliverables in a clearly defined way. It took longer because we were more critical than in Phase I. After the general meeting there were specific country-based meetings with exchanges about what needs to be done. One key thing was looking at integration (which was a gap in the previous phase). We changed the format for preparing plans.
* '''Q''': You didn't talk about development partners in a demand-driven manner.
* '''A''': We had a long list of partners and now we're ensuring we have commitments. One of the recommendations from the USAID review was to start mapping out partners that would be pushing the scaling process in Phase II.
* '''Q''': You mentioned that 50% of the outputs were not good quality enough. How will you ensure that your outputs are responding to a research project?
* '''A''': We have work plans asking for research questions and hypotheses to be tested. Some of this was missing in the previous phase. We have to start from the design.
''' Is there training happening on that? --> Yes on farming systems approaches...
* '''Q''': What was the reaction of development partners to phase II. And is their commitment financial and human?
* '''A''': Last year we were talking about plans and proposals for phase II etc. Now we'll be detailing commitments etc.
''' We've asked development partners to come up with proposals in Mali and Ghana for 300K USD. What we are lacking still is that our research products are integrated in their day-to-day activities. That's exactly what we are missing for our partners. We haven't yet achieved that.
''' In Northern Ghana there are so many projects, approaches etc. Some projects are purely development projects that would give out inputs for free etc. It's a challenge.
* '''Q''': You did this workshop on legacy. What is your favourite result about sustainability from Phase I? What's really changing for the farmers?
* '''A''': We listed some of the potential technologies that came out of Phase I. What I'm proudest of is the integration of crop & livestock. Some crop technologies such as drought-tolerant maize has been demonstrated and farmers recently talked about new technologies. We brought in all 25 community-based associations etc. some opportunities for women farmers to exchange ideas.

'''In Ethiopian Highlands''':
We looked at extension, identifying implementation plans for the long rainy season for scaling. In October 2016 we had different visitors and we presented research findings.
We invited partners (research, NGOs, universities etc.) and we discussed opportunities for the upcoming season. We had visitors from West Africa (Asamoah and Irmgard) to collaborate). In December we had a big workshop to popularise our research outputs and findings with a couple of other projects (LIVES, N2Africa).
We tried to identify development partners e.g. InterAide France (large NGO) and we agreed to work with them. They came to us, we went to them etc. they're becoming a good development partner in Southern Ethiopia working on crop-livestock interactions etc. They asked us to generate evidence and started implementing scaling e.g. watersheds, livestock feeds, post-harvest handling, potatoes, high value crops such as apples and avocadoes. We also have other development partners such as Send A Cow, Ethiopian Catholic Church etc. In Tigray the Government is our major development partner but we are also working with USAID-funded development projects etc. and we developed a template to circulate with them to list our technologies and we ask them which they are interested in and where they might scale them up with how many farmers etc. and what they're expecting from Africa RISING (e.g. capacity building, seeds system research etc.).
We presented several posters at the science symposium. In March we had a DfID-supported program (SAIRLA) in 6 countries and we are participating in their national platform to align our activities.
After compiling needs from our development partners, capacity building was in high demand so we organised training of trainers in our 4 regions. These are photos from ToT in SNNPR, Tigray, Oromia and Amhara regions. We tried to familiarise our tecehnologies with different development partners. One day was field visit to see the farmer conditions.
We participated in other events organised by the Ministry of Agriculture about their 'sustainable land management (program) knowledge fair' and we tried to present our work there. We also participated in the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock stakeholder meeting with a field visit about landscape management in Amhara etc.
* '''Q''': Do you ask them what is missing from your list that AR should develop?
* '''A''': Yes and we are now expanding e.g. other forage species, working on poultry, bee keeping etc.
* '''Q''': Do these partners ask for money?
* '''A''': No they don't but they ask for capacity development (e.g. extension etc.) so they can implement technologies properly... In some cases they asked us for started seeds.
* '''Q''': You developed a template and are checking on potential development partners. Is this a one-time event or will you have a dynamic assessment?
* '''A''': It's dynamic assessment. Every year we need to review this with them.
* '''Q''': 2 elements that didn't come out in this presentation: partnerships with the private sector - and on financing all of this (micro-finance institutes as potential partners?). On the platforms, are there financial partners and who are the members?
* '''A''': We have platforms at woreda (district) / 'strategic platforms' and at kebele level 'operational platforms'. There we work with market dealers etc. and even finance institutions. We had about 23 institutions at woreda level to make decisions etc. Now in the 2nd phase we're expanding and going out of districts to other zones etc. and we want to establish zonal level platforms. At national level we're using SAIRLA as our intermediary.
* '''Q''': Are you targeting partners on nutrition?
* '''A''': Nutrition is cross-cutting, we are not focusing on specific institutions except the federal body mandated for nutrition and present in the regions. Associated with health centres.

'''In East & Southern Africa''':
This is our cropping season so we started our planning early. We used influence diagrams to influence each other (between crop and livestock etc.). Planning in early October. Training on statistics and farming systems approach. We introduced new crops (e.g. ground nuts etc.). In maize-based systems we introduced sorghum, millet etc. and usually the seed companies are not ready so we start by producing seeds. We introduced community-based seed systems (sweet potatoes etc.). In Zambia, when we started we worked with SIMLEZA and we did conservation agriculture. In certain areas we still need fertilisers. We did doubled-up legumes. We are looking at typologies to find out where each system fits best. We do vegetables with drip irrigation. This has attracted markets. They use fewer chemicals etc. We used drudgery mitigation, ox-draught ripper, land management; we'retrying to see if we can engage local communities to institute by-laws to work at community level. On livestock we worked on poultry (local chickens). We're looking for the best strains, we cross them, manage them etc. We have Afla-SAFE in Zambia. So that 's the cropping season.
We have expanded platforms to village level.
Nutrition started off with sweet potatoes but we are also adding values to other crops and are targeting children. On livestock we're introducing forages into the systems and they must be multi-purpose. We are enhancing forages. On economics, we are working on evaluating technologies on the ground. We did capacity building. On scaling, we are working in Malawi on web forms. In Tanzania we are working to see how our technologies can work better.
We work with CRS in 3 countries (e.g. on vegetables in Tanzania). We work with youth in their youth programs.
* '''Q''': '''(answering question from Ethiopian highlands about partners in the platforms)'''
* '''A''': On platform engagement, we didn't have an entry point in TZ so we started at district level and in Babati they have taken this platform to their council. Then we go down to villages. In Malawi, we didn't start new ones but worked with existing ones. In K-K, they invited us without initiating it. So it's different arrangements. Finance institutions are not very integrated in our platforms in TZ and Malawi. Even private sector actors are difficult to involve.
''' That's an opportunity.
''' That's why we have a CoP on private sector involvement.
''' I appreciate that private sector partners can be useful if they are interested but hearing "we need to engage the private sector" but some scaling initiatives are not really amenable to private sector in early stages. It's not a case of 'we have to have private sector involved'. It's not a box-ticking exercise.
''' Seed multiplication is a challenge across the whole region so we can look at that and financing, multiplying etc. of seeds.
''' The purpose of the CoP interaction is to delve into this. Our technologies are in different phases and we have to make better decisions. Private sector is interested in profit. If you don't have a good market base it's not going to happen. In the afternoon I'll share some initial thoughts about that. Including how micro-finance institutions are fitting in.
''' We had an MoU with Nafaka that didn't work for a very long time. With others we didn't have MoUs and it worked.
''' CRS don't need an MoU.
* '''Q''': During those other meetings, did you get opportunities to share among yourselves?
* '''A''': Yes we had a summit. We try to attend each other's meetings and activities too.

==Communities of practice==

'''Scaling up''':
* Getting the CoP moving - maybe collaborate / focus on one theme/item
* Need to make our research products demand-driven
* Clarity of scaling focus (R in D)
* Processes, lessons, approaches.models (evaluation / validation)
* Action plan / work plan shouldspecify outputs
* Yammer --> some members claim they do not receive messages
* Potential for merging 2 CoPs (private sector + engagement)
* Work in tandem with other actors (NGOs, public etc.)

'''Nutrition''':
* Malawi and Zambia missing - need to address directly
* Engagement of people who signed up in Malawi meeting
* Regularly communicate
* Link with national program
* I initiate the conversation to get people engage
* Harmonize approach to nutrition
* Initiate the conversation on a paper
* Share experiences

'''Private sector engagement''':
* Howe we link outputs to planning
* 1 ps to be integral in operations
* Communities and adoption
* Finance and insurance + risk >> value chain approach (VCA)
* Other major investments e.g. AGRA >> VCA
* Use A.R. technologies as attractions for private equity
* Refine what private sector is
* Community groups - part of social engineering

'''Livestock''':
* Consider WhatsApp group
* Why low participation in WA? And yet ILRI leads livestock
* Liaise with communication on Yammer (rethink strategy)
* What is livestock CoP about? May be it is so big?
* Livestock themes - 1 or 2 [entry point]
* Strategy to make it attractive. Trigger incentive
* Initially organizing it around a research question / research paper?
* Data mining > from the baseline
* Crop/livestock integration
* Summary
## Platform of engagement
## Scope of CoP
## Triggering incentives for CoP

* '''Q''':
* '''A''':
* '''Q''':
* '''A''':
* '''Q''':
* '''A''':

==Reach / adoption / use etc.==
''[https:''www.slideshare.net/africa-rising/ar-pct-sagharoon2017-77694923| See presentation] by Haroon Sseguya.//
After

''In a world cafe session the participants pondered the following three questions: a) Are these definitions ok? What needs to be changed or added? b) What practical steps can we take to move this conversation forward and further develop good definitions c) How do we implement 'this' and who can help us with it?''

'''Are the definitions adequate?'''
* Fully: not well defined (e.g. CA). Does it refer to the full package of a specific innovation or is it referred to the scale?
* Use is missing
* Data/information will be collected routinely on 2-3-4-5
* All groups should be captured by BTTT
* 1 might be studied by specific adoption research
* Sequencing of use/adoption
* Typology overtime (who uses and when?)
* Innovation diversity: how are farmers who are just testing over time defined? e.g. when the process of developing the technology takes > 5)
* Research trials vs. demonstration ==> how do we treat them?

'''Practical steps to take on the definitions'''
# Review our institutional definition of 'terms'
# Get a team of 3 socio-economists to define the terms
# Develop a model showing the relationships between the terms
# Circulate for inputs from wider Africa RISING community
# Use donor definition as a good starting point
# Strategically choose definitions to capture benefits of this program
# Synthesis proceedings of discussion and seek inputs CoP! (ensure economists are supported by AR are engaged).
# Raise CoP discussions with other impact economists
# Facilitate CoP meeting on this topic (CoP + external experts) draft structure for the paper
# Conceptual work on application of general concepts to SI: typology / complexity of technologies

'''How to implement this and who can help us with it?'''
How to implement it:
* "Reach" is part of standard M&E
* Quality/intensity of reach is dependent on methods used
* We monitor reach, use
* Sustainability not considered
* Methods 'reach': counting
* Methods 'use': BTTT, outcome surveys with proper controls
* Panel studies, we decide the questionnaires
* IP's
* National statistics from local surveys
* FtF indicators
* E must go on, who adopts, why not

Who can help:
* Development partners if right methods are used
* It's not easy to do
* Big development partners have experience
* Novel tools are available (geo-spacing tools) we need to get and use them (supra household, landscape level)
* IFPRI is instrumental
* Private sector

'''Day 2'''
==Coming back together and recap==
Some of the things that are working well/seem well set for success in Africa RISING:
* Some of the phase II elements (that are different from phase I) are in place in certain areas.
* The partnership work is going on quite well, there are a number of seemingly healthy/functional development partnerships.
* The program seems to be 'gelling' as a whole program, it seems it's no longer just a collection of regional projects.

Some of the elements in the room:
* Make sure that we have publications describing the innovations to scale etc. from phase 1 - more publications accessible for all
* How to make the CoPs more functional and engaging actively?
* Our 'science of delivery' is still very unclear, foggy and we can't yet rely on CoPs as they are babies.
* Is Africa RISING really integrating the potential external shock of the political climate in certain governments (eg. USA), in the countries where we work etc.?

