learning1

Africa RISING Learning event 1 toc
 * 24-26 September 2013 **
 * Lalibela auditorium **
 * ILRI Addis Ababa, Ethiopia **


 * Objectives**
 * Learn from ongoing program-wide activities (research framework, M&E, comms etc.), building upon project-specific methods, approaches and problems as well as interesting innovations, approaches and best bets
 * Work in more detail on specific sub-themes in smaller groups: e.g. gender, nutrition, comms, site characterization etc. - in conjunction with a consultation prior to the event.
 * Prioritize and plan program activities for the next 12 months: PCT meetings, next annual learning event, M&E events?


 * Agenda**

Field trip program upcoming.
 * Monday 23 September - Field trip to Debre Birhan (Optional)**


 * Tuesday 24 September: Understanding the Program and its components**

//By the end of the first day participants will have an overall understanding of the Program, key concepts driving it, and activities already undertaken//
 * 09.00 Registration
 * 09.30 Welcome, introduction, state of progress
 * (09.30) Welcome from ILRI
 * (09.35) Icebreaker and introduction of the objectives and agenda (Ewen)
 * (10.05) The wider context: Feed the Future (Tracy); Humidtropics (Alan Duncan) and Drylands (Said Salim)
 * (10.30) Introduction to the program: goal, hypotheses, principles, research objectives, projects (irmgard and peter)
 * 10.45 //Coffee break//
 * 11.15 Chatshow: Sustainable Intensification: Pathway to transform African agriculture?
 * 11.30 Taking stock of results, progress, outputs
 * Introduce timeline process
 * Bus stop learning and exchange exercise grouping participants in four zones with resource persons from each region to share and discuss experiences around the program's 4 overall research outputs (RO): Situation Analysis and Program-wide Synthesis (RO1); Integrated Systems Improvement (RO2); Scaling and Delivery of Integrated Innovation (RO3); and Integrated M&E Process (RO4). Groups of participants move among the groups and listen/interact. Focus on milestones, approaches, early win results, experiences so far, lessons, challenges encountered.
 * 13.00 //Lunch break//
 * 14.00 Country reflections
 * Brief plenary reflections on the morning discussions; take away lessons (kindu, asamoah, mateete)
 * Open reflection
 * 15.00 Approaches and tools share fair: Exercise in which participants share and learn about innovations, specific approaches followed; tools, challenges and problems encountered. Examples from Ethiopia include: Slate, PCA, Feast, Techfit, VCA, ImpactLite, digital stories, akt5, ATA characterization, PRA; ...
 * // Mixed with coffee break //
 * 16.30 Synthesis session to document important insights and lessons.
 * // 17.30 Cocktail reception //


 * Wednesday 25 September: Focusing in on Program priorities and challenges - What we learned, what we need to learn, action agenda**

// By the end of the second day, participants will have identified critical issues around the approaches and goals of the Program and identified an initial set of best bet actions/interventions to tackle these. //
 * 09.00 Open Space 1: conceptual foundations (guiding principles and/or hypotheses? or a mix?)
 * Farm and household as focal domains
 * Sustainable intensification
 * Stepwise progress towards sustainable intensification
 * Development domains comprise the main drivers for intensification
 * Farm household typologies and intensification pathways
 * R4D platforms for cooperation and co-learning
 * Identification and nature of critical entry points towards intensification
 * Integration of ethical principles in science for development activities
 * Integration hypothesis
 * Adoption hypothesis
 * Trade-off hypothesis
 * Innovation sequencing and sustainable intensification pathways hypothesis
 * Scalability hypothesis
 * 10.30 //Coffee break mingled with open space//
 * 11.00 Open Space sessions 1
 * 12.30 //Lunch break//
 * 14.00 Review timeline
 * 14.10 Open space 2: Operationalizing the program
 * monitoring and evaluation
 * communication and learning
 * gender
 * livestock
 * nutrition
 * site characterization and targeting
 * integration (among partners; among interventions/technologies)
 * partnering and scaling out for development impact
 * 14.30 Open Space sessions 2
 * 15.30 // Coffee break mingled with open space //
 * 16.30 Open Space presentations (late afternoon) as a gallery


 * Thursday 26 September: Synthesis - from learning to action**

//By the end of the third day, participants will have documented collective Program learning, discussed and prioritized implications for projects, identified actions to address challenges surfaced in the event, and set out a learning agenda for the program as a whole.//
 * 09.00 Distill and prioritize learning and potential actions from day 2 open spaces (process?)
 * agreed list of action areas; most important to be turned into actions (groups?)
 * 10.30 // Coffee break //
 * 11.00 How do we improve what and how we learn? World café discussions on ways to improve how we learn (how do we do it now, how could we do it better, actions we could take):
 * Learning by doing
 * Learning through M&E
 * Documenting learning
 * Sharing and communicating learning
 * 11.30 Integrating these actions into our teams (each team processes inputs and insights from the past 2.5 days).
 * Group work (60')
 * Presentation (30')
 * 13.00 //Lunch break//
 * 14.00 Hard talk/Chat show: Take away messages/actions opportunities and challenges for the program
 * 14.20 Reflector/RSS group?
 * 14.30 Review timeline
 * 14.45 Next steps / Synthesis and identification of important milestones and activities for planning 2013-2014 (peter and irmgard).
 * 15.00 Review and evaluation, f inal impressions (ewen)
 * 15.15 Close (coffee and tea)
 * 17.00 Meskel reception and dinner at Zebu Club

=Day one: Understanding the Program and its components=

Objective: By the end of the day, participants will have an understanding of the program, key concepts driving it, and activities already undertaken. Activities for the day included an opening program that covered the welcome and introduction of participants, and setting the context. Peter Thorne facilitated in place of Ewen Leborne and also gave a short welcome on behalf of Ian Wright, ILRI. For the participants’ introduction, the plenary was divided into smaller groups based on first names to do introductions and give some expectations from this learning event; share some experiences in their respective locations. Later, some participants were asked to discuss the conversations that took place in their groups.

