Pct40 - Revision history

J Odhong at 10:49, 30 April 2020

2020-04-30T10:49:08Z

J Odhong at 10:47, 30 April 2020

2020-04-30T10:47:38Z

J Odhong at 10:42, 30 April 2020

2020-04-30T10:42:59Z

J Odhong at 10:41, 30 April 2020

2020-04-30T10:41:45Z

J Odhong at 16:07, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T16:07:05Z

J Odhong at 15:47, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T15:47:05Z

J Odhong at 15:45, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T15:45:43Z

J Odhong at 15:44, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T15:44:26Z

J Odhong at 14:58, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T14:58:11Z

J Odhong at 14:55, 29 April 2020

2020-04-29T14:55:58Z

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 *IHZ: This situation shows us (to a certain extent) the pros and cons of working with national partners. While most of the international institutions have very strict restrictions with regards to movements for work, the national partners are more relaxed on that. This is helping in certain ways to continue with field activities and the collection of data. This is a big advantage. On the other hand, we thought that we could do many things virtually, but with the national partners, this is not so easy as well because of poor network connection. In Mali, for example, national partners also have to stay at home per government directive with no internet connectivity at all. So staying in touch is easier with the international partners also. I also see (based on presentations) that ESA and WA are more affected by the travel bans than Ethiopia because we work in several countries and we have implementers that work in several countries and at the moment can't move a lot. I think this will last longer (the international travel bans) so we may be affected in these two regions for longer.
+:
-*CJ: First, I would like to do is say a sincere thank you to all of you and the work that you do. Africa RISING is a really important program for USAID. I have had direct contact with you in the field and I think you are doing some excellent work. So I just want to say, thank you for the work you're doing and especially right now during this difficult period really making efforts to still try and understand the impact you are having and how to continue your research work. I am also very happy to hear that you're still keeping your priorities and keeping your staff and partners safe as well. At USAID we are working on some guidelines for monitoring and evaluation and how to do that in this difficult time, expecting to see more of a shift to telephone-based interventions, maybe even drones being used to do M&E. We are in the process of finalizing that one and once ready we'll share with Jerry to share with you and your teams. It may be helpful, you guys know the situation better than anyone sitting in Washington could ever know,so I appreciate your thoughts and your creativity, coming back to Jerry and giving us your recommendations as well. Once again thank you all for letting me sit in for this call.
+*CJ: First, I would like to do is say a sincere thank you to all of you and the work that you do. Africa RISING is a really important program for USAID. I have had direct contact with you in the field and I think you are doing some excellent work. So I just want to say, thank you for the work you're doing and especially right now during this difficult period really making efforts to still try and understand the impact you are having and how to continue your research work. I am also very happy to hear that you're still keeping your priorities and keeping your staff and partners safe as well. At USAID we are working on some guidelines for monitoring and evaluation and how to do that in this difficult time, expecting to see more of a shift to telephone-based interventions, maybe even drones being used to do M&E. We are in the process of finalizing that one and once ready we'll share with Jerry to share with you and your teams. It may be helpful, you guys know the situation better than anyone sitting in Washington could ever know, so I appreciate your thoughts and your creativity, coming back to Jerry and giving us your recommendations as well. Once again thank you all for letting me sit in for this call.
+:
 *SM: Thank you, Carol. We appreciate the partnership and support from USAID always and more so during this time. We will definitely continue doing our best to carry on with the work. Thank you for making time to join us for this call.
+:
-*JG: I was on a call with Niger colleagues this morning and there is a nuance there Peter that we need to be careful about exploiting. However, in Niger for example, the international staff are fully locked down in Niamey, but in some of the other centers where the incidents of infections is very low aren't on lockdown and that is where many of the national partners are actually located. So, in that case, their exposure is very low and so they are able to move. Whereas there is a blanket lock-down for international partners.
+*PT: Just a word of caution, that we should be careful not to appear like because some of our partners have a less stringent response to the virus than we do, we are taking advantage of that. I think that is not the right way for us to be thinking now. Of curse, I am not saying that we should just give up on everything, but we need to be careful at this moment how we express things in that way. The responsibility comes from us as the project leadership and the onus is on us to follow our organizational policies on this. I am not suggesting anyone is doing this at the moment, but I am just flagging this as a caution.
+:
 *MB: I think the restrictions or lack of it (thereof) highly depends on the national guidelines. In Uganda for example, there is a blanket lockdown restricting both national and international partners.
@@ Line 80: / Line 81: @@
 *FK: We are trying to take advantage of whatever comes our way so that as soon as the travel bans are lifted in Ghana most of the activity that is remaining will be resumed.
 :*FK: Is it possible for us to think about meeting more regularly. Should we meet again at the end of the month or we should just wait and see how things will evolve.
-:*PT: We need to meet soon and follow up on the review report, Bernard recently sent a beatiful template last week for that.
+:*PT: We need to meet soon and follow up on the review report, Bernard recently sent a beautiful template last week for that.
 ----
 '''Closing comments by PCT Chair'''
 ----
 *We have run over our planned time by a few minutes. Let's keep the work going as much as reasonably possible. Thank you so much, I think this was a great idea to link up and know what is going on. Stay safe!