==M&E==
* '''Q''': How is the monitoring of monitoring tools done?
* '''A''': There isn't, as such, monitoring of the monitoring tools but with the extended guide summarising tools we hope to assess how the tools are being used and can be improved
* '''Q''': How do you integrate different monitoring data to learn lessons?
* '''A''': It is impossible to have one repository for everything (e.g. FtF indicators are very different from the data reported through AgTrials) so we need to use different data collection methods. In any case, the data is uploaded onto DataVerse with a password, for sharing. Using these tools requires training, which has been organised in the regions
* '''Q''': Do you use your theory of change (ToC) to hint at impact? There are lots of assumptions linked to M&E which emphasize the use of data
* '''A''': There was no ToC in phase I. In phase II we want to focus more on monitoring.
* '''Q''': How to capture exposure vs. direct beneficiaries when it's a contradiction in the design?
* '''A''': We collaborate with Haroon and import the Nafaka project data. So we use two different tools to capture: a) exposure to events (without capturing the identity of respondents) and b) other data related to the BTTT. Exposure is about the people that are in touch with Africa RISING but it's different from scaling. BTTT is only for actors/beneficiaries. AgTrials will capture agronomic data.
* '''Q''': How accurate is the data? How takes the records of attendance at field days?
* '''A''': We have research assistants who record before, during and after and we (chief scientists) verify that information. We also have lead farmers and extension agents so we have different means to ensure it works. We need to use the forms that IFPRI put together.
* '''Q''': The data from the surveys was shared extensively. What was exciting about it?
* '''A''': The custom slicing and dicing and the fact that we'll be using that information for papers

==Coming back together==

'''CoPs'''
* Each PCT member should also be part of the CoP - It was an oversight
* There is a different list of CoPs so have you changed it? --> we could merge scaling and private sector engagement. We also think that socio economic CoP may not work so that could serve all other CoPs. We propose an additional one on landscape management to represent crop.
''' This was agreed in the PCT. There's no good potential in leadership or critical mass of membership. So we invite watershed/landscape management and virtual farming also.
* Enough capacity for socio economics work across? --> we have some but we'll have to ensure they participate in those
* I'm still wondering about the name 'CoP' - we are addressing sthg else here. And I'm amazed that this is dropped because it's important...
See presentation by the CoP champions: [[:File:Community of Practice Champions Meeting.pptx]]

'''PCT'''
* In phase II we're moving away from a pure research project to a hybrid development project and so we'll strengthen our efforts to engage more with scaling partners.
* Publication guidelines: you are looking at the process and quality control including internal review process? --> Yes.
* Re: the SAG, did you discuss more about what you expect from the SAG --> No
* SI Innovation lab and timing of when that would be available? --> we don't have much contact with the SIIL. The framework is available for a while but it's not finalised. There is a manual coming up, there will be an online platform etc. for the end of the year. What USAID expects is that all funded projects adopt that sooner or later.
* There are 5 domains in this and there are also some methods associated etc. the methods (what to use etc.) are proposed.
''' Who will implement this? --> the AR partners etc. Each and every researcher will have to collect this data. It's already happening.
* What we'll do differently from phase I: the way we go about preparing our work plans hasn't changed much and we need to look critically at hypotheses etc. and a better part of this new phase should be about scaling etc. So where is the balance? --> in our logframe we have sthg on scaling etc. <-- but the engagement budget is about 15-20%.

'''SAG'''
* Jim appointed as chair
* We like the Africa RISING project and think it's a good project. We hope you see us as a useful mechanism, not a platform...
* ToR: generally ok but may need some internal review
* Priorities:
''' moving from phase I to II
''' Harmonization
''' Scaling
''' Lessons learning
>
* Moving from phase I to phase II:
* Technologies validated and tested (?) Typologies, gender
* Synthesis of key lessons
* Use the theory of change for mapping projects/activities of Phase II + indicators (how quickly will they be available). We hope the logframe feeds into the ToC, even from an individual project level.
* Interlinked areas of scaling / communication / capacity building
''' Scaling: clear guidelines for extension
''' Communication: at farmer level + development partners + different extension tools
''' Capacity building: at all levels
* Partnerships: government, NGO, private sector + (secondary) farmer organisations (e.g. NASFAM in Malawi)?
* Platforms: village, district, zone, region, national - probably some interesting learning across regions etc.
''' Monitoring on the performance of the platforms? Learning? How sustainable are they? Have task teams?
''' M&E: process monitoring community, landscape
''' Research management: chief scientist --> SAG (harmonisation). Who does the SAG interact with now? Deal directly with chief scientists etc.?
* CoP:
''' Socio economics: Jim/Nancy
''' Nutrition: Eva/Brigitte
''' Private sector: Moses/Eva
''' Livestock: Brigitte/Colletah
''' Scaling: Nancy/Jim
''' Virtual farming: No expertise to offer there
''' (not discussed at SAG meeting) Landscape: Moses/
* SAG involvement:
''' Learning events
''' Skype discussions: immediate. 6 months +/-
''' Work plans (?) Offer support on this

* Scaling: engagement guidelines with extension: In some cases we don't have the capacity to do some of that. Some of our development partners have clear guidelines on this. E.g. we use the Nafaka guidelines and have adapted them... We shouldn't consider that we have to do it all ourselves. --> Sure, but get permission to share it with others in other regions... Ok. And technical guidelines and capacity development needs to come from research.
* We mentioned backstopping research as one of our approaches for Phase II and the backstopping to scaling partners is information that should come back to us and feed our research to improve our technologies...
* On farming organisations, we were explicitly asked not work with NASFAM...
* On platforms, AR has to stop somewhere --> we just mentioned that the platforms should interact at various levels. There are many opportunities for learning. Some projects have platforms in 4/5 countries.
* There are so many platforms that the choice to attend is not a problem but the people are struggling to find their time...

'''Critical thoughts:''' we need to speed up and add a lot of clarity

==Final words==
Thank you for coming here from Latin America, from the US etc. it's a big effort for you and you came here and we really see that you are interested in advising us in doing our job better so we are very grateful and we are keen on getting your support. We look forward to that support.
I would also like to thank the CoP champions who came here with an update knowing that it would be critical because not much has happened. I was very surprised to hear there's very little enthusiasm for scientists to be involved etc. There was, back in October, a lot of enthusiasm. So where has it gone?
And also thank you for the chief scientists with your busy schedules. It was a unique opportunity to become familiar with the SAG and vice-versa etc. You are science advisors and chief scientists are guiding the science.
Jim you mentioned that you're not yet fully clear who is your contact point. We said in the morning that you report to the PCT and your point of contact is the chair of the PCT. I speak for myself but there's no objection to interact directly with chief scientists etc. but I'll bring this up to the rest of the PCT and we need to formally tell the PCT that on top of the SAG chair there's no such objection.
There are a few other things that we'll tackle at the PCT to see if we agree and can implement your recommendations. That's one of the next steps.
Our next official PCT Meeting is in September will be a critical one to review the evolution of CoPs and publication guidelines etc. and we have internally discussed whether to keep calling them CoPs. We didn't want them to be so formal and rigid but we expect important outputs etc. and if it doesn't work on a voluntary basis we may need to change it. Nothing works if it's imposed.
I wanted to look at our expected outcomes from the meeting and whether we achieved them.

Everyone understands the program etc. - we know you won't be able to understand it all etc. and we haven't synthesised the phase I to make it understandable etc. internally we understand very well but not externally in the right way. It's too much in one meeting to understand fully what happened. We haven't fully achieved.
On Phase I vs. Phase II, I think you have a better idea and you know how different we are. The rationale of the CoPs and the M&E architecture became relatively clear.
We had a good discussion on reach, use, adoption etc. and Haroon and team have a good program ahead.
Objectives of the parallel meetings have been met.
We have also seen that the SAG members are adequately supporting CoPs.

I'm very happy that you found this meeting useful and well organised, that we brought the CoPs here to ask for more help etc. That's all I can say.
The spirit is always there in Africa RISING with enthusiasm. When we go back home, it's more difficult but we'll get there.

Thank you very much for coming and for your contributions etc. Follow our minutes and events calendar and you'll be included on Doodle for the learning event. We rotate to another program country.

Have safe travels etc.

=Preparing for this meeting=

* Africa RISING: Getting SAG members acquainted with the program so they are clear about:
''' What Africa RISING is (what kind of program etc.) high level technical overview [IHZ/PT]
''' The relation between SAG, PCT, chief scientists - institutional arrangements etc. [IHZ/PT]
''' The main recommendations from external evaluators for phase 2 [IHZ/PT]
''' (Homework: read umbrella and regional proposals, M&E plan)...
* Phase II so far... Getting SAG members to understand:
''' The clear differences and choices made between phase I and II that went into the umbrella/regional proposal documents [BvL]
'''* R4D / RinD
'''* CoPs and regional harmonization
'''* etc. table on the differences (data management, research focus, capacity building)
''' What has happened in the first nine months of phase II in each region and at program level so far [BvL + chief scientists]
* CoPs:
''' Getting SAG members to understand the rationale behind these CoPs [Bv] and what each of them has done so far and who their members are [CoP champions to prepare this]
''' Getting each SAG member to affiliate with one of the CoPs
* Engagement with scaling partners:
''' Getting SAG members to be updated on current plans and progress with activities with regards to (scaling) partnership management [Chief scientists]
* Reach, use, adoption etc. (1 hour)
''' Having all reviewed and given feedback on tentative definitions for these unclear terms - based on current working definitions provided by Scaling CoP, giving examples from Haroon's project [Haroon / Scaling CoP]
''' Having a collective clear plan for how to add more clarity on these topics and engage people with it
* M&E:
''' Making sure that SAG members understand the key messages about the M&E architecture + what kind of surveys and analysis are planned [CA/BHaile]

'''Conversation with IHZ/CA''':
* Need to appoint SAG chair before (otherwise PCT should do it for year 1) - IHZ to contact Bernard
* R4D/RinD in action - anything else we need to discuss about this or is this sufficiently addressed here?
* Reach / use pushed after 'regional harmonization' in the agenda
* Invite CoP champions to share ideas about agenda - as stressed by Bernard at PCT meeting
* Possible leads on reach/use etc. conversation: JG / BvL - in line with decision rule
* Check what to do with Jeroen, Lulseged and Augustine for presentation - or Tunde (or Ben now)
* ELB to prepare some ideas about having a clearer and possibly sounder decision-making process for the PCT and specifically for the conversation on the reach/use etc. (otherwise risk that it goes well overtime)...



- Reviewing the first nine months of phase II
- Identifying the differences between phase I and II that went into the proposal documents
- Discussing specific issues such as e.g. engagement with scaling partners; R4D/RinD in action; mainstreaming CoPs as R moves to D; capacity development; regional harmonization; M&E etc.

Pct22b

2017-05-16T11:08:07Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=Africa RISING PCT meeting #22b (ad hoc)=
15 May 2017
Skype (virtual meeting)

Participants:
Peter Thorne (PT)
Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ)
Carlo Azzarri (CA)
Jerry Glover (JG) - chair
Ewen Le Borgne (ELB)
----

[[pct| PCT page]]
[[PCT_Actions| PCT follow-up action points]]

'''Agenda'''
# Sustainable Intensification assessment framework
# Preparations of CoP leaders for the SAG/PCT meeting
# AOB

----

'''Conversation'''

==Sustainable intensification assessment framework==
''Summary: The recent training that Jerry attended about it is rather basic. Do Mark and Phil need to expand their work while their contract runs (until August)? What are the needs about this framework in each project/region? How to operationalise this framework over the next 3-6 months e.g. get it online, get it used by other programs (CRPs) and institutions, how to ensure a minimum set of indicators are used consistently across all project teams? This will be discussed in Arusha on 21 June in the evening.''

''Conversation:''
Jerry was in a training last week. The training focused very much on methods, methodologies (e.g. how to collect data on gender) and there's a wonderful manual etc. but they are done with giving instructions. This is about helping teams develop indicators etc. Phil & Mark's contract expires in August. They may not have a whole lot more to offer to teams. How do others here feel about this? Do you need engagement with them before their time is up? And it would be great to get a sense about to what extent the framework is used and to what extent the indicators are applicable to the entire framework?