Setting the wider context
The first set of sessions on laying down the context for the project included brief presentations by Tracy Powell (USAID) (see this presentation) on the Feed the Future (FtF) and Research Strategy, Alan Duncan (ILRI) (see this presentation) on the Humidtropics CRP, and Said Salim (ICARDA) (see this presentation) on the Drylands CRP, and how Africa RISING aligns with these initiatives and works with multidisciplinary teams and partners. A question and answer portion was held after the presentations. These were some of the questions and comments:

Q:Does the program emphasis on production at the expense of markets? A: There are two people those who need to increase production for resilience and those who can do market Q. In all 3 productions, emphasis given to livestock is minimum. Why is that? and in FtF, we have been trying to win projects based on livestock without much luck. A. Livestock is not excluded because the systems approach looks at integrated systems and livestock features very strongly in the systems.

Comment: We are strongly aligned with the CRP on Humidtropics but we have neglected Drylands. Some of the areas in Mali are drylands and so we need to to engage more strongly with this CRP. We need to discuss this in details during these three days.

Guiding Principles overlying the project –P. Thorne and I. Zeledon

 * · Step wise approach to SI to allow whole systems improvement
 * · Recognizing the need for different approaches to SI based on different households
 * · Recognize importance of R4D and innovation platforms
 * · Need to systematically identify and target entry points
 * · Acknowledge the ethics of engaging with participating partners.

We need to learn from each other, from our successes and our failures as through SI, we are not working alone. We have different types of farmers, some are extremely resource poor and some not so poor, and we therefore need to critically identify the target group and the technologies to introduce. There are so many activities under integration and intensification, and farmer are left to handle handles everything. So we need to prioritize.
 * Comments**

Chat show
Define RISING – Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation Define Sustainable Intensification - Increasing productivity without destroying the environment. Even better while conserving or improving the environment. Sounds easy but difficult to operationalize especially the sustainability aspect. AR is a great platform to explore how we are going to define sustainability. It would also be helpful to hear beneficiaries feedback on sustainability.Sustainability is a vague concept with many interpretations - a time scale, economically sustainable. How different is the AfricaRISING approach?: Partnership is one key difference. The are CG centres, universities, national research systems (NARS). We are getting a lot of contribution to our partners. Partners thosewe have a common agenda. -We have different partners and bringing in all the different components of the farming systems. Previously projects were commodity specific e.g. maize and legumes. No one thought about the livestock and vegetables which also contribute to nutrition and health. In AR we consider all these different components and work through different partners. -Partnerships are easy to talk in theory but in practical terms are difficult to operationalize. There are challenges in partnership and since we are all partners, we can spend sometime addressing them. -AR is a new way of working for USAID also, a new focus bringing together diverse partners to collectively tackle challenges bringing their different strengths and expertise. But there are challenges we need to acknowledge such as the transaction costs are high.

Q&A Q how do you bring in the partners? They are based on a needs assessment, what strengths do we need. Then at the areas we are operating, there are other partners, there are local authorities, political. We work well at the research level. At the implementation level not formalized.

Q: Are the R4D platforms are they formalized? A: We have made efforts. We have identified potential partners and identified some major issues to be addressed.

Q: We are in the second year. What can be better? What have we learned that we can improve on? A: Partnership has been a challenge for those on the ground. We need to define the roles for all the different partners. e need to determine how we collaborate and how the funding is channeled. Partnerships and roles need to be clearly defined. We also should be firm in our partnerships, if a partners is not performing, they should be let go.

Comments: We have not paid attention to our program document. If we do not know what our bible is, how will we know what to deliver? Are we clear we are doing research for development? We are a research project with a development objective. So how best do we scale up and scale out and give research approaches to experienced development practitioners. It is now now clearer and hope we can show in two years’ time that we have done what we were meant to do.

**Bus stop learning on research outputs**
The participants were divided into four groups based on the overall research outputs (RO). Facilitators were assigned to lead the discussion on each topic or research output and also present a summary of the group’s conversations. Participants were asked to focus on milestones, approaches, experiences, challenges, etc. They were also encouraged to move around the different groups and participate in the conversations.

//RO1: Situation analysis and program-wide synthesis (Aster)//

Priority: Gather information on farm system taking into consideration designs, baselines, typologies

Steps · Align interventions · Using survey tools, assess existing knowledge · Look at each tool and the different tools · Look at assets, constraints, opportunities, partners · Share data and tools · Integrate efforts · Establish effective and frequent communication · Consider scales of problems/opportunities · More research needed on markets

//RO2: Integrated systems improvement (Tom)//

We are putting R4D platforms into place taking into account integration; how do we capitalize on process of innovation? How do we identify issues for scaling up? Most of the focus is on technologies, not on institutional interventions (policies, markets, local conventions). Questions · Without all info available from situational analysis from output 1, how do we start to be able to adapt our plans? · How do we make objectives and opportunities of sustainable intensification concrete with farmers and stakeholders?

