ethiopia_partners_meeting_20150126

Partners' meeting

= = toc
 * Date: ** 26 January 2015
 * Time ** : 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
 * Venue ** : Jegol Meeting room, ILRI campus, Addis Ababa

+ on Skype: Aster Gebrekirstos (ICRAF), Peter Thorne (ILRI) ELuid Birachi (CIAT).
 * Attendees ** : Aberra Adie (ILRI), Annet Mulema (ILRI), Barbara Rischkowsky (ICARDA), Britta Kowalski (CIP), Dirk Hoekstra (ILRI), Elias Damtew (ILRI), Ewen Le Borgne (ILRI - taking notes), Gashaw Tadesse(ICRISAT), Frederic Baudron (CIMMYT) Jane Wamatu (ICARDA), Kindu Mekonnen (ILRI\Africa RISING), Mariama Fofana (CIP), Melkamu Derseh (ILRI), Nigussie (ICARDA), Petra Schmitter (IWMI), Rolf Sommer (CIAT), Romulus Sofan (IWMI), Sharma Kalpana (CIP-Ethiopia), Siboniso Moyo (ILRI), Valentine Gandhi (IWMI), Vine Muchkasira (ILRI), Zelalem Lema (ILRI), Simret Yasabu(ILRI\Africa RISING),Wubalem Dejene(ILRI),Alan Duncan(ILRI)


 * Meeting Agenda Items **
 * 1) Progress / team updates
 * 2) Update on innovation platforms
 * 3) Integrated watershed management
 * 4) AOB
 * 1) AOB

= **Minutes of the meeting** =

**1. Progress / Team updates**
Q: Where is the feasibility study at? A: We are beginning with that on Wednesday.
 * CIMMYT ** :
 * All the harvest is done . now we are collecting data and working on data compilation and ready to write report and analysis of data
 * IWMI**:
 * Identified site, and appropriate technologies
 * Designed research experiment
 * Two main sites selected – Debre Berhan and Lemo
 * Sustaibnlity study to start on wednsday

All crops have been harvested and there has been the set up of the rainwater management / harvesting system. Now getting ready for the land degradation surveillance framework (??). We are sending some of our past reports on markets and value chains to Africa RISING and hope they can help with editing. These need editing before they go online. We are also producing three briefs through Dirk and already been submitted to the communication team. These outputs form the documents for that work. The interventions we have planned are derived from these reports. We expect visits to some sites and hope to get the help from the team for logistics. We also have a student in Sinana (Sultan) who's managed to defend his proposal and we are expecting to implement some of his proposed interventions in at least more than 1 site. He's working on the data collection tools.
 * CIAT**:


 * CIP ** :

All PVS crops harvested, We are almost done with all crops (incl'g seed multiplication)...

on the process of data analysis, compiling all the data

Harvesting applies to us also as we are involved in the PBS. On crop residue: we are doing sequential analysis for the ?? in D/Birhan. Results released last week and farmers are awaiting feedback from us, which we'll give in the next 2 weeks. Sinana: ?? they were able to set up the ? Animals purchased and the trial has begun. Rainwater harvesting started in December. We have harvested all the PVSs and we are trying to do measurement of the samples for the barley, malt, wheat and potato. We have expectations to have sthg like 400 quintals of potato and 20 quintals of wheat. Faba beans: everything boils down to seeds. The next step is to scale up work from previous years. WRT to malt barley we submitted them for malt quality analysis
 * ICARDA ** :

1. Training on Apple management in Tigray January 4-5 and 17-18 January in Sinana and today in Debrebirhan The objective of the training was:
 * ICRAF ** :
 * To raise farmers awareness on apple management;
 * To create a common understanding between farmers on the benefits of apple production and management
 * To hold a discussion on the main opportunity and challenges in the ongoing apple management practices and to take a corrective action
 * To improve community participation and engagement on apple production

Key activities that were performed include; provide basic concepts on apple management and then followed by field demonstration on main tending operations, at the same time planted seedlings were labeled and seedling growth performance were assessed. For practical demonstration 4 pruning shear, 4 spraying can, (pest & disease control) 2 roll string (branch training), 470 laminated labels, and 0.25 litter alcohol with cotton (disinfection / cleaning) were provided to the target farmers on both sites. There is a very high demand on apple including training needs at a higher level to experts

2. We have employed a research assistant ( I have sent her details)

3 The walnut seedlings have arrived in Kenya yesterday (but the permit is not yet processed and actually today I was working on that …will update you).

Harvesting and sampling for the stepwise intensification and rain-fed fodder has been completed; samples are being processed for lab analysis. Preliminary data analysis has been done for the stepwise intensification protocol and preparation is underway to select suitable faba bean variety and forage combinations for the coming belg and meher seasons. Demonstration of improved crop residue management technologies took place in all AR sites; core farmers have been selected to implement the technologies and construction of improved sheds and feeding troughs are being conducted. Regular performance records of tree Lucerne fodder is underway. Other events organised (learning event, Ethiopia review & planning meeting). As part of the programm communication activites we commission a professional phot journalsit every year to prodcue blogs,photofilms and take pictures. Last year it was in Ghana and this ear in Ethiopia. two of our sites were selected(Hossana and Maychew). the consultant has submitted his draft and we will share with the larger group once the outputs are finalized. A series of IP meetings etc.
 * ILRI ** :

About nutrition: Had meetings with woreda level in D/Birhan and established MoU with EPHI. Worked with Zelalem.