* PT: There's also an issue of operationalising this. PT to get in touch with ??? Robert Ayman?? Possible to use that to gather data for implementing this.
* Rural household management... modular survey instrument that Mark v Wijk and James have used to collect basic household characterization data. It's a standardized, repeatable tool. Cheryl and Sieg pushed back on this. KSU is interested in that framework.
* CLiP project in Burundi will make sense of this tool. BvL interested in applying it in all 3 projects. Then we (Imrgard, Carlo, Mateete, Asamoah) can collectively see how it's working.
* Great if James can be involved in this but not in a driving seat.
* JG: that could happen over the next 12 months, not 3-6 months. Hoping to get this tool to work for tradeoff analysis etc. KSU trying to get this tool more user-friendly and more standardized. There is a role for Africa RISING.
* PT: Some of the visualization tools that KSU are using could also be used.
* JG: There is no better communication tool for the US missions than this SI assessment framework. It would be good if there were common indicators across AR - though projects would not be limited by just those - perhaps having 2-3 / domain that can be measured across all projects. PT and IHZ, and CA are key in figuring this out.
* PT: Chief scientists also need to be involved in this.
* IHZ: Next opportunity to discuss this will be in Arusha. An evening or so. e.g. 21 evening. Asamoah will be only on 22 June.
* JG: USAID folks are interested in graphs/radar charts introducing how systems work is helping etc. Getting at consensus-driven indicators would be really useful. The training in Senegal was not very advanced. There were lots of questions about how to develop radar diagrams, how to use spreadsheets, the process of identifying tradeoffs and appropriate indicators (lots of people were looking at state factors such as precipitations etc.). The complexity comes in with choosing indicators in such a way that you get an accurate picture. JG encouraging them to not go back to the most common indicators etc.
* IHZ: It'd be good to see this manual.
* JG: I'll try and share a draft with you all. There will be work with a designer etc. Getting to use such an SI assessment framework is about having the right indicators, nothing more complicated than that.
* CA: the devil is in the details and collecting that data.
* PT: The interpretation is where the complexity comes in.
* JG: Perhaps we need to go down to research team levels.
* PT: We can select indicators but if they do it themselves, will we be collecting data around common indicators? That's something on discussion for 21 June.
* JG: Maybe if we get teams to work on the selection of indicators some of the latter will naturally emerge for each domain... To work with these guys on that approach you need to know which indicators you'll be using.
* IHZ: In ESA and WA indicators have been selected by the teams. We need to ask on which basis they seleted specific indicators.
* JG: I have some questions for Carlo too. Can the SI assessment framework can be connected with GIS?
* CA: Yes. This new process would bring together a set of indicators etc.We are doing analysis with Yang and the first round in Zambia (soon in Malawi) for crop-modelling and hopefully we'll connect this with recommendation domains. It depends again on which indicators have been picked by each team.
* JG: A similar system can be used across different countries.
* CA: Yes definitely. e.g. food security. Then we would have a starting point. Jo has developed a data source etc. We are not starting from scratch. We need to know the countries asap.
* JG: I'm now, in our strategy etc. putting that we've developed a methodology that we'll be able to use in a more constrained environment and better target populations, better understand potential impact and trade-offs etc. It goes down to the question of doing systems research vs. individual technologies. Can we move to impact more quickly? We may not have the luxury of longer term research any more but we can see how the tools are working out etc. All sub-awardees of the SIIL are implementing this SI assessment framework and others (horticulture/livestock ILs) are using this quite widely.
* IHZ: At a maize CRP meeting in January measuring SI was also discussed and it was found there was no framework available. I informed the CRP Director about our SI indicator framework. He wanted to communicate this to Bruno Gerard, leader ofF Flagship 4. He did not come back to me.
* JG: Bruno is a member of the SI indicator framework steering committee.
* JG: the goal is to have the online tool up and running by December 2017 which should help standardize. It's unclear who will put the tool online.

'''ACTIONS:'''
* '''JG to share draft training manual for the SI assessment framework with PCT meeting.'''
* '''IHZ and PT to get back to research teams to understand which indicators they have chosen and why.'''
* '''PCT team to discuss the next 3-6 months implementation of this SI assessment framework.'''

==Preparations for CoP champions==
''Summary: Ewen will get back to all the champions to remind them to prepare their overview. Irmgard will contact Haroon about the 'position paper' on reach, adoption, use, impact etc. Jonathan will be assisting with the CoP session when all groups are working in parallel, to ensure they have a productive time together.''

''Conversation'':
Remind all CoP champions to come up with a status report indicating: What's happened so far, who's involved and what are they planning over the next months, what their budget looks like.
JO to be involved in the COP parallel session at the PCT-SAG meeting.
ELB to double-check and share who has confirmed attendance.
Get back to Jeroen and Luls about written update also. There is no reason they are not supported, over time, if their CoP is not successfully engaging members.

'''ACTION:'''
'''IHZ to contact Haroon on the adoption, use, impact etc.'''
'''ELB to chase everyone about their preparations...'''

==AOB and looking back at action points==
Conversation: the [[PCT_Actions| action points have been revised]].

Our next PCT meeting is in Arusha.

Pct12

2016-01-28T16:12:25Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=Africa RISING PCT meeting=
=[[#Date : 1-3 September 2015]]Date : 9 October 2015, 08.30 - 12.30=
=[[#Venue: Wageningen]]Venue: Salon Tombouctou, Azalai Salam Hotel, Bamako=

Attending: Peter Thorne (PT), Kindu Mekonnen (KM), Mateete Bekunda (MB), Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ), Jerry Glover (JG), Boni Moyo (BM) - chair, Bernard van Lauwe (BvL), Carlo Azzarri (CA), Asamaoah Larbi (AL), Ewen Le Borgne (ELB) - secretary.
----

[[pct| PCT page ]]

'''Agenda'''
# Stock take actions from the workshop (What research remains for us to do in phase 2?)
''' Review individual work streams and progress there - how to develop it further into one coherent program proposal
''' Focus on next steps, writing team, pending issues... Actually writing and delivering the phase 2 proposal
# External evaluations preparations and actions for remaining regions (including Platform documentation in WA/ESA, 2015-16 work plans etc.)
# Important program level phase 1 events/activities upcoming/planned/desirable (scientific symposium?)
# Status of SAG: members, next meeting?
# Review action points from last PCT meeting:
''' Strengthen relations with AID missions?
''' Strengthen national partners?
''' Recruit AR program administrator/manager for program level work packages
# AOB
''' Modeling follow-up?
''' Next PCT meeting?

----

=Overall action points=

{|
| || '''Action''' || '''Status''' || '''Notes and Actions update'''
|-
| 1 || Theory of change and impact pathways || By and large finalized. Not many comments on the document that was generated in Wageningen and presented in Bamako || Integrate as part of proposal '''ACTION''': PT to provide clean template to insert xyz (see more notes on that above)
|-
| 2 || Systems research || Well covered at program strategy workshop in Bamako. See results in [[Phase 2| proposal phase 2 work]] || Integrate as part of proposal
|-
| 3 || Phase 2 proposal || Largely addressed in [[AR-strategy2015| program strategy workshop]]See also [[Program_strategy_workshop_Timetable| timetable and milestones]] for this || SEE ALL ACTIONS BELOW +: '''ACTION''': PCT team to review all outputs '''ACTION''': JG will send around the new CSISA phase proposal. Parts of that could be useful. '''ACTION''': JG to connect Boni with the USAID champion writer '''ACTION''': The PCT needs to devise a consultation process. 
|-
| 3a || Evidence of success / narratives || Ongoing collection of stories/possible briefs - to check continually at PCT (what could be added to this pipeline) || '''ACTION:''' ELB to share template and criteria with chief scientists '''ACTION:''' PCT to table, on an ongoing basis, the identification of potential brief topics.
|-
| 3b || Cost-benefit analysis || Nearly there. Good model for Ghana and the methodology is there but we need to improve this. Once we improve it it's usable. ||
|-
| 3c || Engaging farmers into program activities || Nearly there. IHZ has a revised version. || '''ACTION''': IHZ will be working on this with Patrick Okori and Gundula Fischer next week '''ACTION''': IHZ to work with MB and Regis for ESA guidelines, and with Asamoah and Birhanu for Mali '''ACTION''': BvL could ask Marc Schut (who works on M&E of platforms in HumidTropics) what is possible for a program like Africa RISING
|-
| 3d || Typologies || We will be producing the first typologies by end November and we will circulate these typologies to research teams. || '''ACTION''': CA and Jeroen to circulate the typologies report in November '''ACTION''': Chief scientists to (ask their scientists to) provide a rationale about: "Under what circumstances are inputs provided that are subsidized or not"? including data to back this up. We need a trials list with 3 rows: inputs provided, subsidized, not provided. '''ACTION''': KM to circulate a format to chief scientist.
|-
| 3e || Targets and SI benefits || Real progress made there but we need to be able to explain how we came up with target figures. Integrated with vision of success || '''ACTION''': Carlo & Bernard to work further on this (DONE) '''ACTION''': Develop a brief on the targets.
|-
| 3f || [[si-framework| SI framework and indicators]] || Sieg and her group took this on and refined the template, the framework (added indicators), refined definitions, dropped some indicators. They made progress but we need to keep on eye on the complexity. They're working on a more complex data collection for the research teams. It may make them reluctant to collect so we may have to balance these objectives with the capacity we have on the ground. ||
|-
| 3g || Research questions || Not progressed much in Bamako - work pending on taking stock of all other inputs into phase 2 proposal || '''ACTION''': Writing team to revisit these research questions once all other work streams have been reviewed by the team and brought together again.
|-
| 3h || Nutrition || All outputs delivered || '''ACTION''': PCT team to review these outputs
|-
| 3i || Gender & diversity || All outputs delivered || '''ACTION''': IHZ & PT to ask Annet, Gundula, Mariama and Caroline Sobgui to look into the nutrition experiences in Mali. '''ACTION''': PCT team to review these outputs
|-
| 3j || Data management and M&E || Plans elaborated with participants. See more details in the Bamako pages || '''ACTION''': Specify, in the proposal, the data that will be collected and uploaded onto the data platform.
|-
| 3k || Comms || All outputs delivered || '''ACTION''': PCT team to review these outputs
|-
| 4 || [[review2015| USAID commissioned external evaluation]] || Ongoing || '''ACTION''': Project coordinators and chief scientists to ensure all key documents are made available for the evaluators
|-
| 5 || Strengthen relations with AID missions || To discuss || '''ACTION''': Boni to table this high up on the next PCT agenda (PCT13)
|-
| 6 || Strengthen national partners || To discuss || '''ACTION''': Boni to table this high up on the next PCT agenda (PCT13)
|-
| 7 || Recruit AR program administrator/manager for program level work packages || To discuss || '''ACTION''': Boni to table this high up on the next PCT agenda (PCT13)
|-
| 8 || [[typologies| Farm typologies work]] || ||
|-
| || [[program_sag| Science Advisory Group]] || No longer an issue or a mechanism to continue || Take this out from the list of issues for next PCT meeting
|-
|}
----
'''Notes'''

Boni welcoming everyone and thanking everyone for leading the work streams. Some are advanced, some need further work.

==Stock take actions from the workshop (What research remains for us to do in phase 2?)==
* Boni asking: what was your general sense?
* PT: On the whole it was very successful. Some of what was discussed had been discussed before but that's part of the consultation process and it wasn't excessive.
* MB: The management team was all in the 100% happy phase. Great to see committed people writing good things.
* JG: It might have been better to have a day where a small group was tidying things up and pulling it together while we're here to move the writing forward the next day. I'm a little concerned about that. For the future, it would be good to have another day and to know who the small writing team was so we could focus on the small elements. PT: on the other hand it's also good to take some time away from it for a while.
* BvL: Some of the hard nuts to crack were not very much cracked e.g. research questions/framework.
* PT: some partners complained they were not invited. We could have been more inclusive in an ideal world. CA: but it was a good number of participants.
* MB: We could have invited some of the consumers and partners e.g. Nafaka.

==='''Going through the work streams'''===
'''Evidence-based outputs'''
* ELB proposes to have the identification of briefs.
* Scientists to review the template and the criteria for these briefs.
* The briefs are expected to be published by December-January.
* The template for the briefs was developed in the Addis writeshop.
'''ACTION:''' ELB to share template and criteria with chief scientists
'''ACTION:''' PCT to table, on an ongoing basis, the identification of potential brief topics.

'''Cost-benefit analysis'''
Good model for Ghana and the methodology is there but we need to improve this. It's linked to USAID.
Once we improve it it's usable.
* BvL: CBA relates a lot to the price but in practice the price is not exactly the same. The other thing is CBA is only one of many traits. Finally, in agronomy we talk much more about the chance of having an effect rather than the average effect.
* CA: I made the same comment to Bekele and he's working on improving this.
* JG: CBA is the language of the USAID missions and this work sparked a lot of attention. There might be an opportunity to do sthg unique in Tanzania about this. We could do the CBA of individual technologies and of the system of which this technology is part. 
* MB: We should be grateful we have an economist on board and it shows the benefit. We should have economic value at various levels (farmer level etc.) and the political impact of our work. 
* JG: Is Bekele enough?

'''Farmer engagement (lumped together with''' '''R4D / innovation platforms)'''
IHZ has a revised version. Right now there's some bullet points only and ACTION: IHZ will be working on this with Patrick Okori and Gundula Fischer next week.
There is a pending issue around the stipend that is given to platform meeting participants. There should be a common policy about this. In Ethiopia there are standardized rates. There are operational costs to recover centrally so all partners agree to these rates.
JG: It would be good to have standard guidelines for each country.
'''ACTION''': IHZ to work with MB and Regis for ESA guidelines, and with Asamoah and Birhanu for Mali.