Themes identified · Scales: farm household · System component integration · Participatory action research and partnerships · Institutional interventions · Situational analysis or view of success · Make objectives and opportunities with farmers/stakeholders

Suggestions: how to make RO 2 work for researchers and stakeholders · Report results from output 1 to guide intervention and integration of activities from RO 2 · Develop more R4D activities and capitalize on ongoing initiatives to ensure linkages to themes, such as scales, component integration, institutional innovations · Choose output targets that are cross-cutting between system components (e.g., Mali, Nutrition, Field and Farm Productivity, NRM & Fodder); force institutions to work on cross-cutting themes

//RO3: Scaling and delivery of integrated innovation (Tracy)//

Definition: Develop appropriate approaches for scaling out technology packages · There has not been a lot of targeted technology scaling efforts. · Talked about research scales and technology scales and disseminating technologies to farmers on a wider geographical range · Hypothetically draw on previous partners’ experience in technology scaling and think about how we are building technology scaling in the earlier phases of our research activities · Focus on appropriate methodology and emphasize participatory action research that various partners are focusing on. · Talked about various approaches for doing participatory research, e.g, looking at local innovation platforms, PVS, mother-baby trials, activities that engage partners in different ways and looked at -strengths: leverage different local partners; ownership by local partners -challenges: uneven partnership, lack of incentive for partners -key factors for success: site coordinator facilitation, integration of AR activities in national and local priorities, appropriate level of engagement

Questions · How is Africa RISING addressing scaling of technologies? · How is it integrating scaling up of technologies into research objectives in RO1 and RO2? · Driving issue: How do we diagnose which types of scaling approaches will work in a particular context? · What are the most effective scaling models for different farm typologies? Integrated agricultural systems, to leverage cross-commodity knowledge · How to engage private sector? Under what conditions? · How to engage farmers in business-driven agriculture

//RO4: Integrated M&E process (Beliyou)//

What has been done so far: Benchmark survey in project countries; Development of M&E mapping tool so researchers will see what is being done in the sites and encourage cross-site learning

M&E covers an integration of ROs 1 to 4 and is concerned with how to generate evidence for RO3.

Questions · In evaluation, are qualitative and quantitative tools used? Do we use more ex ante assessment or ex post evaluation? · How are participatory approaches integrated in M&E processes? · Philosophical: Why do we need M&E in Africa RISING? · Strategic learning: What does sustainable intensification look like (at beginning, middle, end)? · What do you want to see at the end of the program? Adoption, Improved knowledge, Behavioral change, etc. · How do we measure impact (in a 5-year project)? · What is the role of M&E for development platform in additional to household-level outcomes?

Q and A/ Discussion · Q: There is a large gray area between R outputs 2 and 3. All institutions have technologies that are almost ready to go; how can we make those two link up so we get quick results from innovation platforms that in year 3 we can move to scaling up? · A: That is what AR is intended to do. Yes, there are many technologies ready for scaling but the AR challenge is bigger: we need integrated packages for farming systems; need bigger outputs to be done in R Output 3. · We need to choose biz model for each partner or household typology. We need to link these systems to typologies. · What is the difference between scaling up (more incidental, working with farmers); scaling out (going beyond, outside our action areas)? There are gray areas between these two. · This is like the difference between reach and change/impact. · They are very much interrelated (scaling up and out). supply of inputs and services; would have tremendous impact on supply of inputs and service; national and regional systems if you want to have a bigger impact on a wider scale.; scaling out—field days, study tours, fairs, etc to reach broader families and see their effect; who is in charge of scaling out? · On the issue of scaling up, I have not heard if they are appropriate technologies for scaling out; we need to identify interventions for critical entry points that fit our context based on sustainable intensification · There is a need to identify constraints to interventions. · We should not look at technologies that can be scaled but rather at processes for scaling up (M&E, implementation). · We are facing the problem of intensification, commercializing technologies, dealing with value chains; related to infrastructure problems, context and process are important, not technology; mindset needs to be changed. · We can influence markets; we are not victims of markets. · Actors should come together in these platforms, discuss constraints and decide who addresses what. · Q: How do we intend to do what; to what level, is there a match to national policies, quality standards, technology approval process, etc. prior to scaling? · We need to look at processes that enable scaling, not just institutional, but also natural resources management, water management, resources. · To what extent are the outputs still relevant to the work we do (sustainable intensification in transforming agriculture)? A straw poll suggests that yes, we are pretty much on track; a strong majority agree that we are on the right track. · While listening to the presentations on the research outputs where lots of issues were discussed in these smaller groups, I realize that now is the time to follow what is in the research document if we had internalized what is in our research document. · The research framework gives guidelines on concepts that we want to use; the issue now is how to implement this. It was suggested to bring this back at the open space discussions.

**Country reflections/Share fair: Approaches and tools in the different projects**
Participants were grouped by project (region) and discussed specific approaches, tools, and innovations applied in the respective projects. The lists of tools were then presented to the plenary.