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
+:
 *CJ: First, I would like to do is say a sincere thank you to all of you and the work that you do. Africa RISING is a really important program for USAID. I have had direct contact with you in the field and I think you are doing some excellent work. So I just want to say, thank you for the work you're doing and especially right now during this difficult period really making efforts to still try and understand the impact you are having and how to continue your research work. I am also very happy to hear that you're still keeping your priorities and keeping your staff and partners safe as well. At USAID we are working on some guidelines for monitoring and evaluation and how to do that in this difficult time, expecting to see more of a shift to telephone-based interventions, maybe even drones being used to do M&E. We are in the process of finalizing that one and once ready we'll share with Jerry to share with you and your teams. It may be helpful, you guys know the situation better than anyone sitting in Washington could ever know,so I appreciate your thoughts and your creativity, coming back to Jerry and giving us your recommendations as well. Once again thank you all for letting me sit in for this call.
 *SM: Thank you, Carol. We appreciate the partnership and support from USAID always and more so during this time. We will definitely continue doing our best to carry on with the work. Thank you for making time to join us for this call.
 PT: Just a word of caution, that we hsould be careful not to appear like because some of our partners have a less stringent response to the virus than we do, we are taking advantage of that. I think that is not the right way for us to be thinking now. Of curse, I am not saying that we should just give up on everything, but we need to be careful at this moment how we express things in that way. The responsibility comes from us as the project leadership and the onus is on us to follow our organizational policies on this. I am not suggesting anyone is doing this at the moment, but I am just flagging this as a caution.
 *JG: I was on a call with Niger colleagues this morning and there is a nuance there Peter that we need to be careful about exploiting. However, in Niger for example, the international staff are fully locked down in Niamey, but in some of the other centers where the incidents of infections is very low aren't on lockdown and that is where many of the national partners are actually located. So, in that case, their exposure is very low and so they are able to move. Whereas there is a blanket lock-down for international partners.
 *MB: I think the restrictions or lack of it (thereof) highly depends on the national guidelines. In Uganda for example, there is a blanket lockdown restricting both national and international partners.
 *BV: Another example of what Mateete just mentioned is in Burundi where if you don't go to the field you would be seen as anti-Government because they haven't put a lockdown in place. So it seems that we have to be guided by what is happening in each country.
 *PT: I am in agreement with Bernard's and Mateete's points, but I guess we probably still have a certain role to encourage safety even if we had work in Burundi where the Government hasn't put any lockdown in place for example. We just need to get the right balance.
 *SM: I think in this situation, our role is also to continue to spread messages about preventive measures and controls and when we even in communities, etc. It may be very unfortunate if one of the communities to one-day turnaround and say that the AR project brought the virus to them. Maybe we can send out pamphlets and fliers with the messages.
 *MB: To your point (Boni) about the pamphlets and flyers, we have to be careful where/how we get the information that we will share through these materials. Are they from governments? There is a certain reputational risk to this.
 *IHZ: We are not experts in the field of public health so let's be cautious about the messages we send. I think we can restrict ourselves to flyer produced by the Governments then that is fine.
 :In WA for the next four weeks we can say wait, but soon after that, we have to make decisions about how we plan for the next cropping season, planning for how to respond to external reviewers recommendations etc.and how to adjust our research as we approach the end of phase 2.
 *SM: I think that is the right thing to do Irmgard, because even within our centers we are looking at different scenarios - what happens if this goes on for 3, 6, 9 months, etc. so we should do this for our project too. Having a plan like this will obviously help us.
 *KM: In Ethiopia, the current ILRI restrictions don't allow our site coordinators to go to the field and meet/follow up with partners, so they are staying in some of the zonal towns where they are able to meet with government extension officers, etc. to keep updated on the implementation of activities.
-*CA: There isn't much for us to say from the M&E side at this point apart from the fact that the survey that we were planning to do in Ghana in May/June may be disrupted.We are still proceeding with all the prearatory work such that when travel restrictions are lifted we can go ahead. Survey sometimes attract large gatherings and these are now discouraged by the Government of Ghana.
 :*IHZ: So Carlo if you can't do the survey in West Africa this summer, will it have to be postponed - for how long?