MB: We sat with the external reviewer who was stressing the R4D platforms. We have to seriously think of them as scaling platforms to be operational. He emphasized the issue of M&E for IPs.
'''ACTION''': BvL could ask Marc Schut (who works on M&E of platforms in HumidTropics) what is possible for a program like Africa RISING.
PT: we should be honest about what they are. They are research-driven entities and they fade. They are not mainstream devices for bringing development partners. There are opportunities to explore this further if they were driven by other entities. We need these entities but the sustainability of platforms...
ELB: Perhaps it would be worth looking at how platforms can be borne etc. by other entities so their potential sustainability (if felt desirable) is not dependent on a program like Africa RISING.
AL: There are many projects in IITA that use platforms. We try to see how we can pull things together from a project to the next.
IHZ: the internally commissioned evaluation team was also very interested in this.
JG: Many folks assume that platforms are good but AR should take a more cautious approach to it.
AL: FARA could be involved in a CBA.
KM: the platforms have become very useful in Ethiopia, and very powerful to table research topics and sometimes the members reject research priorities. They sometimes generate their own research topics etc. We are getting many producers etc. in the platforms.

'''Typologies'''
We worked further on this with Jeroen based on the meeting in Wageningen. We will be producing the first typologies by end November and we will circulate these typologies to research teams. We had more of a general discussion.
'''ACTION''': CA and Jeroen to circulate the typologies report in November.
For the March science symposium this could be an interesting point.
JG: Would be good to coincide this with external evaluators.
The typologies will not be used for phase 1 except for ex-post analysis.
BvL: It would be useful to use this work for informing R4D engagement etc. We should not brush it aside.
BvL: We should be able to use typologies in the phase between baby trial and impact study. When we let go of control etc. there's a lot happening.
An attempt was made 6 months ago to write down the different types of trials we have and their purposes.
JG: It would be great to see what received inputs, subsidized inputs or no input.
'''ACTION''': Chief scientists to (ask their scientists to) provide a rationale about: "Under what circumstances are inputs provided that are subsidized or not"? including data to back this up. We need a trials list with 3 rows: inputs provided, subsidized, not provided. 
'''ACTION''': KM to circulate a format to chief scientist.

'''Targets and SI benefits'''
We've made real progress with this but notes are missing.
'''ACTION''': Carlo & Bernard to work further on this.
JG: 4 out of 6 countries have links built with mission-backed projects. What FtF is after population scale impacts i.e. within the zones of influence we need to have enough impact on population overall. The missions are looking at improving income and nutrition by 20%. We're not looking for 1-2% but double-digit figures for rural farm households.
This won't be done directly by AR but you can call direct AR beneficiaries if implementing partners are reaching these through technologies provided by AR.
'''ACTION''': Develop a brief on the targets.

'''SI indicators and assessment framework'''
CA: Sieg and her group took this on and refined the template, the framework (added indicators), refined definitions, dropped some indicators. They made progress but we need to keep on eye on the complexity. They're working on a more complex data collection for the research teams. It may make them reluctant to collect so we may have to balance these objectives with the capacity we have on the ground.
PT: They said they would come to the countries for field visits which is a good moment to balance this.
JG: One conceptual change that happened was around the fact that 'if you're doing an Ag Research project you should ''at least'' collect this'. We should fix the 'at least' indicators and if we can aspire to the rest that's great. We need a minimum etc. we're not looking at the gold standard.
CA: We sat down with Phil on the logic of what we did so it was a good interaction and they understood where we were coming from - now let's see how they do this on the ground. Maybe they will find a good way to do it.
PT: They may have lost a bit of sight on indicators and metrics...

'''Phase 2 systems approach'''
BvL: It's done. We'll talk later about how to get feedback from partners. Very good discussions. Putting AR in the context of Nafaka makes sense.
The draft doc is ready and on the wiki.

'''Phase 2 research questions'''
NOT DONE.
PT: We've been talking about a number of streams that are dimensioning the research. We have our very broad umbrella questions but it seems to me that we're in danger of doing what we did in phase 1 plucking hypotheses out of thin air (and turned out to be not very practical and testable). We're not ready to formulate research questions yet. We've got to task the writing team to draft a coherent document. When all other work streams are better harmonized, the research questions will emerge. What our list of research questions ends up being is a one-page summary of the program then. They're important but let's park them until we have the rest put together more coherently and then we can have a consultation among ourselves and with 5-6 key other people to formulate coherent research questions.
IHZ: My impression of the outcomes of the workshop was that because we didn't present research questions some participants were unclear as to what we were going to do in the next phase.
PT: Agree. That's why they're useful as a synthesis of the program.
'''ACTION''': Writing team to revisit these research questions once all other work streams have been reviewed by the team and brought together again.
BvL: Is this program around the value of systems research, the role of SI, mix of both? Which program components do we want to formulate? THIS IS AN IMPORTANT POINT.
PT: It's about both but first and foremost about SI.
BvL: Should we also not look back at the research framework? It should be part of the annex to the proposal, and it can and should build upon the phase 1 research proposal.

'''Theory of change and impact pathways'''
BvL: It wasn't a huge amount. For the 2nd phase, the generic 'thing' (??) will stay but the value chain/partner work has to focus on exact examples that we'll be working with, not based on phase 1. E.g. how you bring Nafaka in the picture.
PT: The structure seems to be acceptable. People could see how the ToC/IP was done that way.
JG: An important pathway that's not emphasized enough is through government scaling. E.g. potential with EIAR in Ethiopia, Zambia...
'''ACTION''': PT to provide clean template to insert xyz

'''Phase 2 vision of success'''
We did that together with the targeting.

'''Phase 2 scaling approaches'''
We did a lot of work and were pleasantly surprised that people who are not scaling experts managed to give good contributions.
MB: Scaling has to be done with development partners so the examples we give have to support that.
KM: We also emphasized research (questions) for scaling.

'''Phase 2 nutrition strategy'''
All outputs delivered.
MB: there's a recommendation about having a nutritionist / post-harvest specialist.
BM: Is current funding structure effective for nutrition interventions? Their protocol is funded like any other but perhaps we can cover nutrition interventions as a cross-cutting element. Another issue was to encourage teams to think about ethical clearance on nutritional issues.
IHZ: This was included in the engagement standards. Ethical clearance has to be there.
AL: Based on my experience with nutrition work in Ghana, one person may not be able to handle it because they are working on community-based nutrition which is quite different from looking at nutrient contents etc. We should link up with the Ministries of Health and Agriculture. And we have to be clear on what type of nutrition work we want to do.

'''Phase 2 gender strategy'''
All outputs delivered.
Annet raised the issue of budget for gender. It might need to be allocated clearly to the gender component.
Also elements mentioned about communicating gender, relating with nutrition and relating with M&E.
PT: People put commitments without any consideration for the amount of resources required. If we had a gender dimension to each component our gender specialist couldn't run it on her own.
MB: It should be more than gender but also about equity, diversity etc.
JG: It responds to USAID's requirements to have gender-disaggregated data. It seems the nutrition field schools in Mali have had great benefits and some of the missions were very interested in that. Is it possible to evaluate these in the program and consider a program-wide nutrition field school activity? It might be one of the best ways to make progress on gender and nutrition and have a set of activities cutting across the program... A research & development project around field schools?
AL: Review what's been done in Mali and write it up.
'''ACTION''': IHZ & PT to ask Annet, Gundula, Mariama and Caroline Sobgui to look into the nutrition experiences in Mali.

'''Data management and M&E'''
CA: We discussed this in the group and everyone here was present. We have feedback from participants.
PT: What's different in data management?
CA: When there's a data manager on the ground, they will work with the research team to collect data based on the templates we need for technologies, SI indicators etc. so they'll make sure this happens. Central control on data will still be with IFPRI, DC but it will be more decentralized.
We hope to have data matched among us. Different information at household level, plot level, soil samples, agronomic trials. Once we have an identificator for a farmer, we can have a laminated card that the farmer can use.
IHZ: Last week I had the visit of a CGIAR auditor who is looking at data management in CG centres. She had lots of questions about data etc. There were additional questions e.g. is there a back-up of CKAN? Who curates data? I forwarded this to Carlo.
CA: We had a long discussion and 2-3 most important questions are: if we have a procedure for handing over data to partner institutions (yes: we put them in a central repository), how we monitor the 12-month data protection period etc.
JG: Are we clearly defining which data will be collected, the responsibility of IHZ and PT to ensure the data is identified etc. All the data now seems a lot more than needs to be collected. Make sure there is a clearly identifiable list of data that will be collected and uploaded.
CA: When the proposal is submitted, we should also refer to data and then we can monitor this.
'''ACTION''': Specify, in the proposal, the data that will be collected and uploaded onto the data platform.

'''Comms'''
All outputs delivered.
To be reviewed

'''Phase 2 time table and milestones'''
We had brief feedback on our next steps so we need to firm this up now to deliver a full proposal in May 2016.
We will identify a writing team (3-4 team) who will then have a face-to-face meeting, assign duties, write and agree to meet again.
JG: Do we need a contractor / proposal coordinator to make sure everyone hands in their bits etc. We need to make sure everything's stuck to.
The process is for JG to bring forward the program proposal to a panel for a 5' presentation and 5' Q&A. Within the research division I will have to have buy-in. The potential problem is if the Congress wants to finance food aid, not ag development. We want to make sure it's a highest priority at the top, hence the importance of hitting on CBAs and other unique selling points for the Missions which will be consulted. We have Tracy Powell in Ethiopia. We need to build the same buy-in in the missions. That's the competition for AR. In May I need a rough draft to circulate among my allies in the research division. I'm working with a local champion who is also editing etc.
'''ACTION''': JG will send around the new CSISA phase proposal. Parts of that could be useful.
'''ACTION''': JG to connect Boni with the USAID champion writer

'''Suggested writing team''': Project coordinators (PT, IHZ, BvL, CA + PB). Lead author: '''Peter Thorne'''.
People will be co-opted to write certain sections
And review at the next PCT if this arrangement is working out.

The writing team will try to meet up face-to-face tentatively for January-February.
As part of the next steps there will be a parallel process with consultations that will continue and with inputs.
Boni will be the time keeper of this process.

'''ACTION''': The PCT needs to devise a consultation process.

JG: By June I will share more information about exact deadlines.
BvL: Who will consult the scaling partners? Chief scientists ok, but do you see this happen?
JG: In appendices you should have MoUs, LoIs etc. to show that consultations have happened.

IHZ: We need some examples of participatory approaches. Funds needed for training and coaching on these?
JG: It's my perception that there's quite some inconsistencies in what participatory research means. Some national partners in particular may have a patchy understanding of this.

'''ACTION''': ELB to pull together all materials and prepare phase 2 proposal page...

'''External evaluations preparations and actions for remaining regions (including Platform documentation in WA/ESA, 2015-16 work plans etc.)'''
It's on the wiki.
All key documents have to be there.
This is an ongoing point.

==Important program level phase 1 events/activities upcoming/planned/desirable (scientific symposium?)==
The only event is the science symposium: Do we hold it or not and if so, when?
JG: Consider a phase 1 conference in October (we'll need carry-over funds) rather than distract your proposal-writing?
CA: This could be feedback.
ELB: Perhaps we could do some virtual seminars across regions.
MB: I hope we produce something, not just organize an event.
There could also be some project-level regional scientific symposiums. That can always be organized.
'''ACTION''': MB and AL to think about organizing a regional scientific symposium.

==Status of SAG: membership, next meeting?==
IHZ: Where are we now with recruiting new members?
JG: Don't recruit any new people. They gave us inputs and take this issue up again for phase 2.
== ==
== Review action points from last PCT meeting: Postponed to next meeting... ==
* Strengthen relations with AID missions?
* Strengthen national partners?
* Recruit AR program administrator/manager for program level work packages

'''ACTION''': Boni to highlight this higher up in the agenda.

==Any other business==

* Modeling follow-up?
* Next PCT meeting

'''Modeling follow-up''': There is a perception we should use our data to do more and particularly for modeling. There's a proposal for ESA (backed by MSU) and there's interest from IFPRI. We are well equipped to do some work on this ourselves, no need to extend that to the program. ICRISAT will do it for Mali anyhow and if other countries want to prioritize this they can use their budget for that.
PT: At household scale etc. there could be some interesting modeling work but it can be done in-house.

'''Next (virtual) PCT meeting planned for: Wednesday 18 November 2015 at 4pm EAT'''. Just PCT members.