//West Africa// Tools for collecting data · Mother-baby trials · Participatory community analysis (PRAE, PRA, RRA) · FEAST · Impact LITE · Biomass assessment tool · FGDs · Value chain analysis

Tools for disseminating and exchanging information · Farmer training videos · Hands-on demos · Community radio · Field days · NBCC (Nutrition Behavior Change Communication) · Community seed production

//East and Southern Africa// · Farmer-to-farmer extension (mother-baby trials, etc.) · Feed assessment tool · Matrix ranking (to assess availability of feed) · Reflection workshops · Socioeconomic surveys · Community surveys · FGDs · Integrated soil fertility management · Preference and pairwise ranking · Participatory action research · Techfit (Technology Filter Tool) · LDSF (Land Degradation Surveillance Framework) · Integrated Pest Management · Randomized Control Trials · Communication tools (wikis, Yammer, blogs, Slideshare, Flickr) · Participatory video and videos (Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease) · Transect mapping · Field days · News media (TV, radio, local newspapers) · GIS · Using politicians during field days

//Ethiopian Highlands// · AKTS (Agroecological KGE Tool Kit) with participatory community analysis · FEAST (Feed Assessment Tools) · Tech-Fit (feed adoption to match particular environment) · Value chain mapping tool (to identify actors in VC) · Value Chain Analysis Tool (to identify what value chain actors are doing) · PCA (Participatory community analysis) · Field days/demo plots · SLATE (Sustainable Livelihood Asset Tool Evaluation) · National innovation platforms · Local innovation platforms · Digital stories · Impact line (baseline survey or info generation tool) · Participatory resources mapping (natural assets; feed into SLATE)

Discussion · A compendium of tools and approaches used will be developed as a project resource. This will be a “living” list that will continue to be updated and expanded. · All projects were requested to complete their lists and provide descriptions of how they were used and how useful they are. Tracy volunteered to put together the list and send to everyone for updating and completion of information. //(Update: I have uploaded the draft list below. The comms team, Beliyou, and I will circulate a preliminary survey regarding the regional projects' use of some of these tools, with the intention of expanding the survey later on. --Tracy)// · Use of online media tools for scaling up and to be incorporated in research questions. · What comes out of the tools? Need to allocate time on how to facilitate cross-site learning. · It is important to put together these tools and share with other project implementers. · Researchable question: What tools are effective? · Other tools mentioned: forecast mapping, GIS (for site selection and technology targeting), rapid telephone survey, outcome mapping, tools to improve nutrition (SASHA, Nutrition Fairs), etc. · Information on how we share tools is missing. It would be useful to know the different tools, how they have been used, where the data are, what are the timelines, M&E information, etc. · What are the next steps in knowledge sharing with farmers across projects? · In Malawi, there are farmers’ academy that uses participatory systems modelling with farmers for farming systems to inform agricultural research and development. · There is the issue of how to feed back information from trials and make sure that this gets back to farmers. In Mali, project uses farmer participatory budgeting to feed back info to farmers. · We need to flag off on participatory benchmarking—there are lots of data that can be packaged together. · We must realize that we are participating in the farmers’ realities, not them participating in our projects. · Tyranny of tools: there are lots of tools, but how much data is being fed back into the process? There are plenty of experiences with other projects on participatory modelling to get farmers’ feedback. · It is good to differentiate between tools to get data and tools to promote. Data/information are used for different purposes, for different interventions. Data needs for modelling are different. What do we need the data for? Knowledge management? Capacity development? · We have tools for data gathering, tools for dissemination. We need to add tools for discourse/discussion: getting data to generate conversations about key issues. · Many of these tools are not new. How do we capitalize on what has been done instead of starting over again?

=Day 2:Focusing in on Program priorities and challenges - What we learned, what we need to learn, action agenda= This morning exercise focuses on exploring the guiding principles of the project that have been part of the proposal from its inception. Explore what have we learned what we need to learn and what we need to do following ‘Open Space’ facilitation methodology. Topics:
 * R4D platforms for learning and cooperation
 * Sustainable Intensification – can we come up with a useful working definition?
 * Indicators for social sustainability (measuring success)
 * Critical entry points towards sustainable intensification
 * Integration of activities at intervention communities
 * Going beyond the household scale in Africa RISING - Anthony
 * Women and agency
 * Trade-off hypothesis
 * Key drivers to sustainable intensification
 * Mechanisms for sharing research results and concepts with communities and other stakeholders
 * Labor saving technologies
 * How can intensification work well with small-holder farmers?
 * Research for Development framework
 * Partnership motivation
 * Scalability hypothesis

**A.** **For improving livelihoods**
Process 1. Identification - Needs assessment for different farm typologies and communities - Assessment of existing practices - Modeling to identify options - Do with all stakeholders - Consider trade-offs 2. What are they?

Animal +crop variety, new crop or animal, farming practices, soil fertility management, links to markets, animal/feeds, water, capacity building, combination of entry points, consider trade-offs.

3. How to use them - bring R4D platforms – the platform members can be from different levels - interventions will require different levels of action - individuals - some will require partners - sometimes multiple entry points are needed - consider trade-offs - M&E is important **B.** **Entry points for research** Farmers are the drivers Review literature, consult experts and indigenous knowledge Based on agro-ecologies Landscape and household types Short term and long term Types of research (on-farm, on station, participatory) New Partners may be needed to do some types of research

**Lesson/ observations**
Research framework based on continuous assessment Lack of linkages/integration with existing development projects Lack of understanding of markets and channels to decide on commodities **Action** Survey of development partners /Programmes who can be linked to AR Inventory of best –bet interventions (technologies, organizational, institutional) Inventory of approaches to disseminate and scale out Inventory of markets/input services, system/enterprises Development district level program Linkage research agenda to development programs.