-::*CA: For now we are still monitoring the national regulations and if they change. If they stay in place for longer then it may not make sense to for example go and do the survey in November because the data is season-specific. Howver, if things change quickly then do ing the survey between July/August will still be okay.At IFPRI, for the simpler surveys than are going into using phones to collect data, but this ofcourse limits the amount of data you can collect in this way. There are attempets even from the world bank to collect a substantial amount of data through phone surveys etc, although there is still the problem that the information collected now will be affected by the effect of COVID-19 impacts of farmers' lives. This is new to us like everybody else.
+::*CA: For now we are still monitoring the national regulations and if they change. If they stay in place for longer then it may not make sense to for example go and do the survey in November because the data is season-specific. However, if things change quickly then do ing the survey between July/August will still be okay.At IFPRI, for the simpler surveys than are going into using phones to collect data, but this, of course, limits the amount of data you can collect in this way. There are attempts even from the world bank to collect a substantial amount of data through phone surveys etc, although there is still the problem that the information collected now will be affected by the effect of COVID-19 impacts of farmers' lives. This is new to us like everybody else.
 *BV: Should we probably send a message to all AR partners about this situation and how Africa RISING is responding to it?
 *JG: Just a few minor footnotes from my end:
-:*First I did distribute to Carol a brief description about Africa RISING, the structure including the PCT and some background about each of you on this call. It is great that she is becoming more familiar about the program.
+:*First I did share with Carol a brief description of Africa RISING, the structure including the PCT and some background about each of you on this call. It is great that she is becoming more familiar with the program.
-:*I spoke to others in our office about the info. labels, the ones Jonathan sent around about the doubled-up legume. I have some recommendations that I will directly communicate to Jonathan. These labels, link very nicely with our attempts to package our project outcomes, not only from AR but across the board for USAID/FtF. And I have some information about that which I will give to Jonathan to handle.
+:*I spoke to others in our office about the info. labels, the ones Jonathan sent around about the doubled-up legume. I have some recommendations that I will directly communicate with Jonathan. These labels link very nicely with our attempts to package our project outcomes, not only from AR but across the board for USAID/FtF. And I have some information about that which I will give to Jonathan to handle.
 :*There is a need for a PCT meeting at greater length to work out some of the larger issues (not related to COVID), but rather about the program, its medium-longer term future. For example, with the Excellence in Agronomy initiative that Bernard is involved with. That is moving along rapidly and we need to somehow place Africa RISING within it or on one side of it conceptually. So I am just calling for at some point in the near future, having a PCT virtual retreat to discuss these issues.
 *BV: This is an excellent suggestion, Jerry. I can talk at length about Excellence in Agronomy initiative, but at the moment the only thing that I can say in summary is that it is all under development. There is nothing fixed about it yet. But yes, there is a need to have a discussion. I don't know how urgent it is to have that discussion, because we all know that sitting together in a room with White Board and Flip charts is much easier to plan is much better than sitting virtually for a long period fo time. Maybe we can start virtually, do some initial work and then follow up with a physical meeting. But what timeline are you looking at for this meeting Jerry?
-*JG: Excellene in Agronomy is only one of the initiatives or processes that are relevant to our discussions about Africa RISING. I think sometime in May would be good to at least go through an agenda and maybe flush out some issues that we could focus on. In essence, this would be a pre-retreat meeting of 2 hours....maybe it will be less than that. But there are several things moving along and at this time when people are locked down, there is a lot of strategic planning going on that I think Africa RISING can lean into. Maybe I will put down some of those issues that I have in mind and then send them to you guys for some initial feedback/early discussion.
 *SM: The suggested brief from is a great idea, Jerry, then we can immediately follow up to that with fixing a meeting. You are very right that there is a lot that is going on that would definitely help us think through how Africa RISING fits in for example even with the ongoing ONE CGIAR reforms etc.
-*FK: We are trying to take advantage of whatever comes our way so that as soon as the travel bans are lifted in Ghana most of the activity that are remaining will be resumed.
+*FK: We are trying to take advantage of whatever comes our way so that as soon as the travel bans are lifted in Ghana most of the activity that is remaining will be resumed.
 :*FK: Is it possible for us to think about meeting more regularly. Should we meet again at the end of the month or we should just wait and see how things will evolve.
 :*PT: We need to meet soon and follow up on the review report, Bernard recently sent a beatiful template last week for that.