=Parked for now - Phase 1 action list, some overlap with above=

{|
| Action || Discussion points/actions || Format || Team
|-
| Explain and document and capitalize on our system-level perspectives. Define AR identity and unique selling points - roles, beneficiaries, value added … || || info in the proposal || Irmgard, Peter T, Peter B., Kindu, Asamoah, Mateete, Bernard, Jerry, Carlo
|-
| Document and contextualize impact/adoption through data. Explain/document R&D impact and institutional impact. Carry out socioeconomic analysis ad risks. || || reports,flyers, materials with evidence, case studies per country, some for symposium? Selling our key USPs - systems, the 5 SI domains || Carlo+4, Bekele, Asamoah, Mateete, Peter T., Jonathan, Simret, Peter B.,
|-
| Identify and document technology packages and protocols (link to farmer typologies) || || database of technologies; some other types of derivative products (factsheets) || ALL through the PMMT, Peter T., Jeroen, Carlo, bernard
|-
| Develop and use system-wide SI indicators; AR own small group to speed this up. || Discuss at October workshop || || Irmgard, Peter T., Bernard, Jerry, Carlo
|-
| Data management: farm/farmer data; queryable database of AR farmers || LATER || PT/CA to discuss soon || IFPRI team, ILRI, in collaboration with the research teams
|-
| Boosting cross-project science learning, science symposium || LATER || || Peter B., Irmgard, Peter T.
|-
| Projects to clarify R4D/IPs roles, objectives and approach - especially to IP members and participants. ESA and WA to document their platforms and guidelines and practices || || useful for the external review team / include in symposium maybe || Mateete, Asamoah, Peter T.
|-
| Recruit AR manager/administrator for program level work packages || LATER || July/aug pct meeting discuss further. || Irmgard, Peter T., Peter B., Carlo
|-
| Recruit M&E data staffing/people into each regional project || LATR || include in phase 2 based on phase 1 experiences. TOR by Carlo; recruitment joint effort || Irmgard, Peter T., Peter B., Carlo
|-
| Strengthen relations with AID missions || LATER || do streams B and C for missions. Use Tracey in Ethiopia || chief scientists; PT, IHZ
|-
| Strengthen national partners || LATER || YES || Mateete, Asamoah, Peter T.
|-
|}

[[#discussion]]

ESA review meeting2015 16

2015-09-29T08:42:13Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=East and Southern Africa Review & Planning meeting=
14-16 July 2015
Venue: Nkopola Lodge, Mangochi, Malawi

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Objectives:
* To review progress made in 2014
* To plan activities until end of Phase I, with a special focus on disciplinary integration, technology refinement and product documentation

''All outputs (PPTs and final notes etc.) are being processed and will shortly be available on this page.''

* [https://www.flickr.com/photos/africa-rising/sets/72157654078700624| Selected event photos] 

==Agenda==

Day 1 (Tuesday 14 July 2015):
* 08.00 Registration
* 08.30 Welcome and agenda (official welcome, objectives, agenda, participants)
* 09.30 Review of Research Output 1 (IFPRI / WUR) also covering data management
''' [[:File:ESARP2015_Azzari.pptx| See the presentation by Carlo Azzarri]] (IFPRI)
''' [[:File:ESARP2015_Groot.pptx| See the presentation by Jeroen Groot]] (WUR)
* 10.30 ''Break''
* 11.00 Review of platform development - [[:File:ESARP2015_R4D_Hilbur.ppt| See the presentation]] by Per Hilbur for the Babati platform
* 11.30 Review of Research Output 2: Thematic groups (these are only partly thematically coherent groups, but the main idea is to have different groups mixing all sites)
''' [''These presentations were replaced by site-specific presentations in the end, based on the template that was shared with all research teams originally. These are introduced below'']
'''* See the presentation by the Babati group (Excel template) - Upcoming
'''* [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_KongwaKiteto.xlsx| See the reporting presentation by the Kongwa Kiteto team]] (Excel template)
'''* [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_PlanningReporting_Malawi.xls| See the reporting presentation by the Malawi team]] (Excel spreadsheet)
'''* See the presentation by the Zambia team (Presentation and Excel template)
'''''' [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_Zambia_adoption adaptation 2015.ppt| PowerPoint presentation]]
'''''' [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_Zambia.xls| Excel spreadsheet]]
''' Group 1: Crop-livestock integration
'''* Integrated crop, soil health and livestock technologies (Kongwa/Kiteto - A. Kimaro) - See the presentation (upcoming)
'''* Livestock intensification (Malawi - B. Nyoka) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Nyoka.pptx| See the presentation]]
'''* Improved livestock feeds (Babati - B. Lukuyu) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Lukuyu.pptx| See the presentation]]
''' Group 2: Genetic diversification and intensification / MLND
'''* Genetic intensification (Kongwa-Kiteto - P. Okori) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Okori.pptx| See the presentation]]
'''* Maize and legume variety diversification and enhanced seed delivery (Zambia - P. Setimela) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Setimela.ppt| See the presentation]]
'''* Management of MLND (Babati - B. Jumbo) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Jumbo.ppt| See the presentation]]
* 13.00 ''Lunch break''
* 14.00 Review of Research Output 2 (continued)
''' Group 3: Integrated crops (maize vegetables legumes)
'''* Crop management efficiency (Babati - J. Kihara) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Kihara.ppt| See the presentation]]
'''* Vegetable integration (Babati - I. Dominick) - [[:File:ESARP2015_DominicK.ppt| See the presentation]]
'''* Intensification of maize-legume systems (Malawi - R. Chikowo) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Nyoka_Joyce.ppt| See the presentation]]
'''* Enhancing adoption and adaptation of GAPs (maize/legume cropping - Zambia - W. Mupangwa) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Mupangwa.ppt| See the presentation]]
''' Group 4 (Myco/aflatoxins, storage and processing)
'''* Food storage and mycotoxin management (Babati - G. Mahuku) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Mahuku.pptx| See the presentation]]
'''* Aflatoxin mitigation (Kongwa/Kiteto - S. Anitha) - See the presentation (upcoming)
'''* Nutrition and food processing (Malawi - A. Msukwa)
'''* Soybean processing and product development (Zambia)
* 15.45 ''Break''
* 16.15 Feedback from the four groups and collective reflection (implications for planning 2015-16)
* 17.15 Close
* '''See the presentation of the SEARLA project''' by Richard Lamboll (NRI, UK) - [[:File:ESARP2015_SEARLA_Lamboll.pptx| See the presentation]]

Day 2 (Wednesday 15 July 2015):
* 08.30 Presentations from socio economics group (Bekele / Gundula / Apurba)
''' [[:File:ESARP2015_Fischer.pptx| See the presentation]] by Gundula Fischer.
''' [[:File:ESARP2015_Kotu.pptx| See the presentation]] by Bekele Kotu.
* 09.00 Update on the climate change project (Robert Richardson) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Richardson.pptx| See the presentation]] by Robert Richardson.
* 09.15 Update on various program developments (Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Hoeschle-Zeledon.pptx| See the presentation]] by Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon.
* 09.35 Update on the scaling project (Haroon Sseguya) - [[:File:ESARP2015_Sseguya scaling.ppt| See the presentation]] by Haroon Sseguya
* 10.00 ''Break''
* 10.30 Group work - Introduction of 2015-2016 plans (short introduction and larger Q&A session) by sites, including pilot scaling plans...
* 12.30 ''Lunch break''
* 13.30 Group work (continued)
* 15.00 ''Break''
* 15.30 Group work (continued)
* 16.30 Review of progress with country plans
* 17.15 Close

SEE THE COUNTRY REPORTING PRESENTATIONS IN THE NOTES BELOW.

Evening presentation by Richard Lamboll (about the DFID-funded Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Research and Learning in Africa [SAIRLA] program).

Day 3 (Thursday 16 July 2015):
* 08.30 Group work continued
* 10.00 ''Break''
* 10.15 Plenary presentations of improved plans 
* 11.30 Agreements to make integration and scaling up work
* 12.00 Next steps and final reflections
* 12.30 / 13.00 ''Lunch break''
* 14.00 Steering Committee meeting / in parallel: Comms training refresher - [[:File:ESA RP2015_Odhong_Using Africa RISING Templates.pptx| See the presentation by Jonathan Odhong]].
* 17.30 Close and cocktail

Background materials
* [[:File:Travel guide for participants - ESARevPlan2015.pdf| Travel guide for participants]]

[[:File:Revplan2015Participantsfinal-0608.xlsx| Participants]]

Outputs

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Notes of the meeting

=Welcome=

==Victor Manyong (IITA Regional Director ESA, Chair Africa RISING ESA Steering Committee)==

Welcome to this meeting of AR. This is the 4th year of the project, which has really matured. It’s a long way since we started. We have meetings every year, we work on different teams, we meet in the field or in many other occasions. This year is a special year. If we look at our work from the beginning we have made the most important part of our journey. It’s important to look backwards at our goals to remind them for ourselves.

I would also like to say that for the CGIAR system this year has seen some changes to our CGIAR research programs. A major change is that the CRP under which we were (systems research) is no longer working, but it doesn’t mean system research is over. System research will continue in the framework of the new CRP ‘Agrifood system’ on roots tubers and bananas, and the maize one.

Let me welcome you all on behalf of IITA for this project and for the steering committee (SC) of this program.

==Felix Chipojola (Steering Committee member, Malawi)==

I’m based at Lilongwe Research Station in the Government building. On behalf of the Director of Research my humble function is to welcome you all to this Africa RISING meeting in Malawi. Enjoy the warm heart of Africa and I hope you are really blessed as you are right at the lake. Should you have issues please contact the hotel management. Once again welcome to Malawi.

==Irmgard Hoeschle Zeledon (Program coordinator for ESA)==

Good morning everybody. I hope everybody who arrived last night is reenergized. I would like to welcome Peter Carbury the new DDG Research for ICRISAT and ?? from USAID Malawi, as well as Richard Lamboll from NRI and his colleague from South Africa, as they will tell us the purpose of their visit here.

I welcome Asamoah Larbi the chief scientist for West Africa hoping he will contribute from his perspective.

It’s the 4th time we meet and the 2nd time we meet in Malawi. I wish we could meet in the growing season to do a field visit but we have to review the past year before we plan and so it’s not possible to align this with the season. Last year colleagues from TZ and ZAM came here to see the works.

At our first meeting in 2012 in Arusha we had to establish the direction for the program for the next 4 years. We had to form the research teams at that time. It was not an easy process. We have functional partnerships between people and institutions. Your research is really valued by all the USAID missions. You have done a good job so far.

This meeting in 2015 is crucial as we have one full season for research ahead of us before Africa RISING comes to an end. We are building the basis for the program to continue. We have worked with development partners. Those of you who have attended these meetings know that these are very intense working days so it’s necessary we are fully involved and actively participating for these days we have available.

I wish you all a good meeting and good discussion. Enjoy your stay at Lake Malawi.

==Objectives==

Mateete Bekunda, Chief sweep/whip, and chief scientist for ESA.

Our research impact pathway illustrates what we have done from 0-2 years, 2-4 years. We are in the 4th year so we have to integrate technologies. We have to identify the gaps.

The project has matured in terms of being together and in terms of innovation. We’ve been lucky to have internal evaluations commissioned by IITA. They’ve identified the strengths and weaknesses of what we have done.

Strengths: we have effective biophysical technologies.

Weaknesses: we have failed to make them attractive. The main component missing is socio-economics. In your presentations you will have socio-economists to work with us on our proposals to attract stakeholders we are developing these technologies for. For gender we have Gundula Fischer. She will give a presentation, pass a questionnaire etc. For socio-economics.

We are also going to have an external evaluation, commissioned by USAID. They’re going to see what our internal evaluators have identified and whether we’ve responded to these. One of their comments is about the logframe that is not complete. Since we haven’t addressed the issue of the logframe we’ll have to put it in good shape together. The 2nd issue is that the CGIAR is reforming and for USAID we have to prove that farming systems research is useful and we have to prove we are the experts in this. We have to show this through the products we are developing.

We wanted to see these presentations beforehand and we haven’t seen most of them but I expect these presentations to address the points put in the template we developed for this matter. We need to put our data together on CKAN – Carlo can testify to us if we are doing this.

==Introduction of the participants==

=RO1 and talk show=

Q> How do you feel about RO1, are you involved?
* Ro1 and Ro2 are research systems which keeps all of us keep in touched. What I like most is the way it is implemented. It has agro-ecology and the site selection went quickly and target the technologies in the right places.
* The typology is responding very slowly and it is targeting the technologies in different farming system. The typology is the key to target the technology and still we have time to work on this.
* Tthe system started off very well and it will help us to have framework and boundaries. We need framework to draw some of the lessons and good practices.
* The science part is a little bit weak, the next stage should focus on the delivery of science.

Q> What is the breakthrough, big achievement from Ro1?
* What I like most was the whole theme of farming typology, when you go to village they look different in terms of adoption but on the use of technology they are same .
* The idea of typology make sense to speed up adopting the technologies
* We started to work on the data we collected and the first thing we saw is the typologies are very much different
* The second typology is well received and working in different agro-ecologies and applied in different district. It is going on now and we are learning from each other and our past experiences.