Facilitator: Mateete Bekunda Learning 1. Institutional obligation to AR but without aligning scientists’ activities 2. High overhead cost for implementing small projects 3. Underwriting “business as usual”; in addition to own core business 4. Limited engagement of CGIAR system with NARS Actions 1. Conviction leads to commitment (We are Africa RISING!) 2. Team building, planning, and actions on site 3. Recruitment and engagement of technical implementers 4. Equitable resource sharing (CGIAR and NARES partners) 5. Review of quality of delivery (Terminate MoUs when terms are not being met) 6. Complementation of Africa RISING with other projects
 * 3. Partnerships Motivation/Integration**

Facilitator: Anthony Kimaro · Unit of operation: household (HH) scale/farm scale · HH constitutes community; indirectly linking HH to large scales · There are biophysical and community perspectives · Community/Landscape influences HH scale · Rationale for HH/farm scale: easy to measure impacts/output · Linking to different scales will involve testing several assumptions, e.g., SI stop/reduce extensification, poultry intervention reduces bush meat purchase · Need to consider using/developing tools (e.g., models*) to understand the linkage between HH/farm scales with community and landscapes and feedback mechanism Action points · List hypotheses to test the interactions/linkages across scales in AR (HH/farm – landscapes/markets) · Identify strategic opportunities to develop tools to test the hypotheses · Identify responsible partners to carry out the tasks, e.g., Wageningen – farm systems model; ETH Zurich – agent-based modelling; Texas A&M – overlap with new irrigation sites for watershed analysis? Quantitative/qualitative distribution of water resources at different scales
 * 4. Going beyond household scale in Africa RISING**
 * Intervention: agent-based modelling

Facilitator: Regis Chikowo Key discussion points · There is potential in the technologies available o Specificity of intervention – biophysical/social context o Impact on the environment o Scales: farm/landscape o Resource allocation within the farm: crop residues used on farms o Soil and water management · Identify assets of common use · Local germplasm vs “improved” germplasm: other traits less quantifiable, e.g., aroma, storability, ease of processing/cooking, taste · Nexus between increased “climbing bean” production and the environment – deforestation (stakes) · Plantation and water resources Actions · Identify tools/methodologies to assess trade-offs for the different scenarios described · Prepare synthesis on trade-offs (literature) to date · Produce an inventory of the social /cultural effects on trade-offs and livelihoods
 * 5. Trade-off hypotheses: Opportunity Cost**

Facilitator: Tracy Powell Program document definition: Producing more (output) from the area (land) while reducing negative environmental impacts, increase contributions of natural capital; flow of environmental service Intensification = efficiency = increasing outputs/inputs * inputs – agricultural inputs (sustainable issues), labor, energy, land capital (social, human financial) * outputs – agricultural productivity, biomass, protein/energy index, $/profit (economic, agronomic), reduced losses -Generate generic index of outputs/inputs -Use models -Use definition to inform AR’s experimental approach (mapping exercise?) -How we define “system” is crucial, also scale (e.g., household vs community) -Policy, other context may enable/constrain set boundary conditions for intensification Sustainability -environmental component -temporal component – over what duration (“next generation” -economic component (continuity/resilience) -socially sustainable/acceptable– assess communities generations; farm typology specific -different scale (HH vs landscape) -who defines sustainability – different communities have different definitions/objectives Start a new Sustainability Wiki Page as a forum for a Sustainability Working Group Post available resources to the sustainability wiki
 * 6. Can AR generate a useful definition of SI?**
 * Actions**

Facilitators - Likawent Yeheyis Lessons: Very low levels of intensification/utilization of improved technology by our small holder farmers - Technical capacity - Attitude - Availability - Access to finance - Knowledge (technology and market) Cataloguing of existing technologies and resources to be refined to suit the existing situation Use appropriate and affordable technologies Targeting different HH typologies with best fit technology Maximizing utilization of locally available resource Targeting youth groups Commodity diversification or enhancing resilience
 * 7. How can intensification function well under smallholder farmers conditions**
 * Action**

8. **Labor-saving as a cross-cutting theme in AR** Facilitator: Tom van Mourik Labor-saving technologies Action points **Integration: challenges and actions** Facilitator: Awet Estifonos, TARI Lessons Actions **Nutrition** Facilitator: Gladys Gamor Issues and challenges Actions **Avoiding silos** Facilitator: Peter Thorne Moving from discipline-based to systems research
 * Mechanization: use of processing machines (grinding mills), planting implements, for ploughing, reduced zero tillage, milk processing machines, harvesters and threshers/shellers, treadle pumps and drip irrigation, solar-power driven pumps, postharvest technologies (solarisation, solar dryer)
 * Collective action to increase labor productivity
 * IPM, ISFM can it be labor SMART?)
 * Energy saving cooking technologies (practices, implements)
 * Improved livestock management: enclosures and cut and carry systems
 * Effective use of ICT to reduce overhead cost and make on-farm labor available
 * Weed control using herbicides (specialized enterprises)
 * During specific periods in the year labor shortages are observed
 * Identify labor implications of technologies stated and their alternatives (current FP or practice)
 * Identify gender and farm typology specific/appropriate labor-saving technologies and innovate/combine
 * Establish links between technologies and alternative opportunities or unemployment
 * Good start in AR but should be strengthened in PVS
 * Working separately or business as usual at higher institutional level
 * Unorganized surveying baseline data/info
 * Limited resources (land, water, etc.)
 * Poor integration between crop and livestock-tree technologies at household level/farm/landscape because of free grazing
 * Poor info exchange mechanism
 * Lack of knowledge on how to use source of alternative energy (biogas...)
 * Fragmented planning-implementation of partners
 * Capitalize on the existing farming system (crop-livestock-tree)
 * Capacity building
 * Establish effective IP
 * Link AR with the existing ARDPLAC
 * Link agriculture with health, extension for nutrition
 * Improve info sharing mechanisms among partners
 * Proper identification of target groups with common goals
 * Joint planning-implementation and evaluation
 * Inadequate knowledge of processing, preparation, and value addition
 * Integration of high-value (indigenous) fruit trees/vegetables as a component of AR
 * Inadequate knowledge on food safety and hygiene (aflatoxin, mycotoxins, anti-nutritional factors)
 * Effect on nutrition as a result of commercialization
 * Less attention on nutrition compared to food security
 * Targeting nutrition interventions to suit household typologies
 * Nutrition profiling for different households – subsistence-oriented, market-oriented
 * Training on nutrition/consumption of small ruminants and poultry
 * Promotion of the production, processing, and preservation of fruits and vegetables
 * Nutrition-health indicators
 * Single discipline entry point then widen out into systems issues (monitoring needed)
 * Starting point of multidisciplinary teams can help
 * Identify and start with priority areas and linkages will come later
 * Importance of recognizing the secondary interventions that are needed to support adoption of primary interventions
 * Are multiple interventions across multiple farm types too complex for platforms to handle (maybe not if village-level platforms)
 * High level of facilitation skills required to link local platforms with world-level platforms
 * Alignment of some stakeholders and others that can help needs to be monitored

