Pct34

Africa RISING PCT #34
28 February 2019
Skype call

Present

1. Siboniso Moyo (SM)
2. Bernard Vanlauwe (BV) - Chair
3. Peter Thorne (PT)
4. Carlo Azzarri (CA)
5. Jonathan Odhong' (JO) - Secretary
6. Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ)
7. Jerry Glover (JG)
8. Beliyou Haile (BH)

Agenda

1.Follow up on action points-from PCT 33 meeting

-Revised data management plan

-Authorization to spend 2019

-Soil health consortium

-Feed the future indicators and targets

-Africa RISING web presence

-Internally commissioned external review

-Taskforce to promote harmonization across Africa RISING and SI domain stewards

-SRA advocacy document

2.Updates from JG

3.Suggested revisions to PCT procedures

4.Any Other Business

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Follow up on action points from previous PCT meeting

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>>Revised data management plan

• Document has been finalized and is ready for dissemination to partners and upload to CG Space.A copy of the final file had been shared with all PCT members on 11 February.
• BV - There has been some email exchanges between Gundula and USAID data management and support team regarding upload of potentially sensitive qualitative data. Is that going to in any way affect the document we are about to publish?

Further action(s)

• JG to share update at next PCT meeting about the upload of sensitive qualitative data after further discussions with Gundula/USAID data management and support team.
• CA to share the final data management plan with USAID data management and support lead Anna Brenes, before publication on CG Space.
• CA to follow up and report at next PCT meeting about the possibility of registering Africa RISING data sets on Development Data Library (DDL).

>>Authorization to spend 2019

• JG – We expect the approval to move forward sometime around mid-late March. Funds will be dispersed as soon as possible after that.You can then start spending immediately after that. I will continue checking and as soon as possible an email to this effect will be sent out. Please note that the funds will be for the fiscal year that began on 1 October 2018, but as PIO you have some flexibility on how to spend. The funds need to be spent after 12 months. At the moment the BFS can’t do anything about this situation.Please set up set up any workable arrangements for the carry over funds within IITA, IFPRI, and ILRI.
• BV – Thank you JG for the update. We'll keep this agenda item on the back banner for now, until it becomes an immediate issue that needs closer attention.

>>Soil health consortium

• BV – As I briefed during the previous meeting (PCT 33 meeting) , there was a soft launch of the consortium in San Diego. There was also an attempt to think about a new launch. Do you have any new information on that front?
• JG – Gov’t shutdown put back our initial plans. This has caused some frustrations with the core group. We’re trying to get back on track. We have leadership team of the consortium coming to USAID on March 15 for an "internal" launch. Our main goal is to inform the BFS about this. We are also going through some form of internal reorganization – the portfolio AR falls under for example will go into a division of its own so there will be a few changes, but not so much. The consortium is planning an event in Ethiopia in May. I will keep you updated if anything more comes up.
• BV – There is another conversation at Gates Foundation on investments in agronomy platform within the CGIAR as part of the new business plan development. Christian mentioned that he will pick this up again with USAID. It would great to have 2/3 donor organizations supporting the initiative.

>>Feed the future indicators and targets

• CA - there was an issue about some indicators that we need to report on going forward, but we decided to focus attention on those for which desegregation has been increased.There was some issues from the research teams that would have made it difficult for them to desegregate by value chain type. There are two parts of this: (i) there are guidelines/guidebook feed the future (ii) most of the desegregation doesn't apply to Africa RISING data. AR mostly reports on smallholder producers and w. Most of the research teams selected desegregation of smallholder producers. We can give the disagregation by management practice, crop genetics etc. The confusion was that we are not worried about this new desegregation because in most cases we can deal with that, for example in the case of smallholder producers. There was also the issue of desegregation by age (15, 29 and 30 plus) and again we'll have some trainings for the research teams (by the M&E Coordinators) to collect data on how to collect data on age for these two categories. We think that the data managers should do more trainings for the research teams (when needed).
• BV - Some of those new indicators need definitions, descriptions. For example smallholder can be understood differently.
• CA - The issue about target setting for 2020 - 22 was solved.i don't think we need to revise / enter the targets again this year - assuming stable funding.
• BH - I entered the targets into the FtF system based on what we collected from the research teams. Since we have agreed to report on 5 indicators moving forward, we collected target data from 2019 - 2021, so JG doesn't need to edit/enter any targets moving forward and also the systems will not allow him to do so. We can now only enter discrepancy narrative.
• IHZ - We didn't get all the projections from all the partners, so our targets are hopefully higher than what we set. Could we still change the targets when these (other) partners provide their projections from next year and the year after?
• BH - That is not possible because that is the problem we had before as well. There were targets we had in the system and we weren't sure who entered them. So once it is in the systems we can't alter it, but can only provide the discrepancy narrative.
• JG - I will send out a note to CA, IHZ and PT on specific revisions with regards to the targets.

