Presented by I. Hoeschle-Zeledon, Africa RISING Coordinator at the Africa RISING West Africa Project Annual Review and Planning Meeting, Accra, Ghana, 24-25 March 2015

1. External mid-term review of Africa
RISING West Africa
I. Hoeschle-Zeledon, Africa RISING Coordinator
Africa RISING West Africa Project Annual Review and Planning
Meeting, Accra, Ghana, 24-25 March 2015

2. Terms of Reference:
i. Conformity with Program Research
Framework
ii. Fostering learning by stakeholders
iii. Weaknesses and gaps in research
iv. Data gaps, handling, and sharing
v. Contribution of IFPRI’s M&E activities to
research agenda
vi. Appropriateness of partnerships, human
resources, management structure
vii. Recommendations

3. Challenges and recommendations
• Management
• Resources
• Implementation
• Partnerships
• Monitoring
• Data Management
Recommendations related to research
activities will be presented separately

4. Management
i. Duration of signing of contracts and sub-
contracts; respecting reporting deadlines:
streamlining approval of work plan and
budgets,
ease of fund transfers to national partners,
no contracts, paying in small instalments
for specific activities
mentoring partners in technical and
financial reporting, started

5. iii. Communication between partners: remove
silo approach, close working relationships,
regular research team meetings, initiated
iv. Budget and work plan mismatch: funds to be
closely tied with planned activities,
implemented with new work plan

6. Implementation
i. Poor involvement of NARS in Mali:
Re-engaging IER in Mali, use their
expertise, happening
build NARS capacity through training
ii. Absence of CG partners in the country,
notably in Ghana: employ local staff
supervised by CG partners, under
implementation
iii. Limited capacity of national partners (staff
constraints, over-commitment of SARI)

7. iv. R4D platforms non-existent or not
operational: facilitate establishment and
operationalization at district and
community levels; completed
link research activities to the platforms
(prioritization, demand driven research)
v. Role, facilitation and management of
platforms: to be clarified and agreed
upon; in progress

8. vi. Scattered research and demo sites in Mali:
establishment of at least two research hubs
with government and development
organizations integrated; all partners to work
at these hubs, in progress
vii. Independent surveys: pulling different surveys
together to provide holistic synthesis in each
country, pending
viii. Lack of socio-economic analyses: participatory
budgets and cost-benefit analysis of SI
options, under implementation

9. ix. Lack of attention to impact of technology
changes on gender: new gender specialist
to advise; starting
x. Pathway to impact: collaboration with
development partners and projects,
happening,
continuous monitoring of technology
uptake; analysis of reasons for non-uptake,
initiated

10. Resources
i. Lack of continuity and on the ground
availability of CG staff: qualified local staff
(research associate) in each region/district to
coordinate activities and partner
arrangements; regional/district coordinators
employed
ii. Limited time allocation of CG staff: minimise
# of short-term/part-time scientists; aggregate
activities to increase contract size

11. Partnerships
i. Lack of integration of activities by different
research partners: research hubs,
implemented
ii. Insufficient communication among partners:
calendar of events, monthly meetings,
seminars; better use of Africa RISING
Comms tools, pending
iii. Ownership of research results: closer
collaboration with IER in Mali, initiated,
leading role of SARI in Ghana, ???

12. iv. USAID missions and their development
projects: need to be better informed about
Africa RISING activities (summary reports);
done
collaboration with ATT and ADVANCE in
Ghana; explored
development partners to establish
demonstrations near Africa RISING sites,
pending

13. v. R4D Platforms: development partners to
become members; feedback of research
results to R4D platforms and farmers,
pending
vi. MoFA Ghana: improve support to AEAs,
done
feed back on field data submitted by AEAs

14. Monitoring
i. Only draft logframe: revision of logframe,
include theory of change (Africa RISING
pathway), in progress
ii. M&E not done at activity level, no
indicators: set clear indicators in logframe
and work plans, in progress
iii. Assemble socially disaggregated data of
project beneficiaries

15. i. Studies on technology integration into farming
activities, case studies on hh resource
allocations, starting
ii. Challenge program research hypotheses, will
be revised until July
iii. Gender research around technologies ,
included in new work plan

16. Data Management
i. PMMT incomplete: upload meta data;
inclusion of data from NARS in PMMT
ii. Data sharing: according to data management
plan by all partners, condition in all new
partner agreements

17. Partners WA

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