= **Day 3:** Synthesis - from learning to action = From all the various topics discussed in the open space exercise, participants voted to the most important topics for further discussion and follow up noting all were important but the program had to prioritize what to tackle first.

**R4D platforms**
The group said they had spent time on trying to define R4D and innovation platforms to operate in. it was agreed R4D was the overall platform for the project which can have several innovation platforms within.

**Q&A/Discussions**
 * R4D platform and innovation platforms. Can we clarify these?
 * Missing in terms of action points. We’ll be using R4D platforms in different ways to promote adoption of the different technologies.
 * We need an action point on the use of these platforms. Innovation platforms are usually single commodity but with our integration project, this will not work. We need to make it work for our project.
 * R4D platforms include a wider reach such as policy makers. And should contribute an enabling environment for our sustainable intensification project. R4D platform is not only for adoption but also to prioritize our interventions.
 * Let us create IPs around outcomes. Let’s examine critically the two concepts and some up with one that will work for us. We seem to talk IP at lower level but R4D leads to create an enabling environment and we need this too at lower level. All levels should create enabling environments.

**Can AR generate a clear definition of Sustainable Intensification?**
Facilitator: Tracy Powell **Comments:**
 * We critiqued the current definitions e.g. intensification is more than producing more output from the same area of land. Same area of land was restrictive and when it looks at sustainable looked only at environment also restrictive. It should also be economically sustainable, well accepted.
 * Recommended action points included revised definition to include whole-farm efficiency (outputs/inputs) with minimal land expansion and expand to include environmental, economic, human, and social sustainability. Circulate concept note for feedback and use revised definitions to inform AR’s approach.
 * It is not recommended for AR to spend time developing more frameworks. Sustainable intensification should go beyond household levels into landscape scale.
 * A: Though indicators are at household levels but we recognized the scale issue. So we’ll still explore how to capture this.

**Partnership and motivation**
Facilitator: Bekunda Mateete **Comments /discussions**
 * Solutions is being convinced that we are all in Africa RISING – sense of belonging then all
 * Teams should get together at action sites
 * Resource – more resources to the partners on the ground
 * High overheads in implementing small projects. AR composed of small projects. AR builds on on-going activities that support whatever you are doing
 * If a partner is not performing they should be let go
 * If you cannot deliver you get out. How did we arrive there? Who determines who delivers?
 * A: We need to sit together and decide. For example if someone does not even report, they are out.
 * Being on the ground – there is a disconnect between NARS who attend planning meetings (they are not those on the ground). At planning meetings only senior level NARS participate but not those on the ground to implement
 * This observation should not be generalized. There are good examples where even the people on the ground participate in the planning meetings. It also important for the high level policy makers to attend and buy into the project for later support with policy issues.
 * In Mali USAID did not encourage project to work closely with NARS. And that is not budgeted for in the project.
 * All topic owners ensure there is follow up action. Who will do what and when?

**Gender and Agency**
Facilitator: Annet Mulema Action points:
 * All interventions should wear gender lenses as it’s one of the areas affecting our activities. Gender neutral technologies or not.
 * We all care about gender topics but we need a real gender plan that will influence at the implementation level. It’s a good starting point to develop a strategy for Africa RISING in Ethiopia that we can share with the groups.

**Integration:** **challenges and actions**
Facilitator: Awet Estifonos, TARI
 * Capitalize on the existing farming system (crop-livestock-tree)
 * Capacity building
 * Establish effective IP
 * Link agriculture to human nutrition
 * Mechanisms for information sharing among partners should be strengthened. As an entry point we need to identify groups e.g. women, men for AR. Integration through undertaking joint activities from planning to evaluation
 * Comments/suggestion/questions **
 * I hope we are already doing some of the proposed action points. If not then we are really behind
 * A: We are doing some of these things but we need to improve on them. We also have to integrate post-production activities postharvest, processing and marketing levels
 * Share reports to show how in Ethiopia some of the action points that are already being implemented
 * We have experienced some difficulties around integrating, need to identify and deal with them
 * Group work – Based on all the discussions and presentations in the last two days develop an action plan with the priority activities can be fed into the country program action plans

**Malawi**
1. Integration –we discussed how we will tackle integration in our activities. We need to strengthen disciplinary integration at systems level (diversified crop (grains+ legumes) +livestock (dairy cows and goats) and nutrition component (working with Malawi university dept of Food Science) –Key stakeholder – DAS, ICRAF, MSU, CIAT, University 2. Formation and strengthening R4D platform – Key stakeholders: government extension, district commissioners (policy issues), NGOS, (e.g. USAID-INVC), farmers, agro-dealers, seed companies. These will be key stakeholder to strengthen the R4D component. 3. M&E strengthen and work closely and come up with some indicators to help us track our progress. Comments- consider time and season to incorporate integration