Q> What is your Aha moment?
* I have two aha moments; both of them are on the data; the first one is, there is consistency across the countries, the second one from all over the institutions we have the data and I am happy with it.
* The research students doing on RO1 in Malawi, the sites they are working on are very limited. I would be happy if the students get a chance to see the sequencing of the cropping system, if the student at the local level see how the decision making happen, rotational system which is more suited to the farms need, With this limited land how it affects the decision of farmers and seeing the sustainable intensification play role for adoption is very interesting.

Q> What is the next obvious steps?
* The next step is look at integrated picture and how decisions making happens in the household level
* Land scape and community level analysis
* Carlo: finally we collected the data. We need to make sense of the data. That is what will be doing in the next months

Q> What is the critical lesson from RO 1 that inform phase 2:
* By default RO1 supposed to inform phase 2, we need to complete the work on the typology this will feed in the next phase. Looking in to the matured technologies to scaling up. I will urge the team to complete the typology work so that it will definitely inform the phase 2 
* Our gender stories are weak and not coming through. If we have to roll up these technologies we need to think critically who is going to use them? The numbers are critical but they are not buying the technologies. What we need to think critically there are the technologies can do at least 3 things to women.
* I think at this level we are mixing and looking at the effort on adoption, we can work on the scaling up, we should try to leverage and map our lesson and learnings.
* We collect data on Gender but we will try our best effort to include gender in the typology

Q> Beyond targeting research, how do you see this type of work in negotiating with different system, what can you do with different systems the typologies?
* I think when we move the typologies to system analysis, we use different farming system and when we take different community/ different farming system, we are really integrating that work in to research approach.
* Typologies were been used in different systems

Q> How can these typologies are different in different ecology and categorizing the farmers that should be used to the system?
* The key thing is managing the expectation, typology is the snapshot of technologies, if you look at in different way, the Africa RISING typology might not work for phase 2, things will be changing and it might not be working in the same way.

Q> The experience from Zambia, it looks the whole issue comes after the activities. This was not guiding the team
* It is not a matter of being before or after, it is about a collaboration the way of working together and find intervention in farming analysis. The typologies might come early or late but it should look in to the different farming system

Q> We are talking about targeting typology and which are the promising technologies. The typologies are specific, how can we link the typologies to farmers need, technologies and adoption?
* The typologies are constructed on the demand side, how farmers should be categorized, these should be the role of the chief scientists. 
* The typology we used in different groups are driven by livestock, let’s say we use medicine for livestock, you are already getting idea b/c there is demand. Service provision and response to the farming community will be very efficient.
* The need authority on the demand side, it is very much a research focus and how can we supply to the demand side.
* Typologies are dynamic. We can use our typologies in the way of impact assessment, how far our intervention moved from typology 1 to 2 , how far are we changing lives

Q> Household typology issue, if we say household typology at farm level, I don’t think it will be complete, we have to consider landscape typology as well, the typology needs to be designed in such a manner
* We need to structure the typology to include household for decision making
* It should be an integrated approach, we don’t consider landscape alone, farmers can be grouped according to landscape.
* We have catheterization of typologies to test the hypothesis, try to understand the technologies and how to adopt them, for the purpose of our research these typologies are okay but when we think of scaling up we need to see other different complex system, in to value chain approach. This is how is see the typology

Q> Challenges of scaling up, implantation challenge into considering the extension system?
* We have the same concern, the first question we got from bureau of security was how many do you want to target in numbers? We don’t know how we are going to get there? But we are not alone in Africa RISING, we can do this with our partners.
* In some project scaling happening, we need to show something is really working, looking in to leading farmers, and within a community collaboration with private sector and NGOs are very important
* In Kingowa kiteto, you need to have adopters in the system, they are the one who can trigger, they are leaders, and majority of the community doesn’t seem they are adopters, they are smallholder farmers. This is where I see the typologies helping, we need to have a public sector. If we don’t have public sectors, agriculture can’t be subsidizing, we need to subsidize knowledge transfer. Without private sectors involvement, scaling up doesn’t work. They are who is guiding the investment.

Q> Carlo in your presentation you mentioned cost benefit analysis, how do you see IFPRI is collaborating to Africa RISING?
* We are working closely with Bekele. We realized that we need more information. We need to work in collaboration with researchers to do cost benefit analysis of each technology, not only providing increasing the yield and the impact assessment. This is a crucial moment on what we have done and what to include

Q> The typologies, I would like to know the factors you put to this production and marketing site? We have the results based on the typologies,
* We are doing the negotiation with chief scientist to agree on what farmers need
* Nothing decided yet

=Platform development=

==Babati==

Platforms are enabling system innovation.

We are still in the beginning. First meeting in October 2014 to constitute leadership, research activities etc. Management retreat Jan. 2015 and work plan 2015-16 and comms strategy. Some activities are funded, others not. Examples of activities: grassroots plaforms in 6 wards, comms and promotion of JUMBA activities.

Reflections/challenges: formalization (bureaucracy), strategic in character but not operational, local facilitation & leadership, buy-in from NGOs and private sector, connect to existing networks, go to ward/village level, find balance with research coordination/activities, M&E of progress.

'''Q&A''':

* '''Q''': What is different about Ethiopia platforms?
* '''A''': The approach is that you have a platform team and at the next level. There’s staff running platforms at district level and there’s also facilitators at village level. It’s also more centered around social scientists.
* '''Q''': you wanted to start afresh but are building from existing platforms – can you make sense of this for us?
* '''A''': In some places you have existing groups etc. that you can make use of. You can lean on sthg that exists already, which also means you inherit the problems and the good things. We decided to use existing platforms but we picked some different stakeholders. We hope we can develop this fully in the future.
* '''Q''': What is your marketing activity around market price etc.?
* '''A''': Some of these are suggested by platform members.
* '''Q''': What are human resource needs to get the platform moving?
* '''A''': Just more people: we can’t run everything from IITA in Arusha etc. And there are other needs e.g. local facilitators. We also need to come onto a common approach.

==Kongwa-Kiteto==

KK is a dry place. We have partners, community leaders, district leaders, private sector, public sector, producers etc. and the latter were quite suspicious about who is part of the platforms. We have prioritized what stakeholders would like to focus on: wrapping up their productivity on livestock and crops (on that, some things we thought were important were not for them e.g. maize). We met again in 2013-2014 and this time we invited higher level leadership from both districts. The 3rd meetings were about taking results to the higher/policy level. They gave us some appointment etc. And these are some benefits: you can share information in a simple way and it goes to the policy-maker which uses that to change decisions/policies.

We also found out that we can have these platforms at different scales etc. e.g. village but you won’t have much impact (because it’s influenced by district/national level).

Another thing we noticed: working at local scale helps you place your work in context with early adopters that help us penetrate and learn with communities. E.g. we completed a gender study about youth and women in agriculture and we observed that there was a very strong link of how much people can turn work into profit-making opportunities – this can create useful ways to attract young people etc. Platforms are not just about rolling out but can use as learning mechanisms. But sometimes actors have more money than you and can distort your agenda.
* '''Q''': How do you maintain communication, which is so important?
* '''A''': In TZ you work with munyekiti (chairman of the system). Use the system that works.
* '''Q''': One of the nice things is to use the platform for research. You’ve done some work on gender etc. One of the weaknesses highlighted is the documentation. How are you feeding this into the learning process that we want to encourage in the project.
* '''A''': Documentation is taking place e.g. gender study is a cyclic process. We also have an ongoing nutrition project. But there is room for improvement.

==Malawi==

The process in Malawi in Ntcheu and Dedza: since we started interacting with district actors, we made it very clear that we wanted the different partners in the district. There are lots of partners in the district. Ag officers are part of the process (as custodians of the process). We found in both districts that there are lots of NGOs (World Vision etc.) which have set up lots of committees. We are working with people in the value chain. We have managed to hold 2 formal meetings every year – normally a big meeting in August to plan actions, and then in June for joint field trips. This went ok for Ntcheu etc. In Dedza we had a ‘green launch’. We have had a lot of turnover from partners which leave the institutional memory etc. So we decided in May 2015 to have another stakeholder meeting in Dedza and ended with 80% of new participants. This reflects the problems from the last review.

We need to continuously revive the process. The big question is sustainability and facilitation, beyond Africa RISING. How to ensure that the stakeholders that are there can move beyond the active research. Our platforms are about increasing collaboration with NGOs on their own individual programs. Participation has been the biggest challenge.

* '''Q''': Regis raises very critical questions about sustainability about these R4D platforms. Listening to all 3 presenters, the usefulness of these platforms seems clear but the project cycle is coming to an end and there’s very high expectations about these platforms. Is there a strategy for sustainability?
* '''A''': We all know that when the project ends we would love for the stakeholders to keep meeting but we recognize (in Malawi) that existing institutions will always be there. If we started a completely new structure, it would collapse. But by involving institutions and creating a shared vision we can perpetuate the platforms. This is the crux.
* '''Q''': 80% new participants… Was it 80% of new institutions also? Or just individuals… In Ntcheu every time apparently a new member hosts/chairs the meeting, which is perceived as excellent ownership.
* '''A''': The institutions were not new, the people were. But the institutional memory is held in individuals. From Ntcheu yes and that is an example of ownership e.g. World Vision sees convening a meeting around AR and other issues as valuable. It brings some interest that reflects ownership.
''' To be sustainable, we need to articulate ideas with the district council and if they adopt it there we don’t have any issues. Otherwise we may continue supporting them but until they’re part of the platform it will be difficult to be sustainable.

=Site presentations (reporting)=
[''Notes from Q&A coming up soon'']
==Babati==
See the reporting presentation by the Babati team [''Coming soon''] (Excel spreadsheet)

==Kongwa Kiteto==
[[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_KongwaKiteto.xlsx| See the reporting presentation by the Kongwa Kiteto team]] (Excel spreadsheet).

==Malawi==
[[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_PlanningReporting_Malawi.xls| See the reporting presentation by the Malawi team]] (Excel spreadsheet)
This sheet is the same as the planning sheet.

==Zambia==
See the reporting presentation by the Zambia team:
* [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_Zambia_adoption adaptation 2015.ppt| PowerPoint presentation]]
* [[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Reporting_Zambia.xls| Excel spreadsheet]]

