moneval_experts_2012_feedback_data_platform

= Africa RISING M&E Expert Meeting = Back to the event agenda
 * 5-7 September 2012 **
 * Large auditorium, ****ILRI Ethiopia, Addis Ababa **

=Feedback on site characterization and monitoring tools=

The questions were:

West Africa
We worked only on Ghana as Mali is in a different / special situation. We might need to reduce the amount of districts. We are currently thinking about 4 districts per region i.e. 12 districts but might have to reduce this amount. We need to have enough diversity in cropping systems across the regions. One approach we have is the continuation of systematic characterization that Chris is doing and we could do this with a max. of 9 districts. Sibiry suggested reducing it to 5 across the whole region - because we want to have homogeneous enough admin districts which have a variety of cropping systems. They would have the same hi-lo for ag potential and market potential.

In Mali, it turns out that in Mali the districts we are considering are much larger. We recommended added one extra district in Mali.

Another step would be to decide (based on budget) how many communities we want to work in.

What would be a reasonable number of communities to involve? Sibiry suggested working in 20 communities. Then again this might be too small a sample.

Additional criteria to consider:

Cultural differences are a strong proxy for technological preferences & differences. The problem of trying to reduce the amount of districts and communities: a survey has been made among the 60 quick win communities - this survey should help us decide which ones we want to set aside because they have very similar charateristics. We have systematic reliance on Google Earth and it tells you a lot about the systems you're dealing with.
 * Level of Research for Development investments by community per admiIs this n district / local government.
 * 3 benchmark areas in about 6 districts (NR 2 - NWR 2 - UER 1)
 * Community analysis (especially socio-economics) - we didn't discuss yet why we would select communities.

East & Southern Africa

 * Program site: USAid FtF
 * District level:
 * USAid supported multi-stakeholder platforms + country missions
 * Scientists' choice (SI potential, agroecology gradients, ongoing activities)
 * Action site (cluster of villages)
 * Nafaka - characterize sites (HH / LL / HL / LH)
 * Pick sites and characterize too
 * Randomly choose villages:
 * A: Intervene
 * B: Partial intervention
 * C: Control

Second question (adapting PMT)
 * Is this tool a way to fulfil USAid requirements
 * It could be a way to document the legacy - some IITA scientists will recommend this to their DG?

Third question (opportunities for sharing and reporting data)
 * Misuse of data
 * Institutional fights

Comments: What is the commitment of Af RISING vis-a-vis the 4 cells. There's still some discussion going on. This has some implications on the evaluation questions... Nutrition is an objective of the project but can we say that in the lo-lo areas we cannot intensify. Nutrition is usually high in low ag potential areas (presence of livestock and focus on energy as opposed to nutrition).

Ethiopian Highlands
We came back to the original work from the kick-off workshops. We are focusing on the scoring of potential sites and expect that there will be a team taking care of that scoring (community level assessment) based on these or revised criteria. When talking about high-low etc. we are talking about sustainability and intensification indices - but we don't have data about this. We could explore it with candidate villages. We're talking about sites in Tigray and Oromia where we had some quick win activities. Possibly also in Amhara and SNNPR.

Do we need visualization for our purposes? We had similar concerns about IP risks. About privacy of data etc. comparing trials is not an issue. Security of data should not be an issue.

What are we sharing data for? I can't see me pulling data for Malawi. I'm interested in knowing what we're learning from our work and feeding it to each other. Narrative information would likely be very valuable.