**Ethiopia**
1. Define and establish R4D & IP platforms 2. Work on M&E at project level 3. Work on tools and prioritize them and consolidate for future use. 3. Capacitate our site coordinators- be familiarized with project activities 4. Conduct planning meeting in early November to take stock of what we have done, summarize project successes and plan activities for the next season. This will help to coordinate activities and have a consolidated plan. These include to synthesize results from characterization; discuss and plan on communications strategy to see how to disseminate all the information we have with different users; discussion prioritization of farm enterprises according to farm typologies; integrate gender in our activities; discuss on scale approach operations – we focus on household levels but also see interventions that will work at landscape level. We want to characterize different interventions for different typologies. 5. Inventories of practices/ different approaches/interventions Discuss is not very good as an action point need to discuss who will do what for accountability. A: In the planning meeting we will sort this out.
 * Comments**

**Tanzania**
1. R4D platforms – establish the platforms at the district levels and bring all stakeholders. There are some IPs in place on some commodities so take inventory of all PIs. Lymo and Swai to take lead. To be done by end of December 2. Partnership motivation and integration –planned joint site planning meetings including site-farm selections. Babati 14 – 18 /10/2013 and Kongwa and Kiteto 21- 25 /10/13. (Ben and Swai to take lead). 3. Engage field technicians in the coming season. Recruit fulltime technicians to the project or second someone from the team. It will be team specific looked at secondment and what is feasible. (Patrick and Mateete) 3. Resources – there is need for equitable sharing of resources. Emphasis is done on conducting joint planning and budgeting to optimize resource use. 4. Gender – Consult with Annet ILRI gender specialist on how to integrate gender issues and also find local partners with this expertise. By end of October 2013 at the action site planning meeting so it’s in place at start field activities 5. Sustainability and intensification issues – capture sustainable intensification on the project. At project we take initiative to develop customized SI indicators but also incorporate any indicators that will come from program level. Be in place at October 2013 at planning meeting. All research team and Ainsley (IFPRI) to work on this) Comment: Yes, Annet is available to consult other projects on gender issues.

**Ghana and Mali**
**Comments:** · Carry out joint site visits to inform / Integrate activities at the site planning meeting · There is a stakeholder fatigue setting in demanding on these same groups of people. There are many other sectors on the ground. So there has to be action: there is considerable reflection on this. At the local sit we have to handle this sensitively even the farmers who are our client. · Small-scale irrigation project – please have strong ties with this. · Aligning with Feed the Future indicators – these are always there. We will meet with M&E team and address these issues properly. Gathering meaningful data to generate evidence of how we are achieving them.
 * 1) How to operation R4D and innovation platforms – train facilitators on the concept before we talk about implementation. There are other platforms in place so we need to document these before establishing our own (Tom and Larbi)
 * 2) Partnership – there will be a need for a joint planning session. Carry out joint visit to sites twice a year so each person understands what is happening; Have a joint M&E in the site;
 * 3) 3 sites in Ghana - Upper west, upper East and North– we need to have a regional implementation team. Monthly updates to know what is happening. Project leaders be responsible for reports
 * 4) Integration – we have started implementing what we learned here. We need to review guidelines and document and experiences (Larbi and Tom)
 * 5) Gender issues – incorporate recommendations from the Gender discussions. (Tom and Larbi)

**Communications**

 * Strategic issues
 * Integration of communications in research work plans
 * Update of program/project communications plans
 * Improving AR visibility through branding and media promotions
 * Enhancing existing communication tools
 * Action**
 * Coordinate with country project coordinators on integration of communications
 * Adapt communication plans to need
 * Develop branding guidelines and templates tools/media plans to increase visibility /awareness & promote sharing and learning
 * Update and develop communication tools and products.
 * Comments and Discussions**
 * Get the communications team nearer to the action sites. Team to support project teams in packaging the information to communicate to the grass roots.
 * Form a team and write a position paper on Africa RISING – who will take a lead on this?.
 * Need to publish scientific papers and communications can support in terms of building capacities.
 * Communications strategies should operate across the different levels.
 * Communications come on board and make the stories interesting and catchy.

**Feedback on Learning event from different teams**
**1.** **Ethiopia – Kindu Mekonnen** Workshop was informative and well organized. We learned on the Importance of effective integration through effective IPs to meet our objectives. Meeting led to sharing experience among different team members from different countries, sites. The field trips showed importance of utilization of local available resources to maximize resources e.g. saw local composting. We were exposed to different research tools. Everyone got an in-depth of SI, definition and approach and implementation, and importance of Household Typologies. **2.** **Ghana – Gladys Gamor** We have learnt a lot through the interactive participation, the discussion. Outputs and concepts identified have formed a basis for playing field. We’ll review and modify and make good use of it to suit our situation. Build stronger partnerships **3.** **Malawi – Wezi Mhango** The main issues and highlights picked are the R4D platforms and importance of partnerships. In Malawi, though our partnerships are strong seen there is still room for improvement. We need to look critically at commitments. We need to consider gender issues. We have a composition of 50% gender representation and team will ensure gender issues are implemented. On SI indictors, we have realized we been focussing more on biophysical indicators but we now need to look at socio-economic indicators. **4.** **Tanzania - Stephen Lymo** Approach by AR is participatory involving all partners on the ground researchers, NGOs, local government, CGs. We have gotten good preliminary results on management options, forage species introduced to farmers etc. The activities are promising and contribute to improving livelihoods. From the learning event we have learned a lot on all thematic areas. We have learned to succeed there must be team spirit, team work, integration and sustainability. The event was very well organized event. Next year learning event you are all welcome to Arusha, Tanzania.