Questions and answers:
* Q: The self-adopters babies, are they matching the household and how?
''' We did benefit cost rations for output value and we calculated the benefit value
''' with self-adopter babies, we have some , we need to do a bit of more, we haven’t made conscious effort on documenting the result but we know some of them are there
''' With regards to achievement vs. potential, if you calculate the archived yield with local yield you will get the numbers we have presented
''' Feed component, there are technologies we are not inventing them, feed processing machine, it is a known and tested technology elsewhere and if we can get the machine to farmers field, we are confident about it and it will work well.t
* Q: The column, potential beneficiaries, this technology are related to male, how is it gender segregated?
''' We are aggregated the gender component, women are also involved
* Q: It is a bit risky to use one selected yield and use it for others
''' The target technology should mature to be drought tolerant.
''' The rationales is outliers and outgrowers we don’t want to separate this
''' The verities are not new, they have been spread, we really want to balance what we want to do
* Q: The benefits, yield not increased, how do you calculate that at, if we have to do cost benefit analysis?
''' form Tanzania we have received one meta data, make sure data is shared and collected
* Q:of the flag ship technologies, is there any analysis which deals with integration
''' The integration is the adaptation part and farmers testing
''' We are working on Babati, it is inter-cropping and testing verities, there are quite a lot of integration on that aspect.
''' Some of the integration is not visible, when people measure the effect on environment, we can’t put all together.
''' Carlo needs to watch out and he has to make sure the presented date is correct
''' The good thing of this template is we can follow up with people, this will give us an opportunity to monitor the activities
* Q: what are farmers preferences with the technologies?
''' we didn’t present all our work here, verities of beans, we tested them with each farmers groups, the mother nutrients with mother trials.
''' One of the technologies we are promoting is goat breeding. The students are working on evaluating feed resources, and helping farmers to link with other farmers.
* Q: How far the biophysical scientist is refereeing the data?
''' IFPRI’s Baseline and ours are concurred
''' We benefited from the input from IFPRI , we did with few villages and we are confident to expand that
* Q:How Malawi is handling PGNP storage?
''' We have data on PGNP productivity, those data show as the intensity of the PGNP
* Q: Most of these technologies are new, they all involve increasing risks, and how do you manage risk in this technologies?
''' Our research program certifying in different agro ecology. Level of resource used also aligned to protect the agro ecology
* Q: Maize yield is higher than legume? Did you look at the system and the economic analysis?
''' In Malawi the price of fertilizers and the market value of maize is quite different. Fertilizer are very expensive. We want farmer to get access to fertilizers. Different farmers group want cheaper technology and they choose legume as it is cheap. There are different pathways to different farming typologies.
* Q: The activities, are they Labor intensive?
''' The activities are very labor intensive.
''' Now we are now going through 3 cycles. We are going with complete set of fertilizers
''' More cheaper to farmers are more economically accessible
''' The choice b/n the two legumes are based on with farmers preferences. Soya bean and groundnuts are the very growing nuts and farmers preferred to invest on them
* Q. When do you have the information on data analysis?
''' We will send by the end of August
* '''Q''': Are technologies affordable for low-resource farmers?
* '''A''': We also target farmers that are better endowed. We are mainly targeting labor-constrained households.
* '''Q''': About your data on segregation of men/women hosting trials: what does it mean? We saw many women hosted trials but if you go to field days there are more men than women. Why?
* '''A''': Our gender-dis-aggregated data: ‘women-hosted’ households could be male-headed. When we go to plot level, who actually manages it? These are two different things and we are interested in who manages the plots / makes decisions about what needs to be done. As for field days, we invite everyone to join. Sometimes we have more men attending. There’s potential there for gender studies.
''' In one of the districts we found men to be hectic. In the Eastern province, when we have equipment to be used, men participate. When there isn’t men take a backseat. In trainings women participated but equipment (e.g. seedling systems) attracts men.
* '''Q''': About ripping: how do you use it? (for replanting?). Ripper works well for some kind of soil types…
* '''A''': The way we are using the ripper in the Eastern province is specifically to prepare the planting. We use the ripper to open the fallows. The main challenge is on the soil types e.g. you open the fallow, the soil collapses and farmers then see that the seed is not deep enough. Rippers are used on sandy soils.
* '''Q''': What is the basis to say that Cost-Benefit ratio is e.g. 50% advantage for soybean? Can you please clarify?
* '''A''': When we started our baseline survey, for soybean it was 0 ton etc. we have compared good agronomic practices and are comparing yield differences (an increase of 50%). THIS NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED TO BE IN THE CORRECT COLUMN (YIELD, NOT ECONOMIC BENEFIT) ON THE TEMPLATE.
''' Africa RISING wasn’t very keen to go into conservation agriculture. Eventually we agreed but CIMMYT would prepare tradeoff analysis of CA for the treatment site. Every time I get a report from this work I look for the tradeoff analysis but we never got it. It would be a good piece of work to publish.
'''* è We are collaborating with Wageningen on this around typologies and tradeoffs.
* '''Q''': There’s confusion between physical and economic benefits. And about the number of farmers, we are not only referring to the AR farmers but also counting the SIMLEZA ones. We have to be careful when reporting – otherwise we miss the attribution effect. I would suggest substituting agroecological zones 1-2-3 to ??
* '''A''': We made a start there but it wasn’t explicitly on comparing CA with other practices – that would be a next step.
''' Our collaboration with WUR took a slow start so we haven’t yet responded to expectations.
''' It would be difficult to say that ''this is AR'' and ''this is SIMLEZA''.
''' If we have integrated technologies we are with Africa RISING. How are we treating this?
'''* We can’t distinguish the technologies. It looks like all technologies on this file are AR but they aren’t.
* '''Comment:''' You all appear to be saying that you have achieved some results etc. with the data you have etc. (yield increase etc.) but then my question is: why have you been shy of sharing these as success stories? Our donor is always looking for these. Does it mean you are less confident about what you have? We need to think about this…

=Presentation on socio-economics=
See the presentation by Bekele Kotu
(''Apurba Shee talked over some key points about socio-economics.'')

Technology adoption: How technologies are adopted and what are determining factors and constraints for it? What is the process of adoption?
In Babati we’ve done some risk analysis and there will be implementing strategies aligned with this. Market-based research following.

Comparing different technologies that are being tested. There is cost-benefit analysis being done but from an economic standpoint, impact matters. For specific technologies we can do randomized control trials e.g. comparing maize intercropping vs. maize+fertilizer.

* '''Q''': We have to have multiple variables so please which ones are you referring to? What is the definition of adoption? How can we get to that while we are trying to see if technologies are working?
* '''A''': What we have started now and missed in the first 3 years is to study how adoption takes place. Adoption is not expected from us in this phase, that’s what we have to work on with development partners. But we don’t have a clear definition for technology adoption.

=Presentation on gender=
See the presentation by Gundula Fischer

A first step is a gender capacity assessment.

Six core gender capacities: capacity to include women in leadership etc., to adopt new approaches around gender issues.

A second step would be strengthening cooperation in the investigation of selected technologies that comprise biophysical and socio-economic scientists.

Documentation should be there! Stronger integration of gender analysis questions in ongoing research.

* '''Comment''': in Ethiopia they do this capacity assessment etc. and it’s requested by USAID.
* '''Comment''': Documentation of L&F – please share it!
''' Yes. Our questionnaire is also based on the UN assessment but mostly based on the L&F gender assessment.
* '''Q''': Description of gender analysis is mostly about diagnostics. How do you deal with behavior change activities?
* '''A''': Gender analysis is often conducted at the beginning of the project to have a diagnostic, but it should be ongoing to monitor how new interventions could have impact on gender relations.
* '''Q''': So the gender specialist is outside the system, observing etc. but when do they engage and look for opportunities for interventions?
* '''A''': There are 2 different approaches to that: gender-responsive (try not to increase gender imbalances) and there gender specialists see how to navigate. The other approach is to challenge gender norms through interventions. These are gender-transformative interventions. It depends on which approach is chosen and usually the former is chosen.
* '''Q''': If you are working with women and children, how do you handle gender?
* '''A''': Working with women only is not ‘gender’, gender means working with both sexes. E.g. Talking about nutrition would it be interesting for men to be involved in this work too? It could be very beneficial for the whole household.
* '''Q''': Primary beneficiaries focus on feeding etc. But thinking of time etc. how do you treat situations when women have a very specific role. When it comes to evaluation, how do you allow special cases? E.g. breastfeeding.
* '''A''': Why not have a component addressing men for their knowledge on these issues? E.g. the health campaign in TZ where men are strongly urged to accompany their women to the hospital. It’s very important. Same for nutrition.
* '''Q''': Maybe when the woman goes to the hospital the man has other duties e.g. looking for money.
* '''A''': Yes there might be good reasons but there could be good reasons for the situation otherwise.
* '''Q''': Should we use gender as a right rather than as an approach? If we know that a specific activity for research would be better delivered by men, why work with women? If I know the target, why change the approach?
* '''A''': It could be the right approach. It’s very context-specific. One has to look at your specific context and if it makes sense to work only with men then that’s fine.
* '''Q''': We bring gender experts when the project is almost expired, it’s difficult. So what can we do at this stage? At the end of the project we are asked to bring in gender-disaggregated data but it’s challenging.
* '''A''': Yes I agree 100% but let’s make the most out of this and find ways how to support the data collection process, making gender part of the protocols etc. so I can support you best. I’m very happy to help you so you can be prepared for questions that will crop up.
* '''Q''': There’s a column on technology attributes and I wish there was a column within that looking at gender so it would help us focus on this also.
* '''A''': Yes, great idea! If it is part of the reporting system it will remind us to do things automatically. This is gender mainstreaming.
* '''Comment''': Our template is according to USAID requirements etc. But it’s not really about reporting. We know how many men/women participated but we have to look at benefits, not using the table but working on a paper about this. Gender should be addressed in terms of empowerment, cost-benefit analysis etc.
''' Yes, there’s the level of participation and it’s easy to find out about, but the other level is about doing an additional study on gender analysis which can be integrated. I’d be happy to support you there.
* '''Q''': Once we start monitoring etc. we get to the gender-responsive aspects. When we are just collecting data we cannot really get to the gender-transformative aspects.
* '''A''': At community level we can only be a bit more modest about these changes because we are talking about challenging the division of labour and that is a transformative approach focusing on relieving women from some tasks etc.
* '''Q''': There’s some gender dynamics as to how much is sold. I have a student who wants to do some training on food processing etc. and they want to find out about the gaps.

=Project updates=

==Climate change project (impact of sustainable intensification on landscapes and livelihoods)==
See the presentation by Richard Lamboll (NRI)
[''Notes upcoming soon'']

==Scaling project==
See the presentation by Haroon Sseguya (IITA)
* Q: The technologies you are trying to scale up are?
''' Improved maize, wood agronomy practices, and natural resource
* Q: How do you deal with private dealers?
''' We have community based and village based agriculture dealers, they are connected to agro dealers, they have knowledge on eco-seed and input dealers. They use mobile phone to sale their products.
* Q. The growth of population, the model how denser are the communities?
''' We started with 25 lands, we started small and we want to see how things will go for next year.
''' We need to have a database, farmers are not going to adopt everything, and some are interested on seed, some on water conservation. They have to choose anything they like. Our data collection questionnaires are taking care of this requests.
* Q: what are your mechanisms in good practices?
''' We use the impact modality approach. I don’t know how impact evaluation be used but will try to present some of this intervention and we are going to discuss about it.

=Program-wide updates=
See the presentation by Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IITA)

[''Notes upcoming soon'']

=Planning presentations=

==Babati==
See the planning presentation by the Babati team [''Coming soon''] (Excel spreadsheet).

4 main activities: sensitization, finalizing work on forages and choppers, scaling post-harvest management, capacity building. These are reflected in each of the working teams.
2016Q1: MLN work, validation trials, participatory farmer variety selection, postharvest management, farmer selection, outscaling of mycotoxins, finalizing the work from the previous quarters in the last quarter (2016Q3)… Platforms covered through stakeholder training, sensitization meeting.
* '''Q''': Why are the themes cutting across and not integrating with each other. Where is the integration? Someone does training, someone else does training etc. and this is the last year when we can come together.
* '''A''': The trainings are not coming together and are not about the same issues e.g. R4D training is not the same as others.
''' When we discussed integration we mentioned R4D platforms and feeding activities in them. And within work packages we integrate. But the template is not making it easy to integrate activities. For instance forages are integrated in the R4D platforms.
''' But that board should show the integration, and some meetings are not enough to get us to work together in integration.
''' When we work on sensitization, all teams are contributing to it. When we outline activities for next year they are also integrated. Some activities e.g. capacity building are for specific groups.
''' The 2nd phase will tell us where to align. We now see the big picture but now we can see where to align/integrate.
''' It’s also a matter of planning. Once we start implementing we can always work together and coordinate our e.g. trainings.
''' On the ground, we cannot have common ground for different trainings because e.g. livestock training is not the same as nutrition for women etc.
''' Integration of vegetables and poultry: we found out it’s very effective to talk to extensionists that come for both sides of the work through joint briefing/training etc. This can work for integration…
''' In planning, integration is there e.g. vegetables-legumes
* '''Q''': It seems you haven’t yet got promising material. With that in mind, I’m wondering how you will do validation – where will the materials come from? In the presentations it seems there were no differences.
* '''A''': The materials we are testing on farm have been tested in Nairobi. Then we moved them to on-farm testing.
* '''Q''': Scaling: what are you scaling and how?
* '''A''': We have materials on post-harvest management. In the first 2 seasons, our technologies have proven very attractive to farmers and now we have to evaluate them to see if they can be attractive beyond. This is specific to post-harvest management.
''' We do also have some sources of fertilizers which are promising… These can also be promoted/scaled up to farmers etc.
''' Scaling is where you expand the technologies to the groups and 2) through demo plots you create a model where farmers can pick any of the treatments within the trial sites for on-farm work. That’s what we’ve done with forages through our seed multiplication unit. Later on we can follow up to see what farmers have done, what niches they have used etc.
''' The entire Africa RISING team is meaning to scaling but it doesn’t seem clear how you will be scaling it.
''' When you make your report, Babati didn’t identify any mature technology so what will you scale? Where is it written up?
'''* If you look at storage, driers etc. these are some things we can scale up and out. Around health and nutrition we also have results that can be scaled up.
'''* If you haven’t written anything you haven’t done it and if you haven’t done it you are dead. We have to be specific about these things.
'''* It’s a valid point. So we should put high emphasis on documentation. There’s a lot of documentation that has to come out of the shelf, though it’s there.
'''* We should work with Haroon Sseguya to improve our scaling approach.

==Kongwa-Kiteto==
[[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Planning_Kongwa Kiteto.xls| See the planning presentation by Kongwa Kiteto]] (Excel spreadsheet).

