Presented by Peter Thorne (ILRI) at the Africa RISING Ethiopia review and planning meeting, Addis Ababa, 1 October – 1 November 2013

1. Background to Africa
RISING in the Ethiopian
Highlands
Peter Thorne
ILRI
Africa RISING Review and Planning Meeting
Addis Ababa, 31 October – 1 November, 2013

2. Africa RISING
 RISING = Research into Sustainable Intensification
for a New Generation
 Intensification = making more efficient use of
agricultural inputs
 Sustainable = ?
 New generation

3. Some key features
 Focus on sustainable intensification of whole system
 Research 4 Development
 Development outcomes are important
 Close alignment with Feed the Future Goals
Food security
Poverty alleviation
Improved livelihoods
Nutrition and Health
Gender equity

4. Research objectives
1. To identify and evaluate demand-driven options
for sustainable intensification that contribute to
rural poverty alleviation, improved nutrition
and equity and ecosystem stability.
2. To evaluate, document and share experiences
with approaches for delivering and integrating
innovation for sustainable intensification in a
way that will promote their uptake beyond the
Africa RISING research sites.

5. Development objectives
1. To create opportunities for smallholder farm
households, within Africa RISING action research
sites, to move out of poverty and improve their
nutritional status – especially of young children and
mothers – while maintaining or improving ecosystem
stability.
2. To facilitate partner-led dissemination of integrated
innovations for sustainable intensification beyond the
Africa RISING action research sites.

6. M&E
Nutrition
RO 1
Situation
analysis and
program-wide
synthesis
RO 2
Integrated
systems
improvement
RO 3
Scaling and
delivery
Gender
Policy

7.  Driver of Innovation 
Endogenous
Research component 1
Review of best
technology /
management
options
System characterisation and analysis
Community
characterisation
and stratification
Inventory of current
technologies /
practices and their
sources
Participatory
problem
identification and
gap analysis
Research component 2
Community institutions
and knowledge
exchange
Biophysical and
socio-economic
benchmarks
Community
knowledge exchange
groups established
Opportunities for
scaling innovation
(endogenous and
exogenous)
Exogenous
Research component 4
“Action research”
Ex ante modelling /
impact assessment
Validate technologies /
management practices
Adaptation and
integration of
technologies /
management practices
Research component 3
Markets and wider
stakeholders
Identified market
opportunities
Characterisation of specific
value chains (actors and links)
Functioning multi-stakeholder
platforms
Research component 5
Outputs to outcomes
Scaling: to be developed

8. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net