** Closing remarks **
**Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon:** At AR we have had had many workshops and we have been good at following up on recommendations. Of importance is the documentation of this workshop being handled by the communications team. They will let us know where we can find notes. Country teams have developed action points so I will follow up on their implementation. Some of the action points can be quickly incorporated into the new work plans and some in the next work plans for next year. Tomorrow we will hold the Program Steering Committee (PCT) and discuss some of the issues. Such as how do we better integrate gender building on what the group has come up with? We’ll also look at Sustainability Indicators – the workshop has made steps in this effort. So at PCT we will work on this. Donor reports are dues. So please send reports so we compile and we send them to Washington before deadline. We started discussion on having a program wide log-frame. We still do not have log frames at the program levels or at regional levels. We get requests from outsiders on our activities, our objectives. Our program is not succinct enough to understand what we are doing. Log frames link everything together and will show outcomes and outputs and what are our milestones. So we will discuss how to go about developing this. Next meeting in November is on M&E led by IFPRI. Also we have been informed we need to prepare for an external program review by carrying out our own internal review first preferably by mid-next year. We have entered a very important year for the program, we now need to produce results. There is a lot of documentation on R4D platforms and innovation platforms on humid tropics that we can share with all project team leaders. **Peter Thorne** – He asked all participants to part themselves on the back for coming up with clear action plans that can be implemented at project levels and across the program. It was quite a journey for everyone. Thanked those behind the successful workshop: Ewen who active in designing the program, Peter Ballantyne, Kindu Makonnen, Simret Yasabu and many other players from the Ethiopia team including for catering, logistics and administration. He also thanked all the participants for their active participation that led to the success. = = 1. Integration –we discussed how we will tackle integration in our activities. We need to strengthen disciplinary integration at systems level (diversified crop (grains+ legumes) +livestock (dairy cows and goats) and nutrition component (working with Malawi university dept of Food Science) –Key stakeholder – DAS, ICRAF, MSU, CIAT, University 2. Formation and strengthening R4D platform – Key stakeholders: government extension, district commissioners (policy issues), NGOS, (e.g. USAID-INVC), farmers, agro-dealers, seed companies. These will be key stakeholder to strengthen the R4D component. 3. M&E strengthen and work closely and come up with some indicators to help us track our progress. || 1. Define and establish R4D & IP platforms 2. Work on M&E at project level 3. Work on tools and prioritize them and consolidate for future use. 4. Capacitate our site coordinators- be familiarized with project activities 5. Conduct planning meeting in early November to take stock of what we have done, summarize project successes and plan activities for the next season. This will help to coordinate activities and have a consolidated plan. These include to synthesize results from characterization; discuss and plan on communications strategy to see how to disseminate all the information we have with different users; discussion prioritization of farm enterprises according to farm typologies; integrate gender in our activities; discuss on scale approach operations – we focus on household levels but also see interventions that will work at landscape level. We want to characterize different interventions for different typologies. 6. Inventories of practices/ different approaches/interventions || 1. R4D platforms – establish the platforms at the district levels and bring all stakeholders. There are some IPs in place on some commodities so take inventory of all PIs. Lymo and Swai to take lead. To be done by end of December 2. Partnership motivation and integration –planned joint site planning meetings including site-farm selections. Babati 14 – 18 /10/2013 and Kongwa and Kiteto 21- 25 /10/13. (Ben and Swai to take lead). 3. Engage field technicians in the coming season. Recruit fulltime technicians to the project or second someone from the team. It will be team specific looked at secondment and what is feasible. (Patrick and Mateete) 3. Resources – there is need for equitable sharing of resources. Emphasis is done on conducting joint planning and budgeting to optimize resource use. 4. Gender – Consult with Annet ILRI gender specialist on how to integrate gender issues and also find local partners with this expertise. By end of October 2013 at the action site planning meeting so it’s in place at start field activities <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. Sustainability and intensification issues – capture sustainable intensification on the project. At project we take initiative to develop customized SI indicators but also incorporate any indicators that will come from program level. Be in place at October 2013 at planning meeting. All research team and Ainsley (IFPRI) to work on this) ||
 * =<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Summary of Action points by Country = ||
 * ==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Malawi ==
 * ==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ethiopia ==
 * ==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Tanzania ==
 * ==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ghana and Mali ==
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How to operation R4D and innovation platforms – train facilitators on the concept before we talk about implementation. There are other platforms in place so we need to document these before establishing our own (Tom and Larbi)
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Partnership – there will be a need for a joint planning session. Carry out joint visit to sites twice a year so each person understands what is happening; Have a joint M&E in the site;
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3 sites in Ghana - Upper west, upper East and North– we need to have a regional implementation team. Monthly updates to know what is happening. Project leaders be responsible for reports
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Integration – we have started implementing what we learned here. We need to review guidelines and document and experiences (Larbi and Tom)
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gender issues – incorporate recommendations from the Gender discussions. (Tom and Larbi) ||
 * ==<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Communications ==
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Coordinate with country project coordinators on integration of communications
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Adapt communication plans to need
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Develop branding guidelines and templates tools/media plans to increase visibility /awareness & promote sharing and learning
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Update and develop communication tools and products. ||
 * Particpant List**

Organizers' agenda