We have details in the template and these are four / five technologies we have picked. This is building up on what we presented yesterday.
Genetic intensification (drough tolerant pigeon pea etc.)… Water management… poultry/livestock… nutrition… innovation platforms… cross-cutting issues such as gender and economic analysis.
Community mobilization to train/build capacities. Then train to utilize fodder/feed rationing etc. Then evaluate forage value chain. Finally, synthesis and economic evaluation.
Nutrition: mothers to be trained, recipe development, preparation, collect measurement on weight/height. Monitoring use, measurement and collect data.
Genetic intensification of maize: establish NPT (National Performance Trials) to release this; documentation of GAPs, data collection, analysis and reporting.
Nutrient/soil management: integrating with fodder trees: utilize evaluated materials, farmers to establish babies. Follow up management of trials etc. Field days, participatory assessment of technology, processing.
Cross-cutting issues e.g. gender, economics (cost-benefit analysis), (farmer) group dynamics for forage and poultry etc.
Each of these groups is – in the template – synthesizing activities to mature technology etc.

* '''Q''': How do you plan to link with ???
* '''A''': The details are not here. We are doing a participatory approach. We have some materials that can be integrated with Jumbo’s work, with baby trials etc. We consider upscaling within the sites and if we get to the scaling project…?
''' In the plan we’ve included that. We’ll include … in our demo plots and in the scaling project.
* '''Comment''': If you had put those cards together you would show me that you are going into analysis, reporting etc. and that you are thinking about integration. It’s about a matter of presenting things as one team.

==Malawi==
[[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_PlanningReporting_Malawi.xls| See the planning presentation by the Malawi team]] (Excel spreadsheet).
This sheet is the same as the reporting sheet.

The details are on the sheet, here we have only the key activities. The first 2 quarters are more about implementation and the final 2 are more about analyzing and M&E-type activities.
We discussed finalizing the typologies etc. We assume IFPRI will do this and we have some data collected on this typology. For October-November we have rainwater harvesting. That activity will continue until Jan-Feb. 2016.
Gender will also be an issue we’ll address.
Field days will be one of the activities for scaling.
* '''Q''': Water harvesting… is that a new thing?
* '''A''': Yes. We have to test the performance of crops.
''' But this is a performing period. And I was expecting to see a workshop on motoring etc.
''' On water harvesting, we don’t want to introduce new technologies but we thought that in one of the sites there’s too much variation and we thought about introducing this to prove the effectiveness of technologies. But we should have another writeshop.

==Wageningen UR==
[''Although'' ''WUR did not present back in plenary, Jeroen Groot developed this planning sheet''].
[[:File:AR-ESA_RP2015_Planning_WUR.docx| See the planning sheet by Jeroen Groot]].

==Observations from Asamoah Larbi==
I have a few questions/suggestions. I have worked on crops, livestock and crop-livestock integration. We’ve seen quite some interesting activities, team work is quite impressive and the summary of technologies we went through yesterday.
I have 2-3 questions to think about as we plan ahead:
* What is the niche of Africa RISING in ESA? What is different here from other products? In other words, back to Northern Ghana, we have several projects at IITA which are commodity-specific. How different is this farming systems project from a maize project?
* How do we integrate to show intensification. We have to show integration. For me as an outsider, I see ways to combine aspects of projects on intensification. That is somehow missing for now. How do we integrate to use the expertise we have across teams? E.g. here ICRAF, ILRI have some livestock work but if you want to run these trials they must be designed so that your work is publishable and technically sound for journals. We need expertise to design these interventions. So how do we integrate tree-crop-livestock expertises? We talk about cross-team activities so it’s about time we integrated these. How do we look at this project to pull those things together?
* There were lots of activities on nutrition but in almost everything we have nutritional activities with different approaches. We have to look at that across teams and countries to see how to pull together some activities and expertise.

In West Africa we also struggle with the issue of using baseline survey data. I don’t have answers to that. We need to think about that. If we work together we can make better use of data.

The various activities – how are they related to what happened in the past? We jumpstarted some activities in West Africa. Some of the activities here have happened in the past and some literature background would help us hit the ground running and modify some activities.

R4D platforms. The recommendation from the review came up in West Africa and here. In the discussion, the issue of how R4D platforms operate, e.g. facilitation, is also an issue for West Africa. We have to think about facilitators’ training for the R4D platform facilitators/coordinators.

Socio-economics and gender: I’m glad it’s been put up there. I would have thought these activities would be planned jointly with biophysical activities. We may need to take a look at that and see if we can have an integrated activity looking at how physical data is used together with socio-economics and gender.

This is the 4th year of the project and it’s interesting to witness that the number of activities is large and may need to be summed up. Looking at what happened in the past, where do we go from there?

Data analysis, publications, success stories (for communication)… scientists will need assistance with these stories. They may have stories but not the time to tell them. This could be some joint activities to come up with the success stories…

Finally, yes we are a research project but we have to show impact (productivity, household level, nutrition etc.). We’ve always used the excuse of being a research project but on several occasions we’ve been asked to show impact. Can we, as a team, identify a few technologies, summarize them and develop leaflets so we can show what the productivity impact is of our work? We also have to show the impact at household level. It would be good to show data in a few concrete leaflets to show impact at household level.

Thank you!

==SI indicators and typologies==
More than one variable for each domain (economic, human, environmental, social and productivity).
This was refined over time.
How to implement this new framework for SI indicators? We developed a template at various levels.
We have developed a worksheet for community and for household levels. The XL sheet collects information about SI indicators. This XL file has 7 sections (for households) covering the 5 domains + basic information. Your research team has to monitor these indicators and the IFPRI team has to aggregate it.
'''These indicators need to be collected before USAID decides about phase 2 (March-April 2016).''' There is no timeline about this yet apart from the last tab (FtF community indicators) which needs to have data in by late September.
* '''Q''': For whom is this data to be collected?
* '''A''': for all households we are working with. The teams on the ground should already have this information in principle. Some might be new but some will be available
* '''Q''': Who collects the data and what are budget implications?
* A:

==Feedback from the steering committee==

Good progress and we belong all to Africa RISING. Not all technologies are inclusive. Risks will increase for farmers.

Data needs to be more specific and include e.g. soil erosion etc.

Integration of different research components did not come out. It’s probably there but in the presentations it didn’t come out.

The reporting template was a very good idea but it needs some modifications e.g. what is really new (new scientific insights) and what is already known.

We are not making any use of modeling – quantifying/qualifying risks. Feedback from students could be useful there. The DDG of ICRISAT volunteered to come up with a short proposal on modeling with our data.

Chief scientist noted that not everything that was reported has been done – could be more inclusive.

Not following the template that was circulated was inacceptable. It changed the structure of the meeting.

The question about the scientists’ confidence about data. Success stories are not just for filling the website but also to show what we are doing.

We discussed new agreements with IITA partners. We had discussed that last year already. This was not reemphasized. In case of late reporting there will be funding implications.

Data management – compliance with the data management plan is in the agreement with IITA. New agreements will be issued only if data have been uploaded on CKAN. Please make sure you have uploaded your data there.

Regular team meetings – monthly or not – have been re-emphasized to keep AR management up-to-date etc. but IHZ has been asked to monitor how often these meetings are taking place.

The principal scientists are coming to meetings but PIs don’t always come personally and they send delegates, which is fine so long as the person has been properly briefed and has some decision-making power for the meeting.

The DDG of ICRISAT would like to see feedback on the performance of his scientists in Africa RISING for their appraisals.
Membership to the steering committee: there is rotation and the Steering Committee has decided not to change and ICRISAT is maintaining that membership until the end of phase 1.

Comment: On the ICRISAT rep about feedback on his staff. He’s representing all other institutes. If he misses that recommendation.

=Comms session=

==Success stories==
===Malawi===
- Fodder utilization increases milk yields and household income (Joyce/Aston)
- R4D platform – a driver for up scaling AR agricultural intensification interventions (Regis)
- Farmers survive with bush beans amidst drought (Desta
- New recipes (Agness / Annily)
- Good agricultural practices unleash the potential of local pigeon pea variety (Regis)
Comment: these proposals are focusing on single technologies, they’re not about integration.

===Zambia===
- Participation of chiefs
- Story of Balyeso Chirwa
- Story of Stephen Nyrenda – adoption beyond demonstration
- Adopter outside project area
- Adopter women using dibble stick
Contact: Mulundu Mwila ([[mailto:mmulundu@yahoo.com| mmulundu@yahoo.com]] / +260 977 509 855/967 509 855), Halimu Malumo ([[mailto:halimu_malumo@yahoo.com| halimu_malumo@yahoo.com]] / +260 9777 134 62).

===Kongwa-Kiteto===
- Soil and water conservation related to increasing yields / tie ridging à (Swai)
- Improving nutrition and income among women and children using indigenous chickens (improved livelihoods) à Rubanza
- Maize-legume drought-tolerant high-yielding varieties for semi-arid agro-ecologies (Patrick + Jumbo)
- Community tree nurseries for improved soil health, erosion control, fodder production è SI sustainable intensification à (Anthony)
- Fertilizer recommendations for semi-arid sites (Swai + Anthony)
- Farmer-led scaling model (Nafaka/Tubocha) à Haroon
- Aflatoxin mitigation (à Anitha, Patrick)
- Traditional fodder bank and grazing management [Alalili] (à Rubanza)

===Babati===
- Integration challenges (à Mateete)
- Pigeon pea/maize fertilizer – resilience to drought – Matufa (à Mariam, Christian)
- MLN – updates in diagnostic and status (à Lava)
- How fertilizers mitigate mycotoxin risks (à Mahuku)
- High demand for maize shelling and grading machines (à Mahuku)
- Entry through farmer groups stimulates success (à Lukuyu)
- How different groups perceive Africa RISING (à Mahuku and Shanimoyo, Per)
- Production status of indigenous chickens (à Marwa)

[[ESA_review_meeting2015_16_organizers| Organizers' agenda]]

Africa RISING - SIMLEZA collaboration meeting

2013-09-17T06:55:40Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=Africa RISING - SIMLEZA Collaboration Meeting=
'''6-7 September, 2013'''
'''Salima, Malawi'''

----

'''Objectives''':
Discuss details of the partnership between SIMLEZA and Africa RISING in Zambia.

'''Background materials'''
* See [[SIMLEZA - Africa RISING meeting, 28-29 May 2013| event wiki for previous Africa RISING - SIMLEZA coordination meeting]]

'''Participants'''
* Christian Thierfelder (CIMMYT/SIMLEZA)
* Peter Setimela (CIMMYT/SIMLEZA)
* Arega Alene (IITA/SIMLEZA)
* Setegn Gebeyehy (IITA/SIMLEZA)
* Canon Mukuma (IITA/SIMLEZA)
* Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IITA/Africa RISING)
* Mateete Bekunda (IITA/Africa RISING)
* Catherine Njuguna (IITA/Africa RISING)
* Regis Chikowo (MSU/Africa RISING)
* Ainsley Charles (IFPRI/Africa RISING)
* Patrick Okori (ICRISAT/Africa RISING)
* Lotte Klapwijk (Wageningen/Africa RISING)
* Jeroen Groot (Wageningen/Africa RISING)
* Anna Toness (USAID Zambia)
* Harry Ngoma (USAID Zambia)
* Jerry Glover (USAID Washington)
* PV Sundareshwar (USAID Washington)
* Sara Carlson (USAID Washington)
* Moffatt Ngugi (USAID Washington)
* Tracy Powell (USAID Washington)

'''Outputs'''
* Spreadsheet summary of discussion topics, workplan components, and action items:
 [[:File:AR-SIMLEZA partnership spreadsheet.xlsx]]

WA SC1

2013-08-29T15:33:28Z

Izeledon: Imported from Wikispaces

=Africa RISING West Africa project steering committee meeting #1=
'''24 January 2013'''
'''Alisa Hotel, Accra, Ghana'''

----

'''Objectives''':
* Introduce program and project management structure and clarify roles and responsibilities
* Reflect on year 1 activities
* Review and approve proposed work plan and budget for year 2

'''Agenda'''
* 08.30 Welcome of PSC members (R. Asiedu, PSC Chairman; J. Glover, USAID Activity Manager)
* 08.45 Presentation of Program and Project Management Structure, clarification of role of PSC and membership (I. Hoeschle-Zeledon, Project Coordinator)
* 09:30 Discussion of Project Management and Structure [What do we have in place, what is needed for efficient and effective implementation of the proposed workplan] (R. Asiedu)
* 10.30 Break
* 11.00 Presentation of Program and Project Communication plans (K. Lopez, Project Communication Officer)
* 11.30 Reflection on the stakeholder workshop (R. Asiedu)
* 11:45 Discussion and approval of proposed year 2 workplan and budget (R. Asiedu)
* 12.30 Next activities and upcoming events (I. Hoeschle-Zeledon)
* 12.45 AOB (R. Asiedu)
* 13.00 End of meeting
* 13.30 Lunch

'''Participants'''

'''Notes'''
[[:File:minutes Africa RISING West Africa Project Steering Committee Meeting final.docx]]