Further action(s)

• JG to send a clarification note on the FtF targets to CA,PT & IHZ.

>>Africa RISING web presence

• JO – The wiki restoration is complete and fully operational. We will still be doing improvements on it as we go a long. Work on the revamped website is ongoing and I will provide an update soon.

Further action(s)

• JO to provide update on this item at next PCT meeting.

>>Internally commissioned external review

• JO - Discussions about this exercise have now been migrated to private Google Docs link sent to all PCT members as requested at the previous meeting (PCT 33 meeting)
• IHZ - The ToR for the review is final (at least from our perspective PT, IHZ & CA). Unless other PCT members have further comments?
• BV - The ToR is now adopted as final. Let talk about the proposed reviewers then.

Further action(s)

• Actions on this item are captured on the private Google Docs link sent to members. Updates to be given at the next PCT meeting.

>>Taskforce to promote harmonization across Africa RISING and SI domain stewards

• Not discussed due to time constraint.To be revisited at next PCT meeting.

>>SRA advocacy document

• JG - I have been trying to get a sense about what is most useful. Response to the document has been a bit varied. There are some ongoing discussions with the Gates Foundation and I would like to get them and other important partners involved.
• BV - Some of us could be involved to work directly with the partners JG has identified to work with on this document. I agree that wider buy-in is crucial.
• PT - I was bit surprised that we couldn't reach consensus on the subject of systems research.

Further action(s)

• JG to follow up on this and share updates when available.

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Updates from JG

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>>AR impact projections

• I shared with colleagues here at BFS, the ppt slides on AR phase II impact projections and they liked it on many levels. People have also very much liked the 2 page country briefs you've recently put together. Can you come up with an aggregated 2 page briefer similar to the country briefers but with the relevant (and updated?) information from the Phase II proposal? The individual country briefes are very helpful in talking with the missions, so thank you all very much for those. A single briefer would be helpful in discussing the overall program with colleagues here in DC.

>>Kenya mission & new FtF resilience zones

• I am still trying to get this done, but current security situation the mission is, for now, discouraging any visits except for critical activities. Also now is not the best time in their program cycle to stimulate interest in new activities. I will continue to identify potential opportunities there.
• We are re-organizing our new bureau, which will have a much clearer focus on resilience. Resilience zones are being identified in similar agroecological zones/farming systems that AR works in. This will open up additional opportunities for funding streams other than FTF, which is especially important in East and Southern Africa. Certainly AR's current work in ET and TZ will be relevant in targeting AR activities in these resilience zones. Some areas of Malawi will be included, and it looks like these 'resilience zones' will include some of the areas in which AR works...so there should be continued opportunity to work in Malawi with support from other funding streams within the bureau and USAID/Malawi. I'll keep you posted on those and will keep working to see where the opportunities for AR are in resilience zones.

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Suggested revisions to PCT procedures

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BV - There is need for us to improve the processes for follow up on action points and reporting on updates to make our meetings more effective. It would be great to harvest some contributions on action points ahead of the meeting if all PCT members followed the steps below:

1. Members read the minutes as soon as they are posted to be reminded of action points. Jonathan usually announces when he has posted the minutes.
2. Members provide an update on action points at least 2 days before the next meeting (as done earlier). A reminder should be sent by the secretary.
3. Members read the minutes of the previous meeting with updates on action points before the next meeting
4. Members who have agreed to assume responsibility for an action point should do so or inform the PCT Chair and Secretary should they no longer be able to do so
5. If a member /members think(s) at hindsight that a PCT decision needs further thoughts, this should be reported soonest to the PCT Chair and Secretary for consideration and further action

Action

• Proposed procedure revision adopted. Secretary to follow up with members ahead of meetings to encourage adherence.

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Any Other Business

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No other business

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Next PCT meeting

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• Secretary to send out a doodle about the next PCT meeting.