Peter, Kindu etc. are going to India and Bangladesh for 11 days to link up with the CSISA project (funded by BMGF/USAID). We hope to learn some lessons from them and hopefully we can also share some lessons with them. We have some meetings in California, including a session at the annual meeting of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) on sustainable intensification indicators metrics... And a workshop to use indicators we can effectively use for our impact assessment, to be tested in the next 6 months. We hope that these metrics will generate that evidence for us.

__Q&A__:
 * Q: The masters' students, are they all for ILRI protocols?
 * A: No, joint proposals (led by ILRI, CIAT etc.)

Presentation on innovation platforms by Zelalem
__See the presentation here__:
 * Comment: we have developed an M&E framework to evaluate IP activities. In December, Elias submitted the results on 5 measured indicators (site coordinators, M&E champions and IP team are collecting some data). We will continue to collect this data and we want to share data through the Google Drive but we need to check this in relation with IFPRI's data collection... This is also connected with the gender work of Annet.
 * Q: Sustainability of these IPs? It often looks fascinating but are IPs set up in a top-down or bottom-up way? And I'm afraid that this will fall apart once AR disappears. We really need to work on the sustainability.
 * A: Actually it's not an easy task to work through IPs and managing partnerships is complex. We are trying to organise work with stakeholders that are affected by a.o. this project's activities. We can achieve learning through our regular IP meetings, farmer field days etc. But sustainability depends on people seeing impact and owning the process. Incentives? We are engaging farmers in action research. Just learning is not enough, but in Africa RISING farmers are benefitting from that Action Research work.
 * Everyone has their own activities and IPs are difficult to convince people over. At initial stage we bring in every actor along the value chain, then we hope that IPs will set up other groups/clusters if need be. We are helping them linking up and we hope that the value chain actors will continue to meet. We hope after some years we'll see results.
 * Field days are not just around Africa RISING work. The more you can combine with other programs the more sustainable it becomes.
 * Q: Did you include value chain actors in the conversation and did you propose interventions?
 * A: Originally we had that in mind but we are now working around various commodities. So we decided to look at the very best commodities for each site and then identify other value chain actors to invite. For now we have implementers, NGOs, government etc.
 * There are resource materials developed about IPs under HumidTropics.
 * We have to work with the BoA to make sure these IPs are sustainable.

Photo report on integrated watershed management training workshops and experience sharing
media type="custom" key="27122700" Lulseged Desta should present this properly next time around.
 * Comment: Lots of questions coming up etc. Please don't reinvent the wheel. When you go on a study tour like this week get some ideas about this.
 * Q: Do you have any plans to involve more women?
 * A: Yes we insisted on having more women in this program...

And as Aster mentioned: "If people are not able to visit Abrha We Astbeha please watch tales of two villages" (see video below). media type="youtube" key="GKmlAjuZ6Hw" width="560" height="315"

Metadata sharing
Lots of confusion on the guidelines from IFPRI. We raised lots of issues here, which we shared with them. There's been an awful lot of debate about data management plans and policies. This is driven by CGIAR's open data policy. USAID has its own and they're not too far apart but there are inconsistencies. We need some work on this and I (Peter Thorne) thank you all. The ball is in IFPRI's court to make this work. We have done our best to put metadata together but we still need to collate peoples' experiences on this.


 * Q: Why is this not about 'data' simply instead of 'metadata'.
 * A: The data will come later. When the study is being conducted, metadata is being uploaded and once data has been collected they're added to the record. Metadata are already there upfront. But we won't be able to get away with not doing this. But we have to mention the big issues of data management (e.g. to link through to other data repositories).
 * Comment: we had a similar issue in the ILSSI project and there we decided that there are certain USAID requirements that we need to show we are complying with at ILRI/IWMI.
 * PT: That's a pragmatic solution but IFPRI have been tasked to set up this repository but they don't have the capacity to host it. It's hosted by ILRI CKAN. It's quite crazy, hence the need to document our experiences. In May we'll travel to Washington to talk to USAID.
 * Q: Would ILRI be in a position to jump in and provide a system we can use for the time being?
 * A: We are doing this at the moment, but IFPRI is filtering our information. Again, let's collect experiences around this and hope that on that basis, in the coming months we will get more information about how to do this smartly.

Direction of R4D in 2015 belg and main rainy season
We have scaling activities etc. and we need time to formalise the activities mentioned during the learning event.

Next plan

Africa RISING Ethiopia project will go though an internally commisioned reviewer in March .they will stay for ten day and a total of three people have already been selected. we are hoping them to visit to of the Africa RISING sites and we expect presentation on initial findings

AOB
Let's agree to have external participants check in 10' before the meeting to set up the audio settings and if they don't show up then we can't offer to help... And to do this on Google Hangouts...

Next Meeting : 26 February 2015. Simret will send out invitations