@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 ----
 *IHZ: This situation shows us (to a certain extent) the pros and cons of working with national partners. While most of the international institutions have very strict restrictions with regards to movements for work, the national partners are more relaxed on that. This is helping in certain ways to continue with field activities and the collection of data. This is a big advantage. On the other hand, we thought that we could do many things virtually, but with the national partners, this is not so easy as well because of poor network connection. In Mali, for example, national partners also have to stay at home per government directive with no internet connectivity at all. So staying in touch is easier with the international partners also. I also see (based on presentations) that ESA and WA are more affected by the travel bans than Ethiopia because we work in several countries and we have implementers that work in several countries and at the moment can't move a lot. I think this will last longer (the international travel bans) so we may be affected in these two regions for longer.
 *CJ: First, I would like to do is say a sincere thank you to all of you and the work that you do. Africa RISING is a really important program for USAID. I have had direct contact with you in the field and I think you are doing some excellent work. So I just want to say, thank you for the work you're doing and especially right now during this difficult period really making efforts to still try and understand the impact you are having and how to continue your research work. I am also very happy to hear that you're still keeping your priorities and keeping your staff and partners safe as well. At USAID we are working on some guidelines for monitoring and evaluation and how to do that in this difficult time, expecting to see more of a shift to telephone-based interventions, maybe even drones being used to do M&E. We are in the process of finalizing that one and once ready we'll share with Jerry to share with you and your teams. It may be helpful, you guys know the situation better than anyone sitting in Washington could ever know,so I appreciate your thoughts and your creativity, coming back to Jerry and giving us your recommendations as well. Once again thank you all for letting me sit in for this call.
 *SM: Thank you, Carol. We appreciate the partnership and support from USAID always and more so during this time. We will definitely continue doing our best to carry on with the work. Thank you for making time to join us for this call.

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 *Quick opening comments by PCT Chair – 5 mins.
 *Situation report by the 3 Chief Scientists  – 10 mins by each
-::[updates should touch on: (a) effect of COVID 19 curfews, lockdowns, travels bans, work from home policies etc. on activities – what has been postponed and the implications of postponement, (b) current project management/lead center response/posturing in light of these realities]
+::[updates should touch on: (a) effect of COVID 19 curfews, lockdowns, travel bans, work from home policies, etc. on activities – what has been postponed and the implications of postponement, (b) current project management/lead center response/posturing in light of these realities]
 *Further PCT recommendations/ideas/suggestions for action – 20 mins.
 ::[Any additional recommendations for action by PCT members]
@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 '''Further PCT recommendations/ideas/suggestions for action'''
 ----

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 '''Situation report by the 3 Chief Scientists'''
 ----
-*Click on this link to download and read the summary note presented by the chief scientists [[File:AR_COVID19summarynote.pdf | download and read the update summary note by the 3 regional chief scientists]]
+*Click to[[:File:AR_COVID19summarynote.pdf | download and read the update summary note by the 3 regional chief scientists]]
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 '''Further PCT recommendations/ideas/suggestions for action'''
 ----