Lessons learned from learning lessons

Third day of the IFAD-EUFF capitalisation workshop in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

The third day of the IFAD-EUFF capitalisation workshop is not only the final day of this workshop. It is also the end of a process that was initiated in September 2011 at the first capitalisation workshop in Bamako, Mali. The term capitalisation refers to a process to profit or benefit from a “capital” that we have, in the case of the IFAD-EUFF programme, the lessons learned and experiences of the colleagues working in the different projects. Over the last six month, the participants have worked on narrowing down a unique experience or factor in their projects that they want to share with others. Now it was time to draw the lessons learned and discuss the next steps.

Isaac Vifa, who has been working with the Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme in Ghana for the last two years, took some time to tell me about his experiences:

What is capitalisation and can you briefly describe the process?

You have participated in the IFAD-EUFF programme capitalisation process. What are you central learnings of these six month?

How can capitalisation increase the impact of development programmes?

A big thanks to you, Isaac!

Other points that were raised during the feedback discussions:

• Failures are a learning opportunity: By sharing difficulties, limitations and the way we addressed them, others can learn from the experiences and avoid having to face the same challenges.
• Exchange matters: Sharing knowledge among different projects and between different country teams creates synergies, helps everyone to improve the work and to sustain what has been achieved.
• An addition, not an alternative: Capitalisation products proved a valuable addition to formal reports and scientific papers.

Steps to integrate capitalisation in knowledge-management strategy:

• Capitalisation should be included in the project design.
• Everyone involved in the projects should receive training on knowledge sharing and capitalisation.
• Knowledge-sharing is not only for knowledge-sharing experts, everyone can do it.

Better seeds for higher yields

Second day of the IFAD-EUFF capitalisation workshop in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

I’m sure, all of you are familiar with the following situation: You write an article/report/letter and you think you have addressed every aspect, answered every question and structured the information in a logical way. Then you give it to colleagues and they come back with inputs and comments. And in the end, you have an even stronger document.

This is exactly what happened today, at the second day of the IFAD-EUFF capitalisation workshop in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The different country groups from Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire had prepared one or two articles in which they outlined experiences they made while implementing the projects. These documents will be published and will support other organisations working on similar issues, to gain new ideas or to replicate the successful approach. This morning, all participants came together in small groups and discussed the articles prepared by the other projects.ents where you ask yourself how you could have possibly not considered this. And in the end, you have an even stronger document.

The feedback was as diverse as the people in the room: “What kind of training was provided?”; “How many seed producers were selected?”; “You should insert subheads to make the document better readable.” and so on.

The result is a room full of participants who are working in their colleague’s comments in their paper. While this morning was dominated by lively discussions, now you mainly hear clicking of many keyboards. And while the workshop participants are working on their articles, I will share some of their experiences with you:

Senegal

Since it is the UN International Year of Cooperatives, I will start with Senegal, where more than 65 per cent of the population lives in rural areas. Most of them are engaged in agriculture, many produce groundnuts. A change in agricultural policies, the hand-over of groundnut seed production from the state to the private sector, let to a rapid decline in the groundnut production. Attempts to rebuild the seed stock failed. Together with IFAD and the World Bank, the Government of Senegal piloted the establishment of groundnut seed producer cooperatives . The pilot was a big success and with the additional funding by the European Food Facility (EUFF), cooperatives have been established in five more regions. In their article, the colleagues from Senegal share their experiences in establishing cooperatives, good practices for marketing, financial and administrative management and how to ensure the cooperatives’ sustainability.

Mali

Northern Mali is landlocked, has a fragile ecosystem and regularly faces drought. But at the same time, it is rich in natural resources and offers huge flood or non-flood plains – perfect to cultivate rice along the river Niger. Rice is not only the main cereal consumed in the region, but also offers an income source as a cash crop. With the support of IFAD, the Government of Mali established the Programme for Investment and Rural Development in Northern Mali (Programme d’Investissement et Développement Rural des Régions du Nord Mali, PIDRN). Supported with the funding by the EUFF, PIDRN increased the availability of certified seeds. The project developed small irrigated village seed plots which are managed by cooperatives. Traditionally rice seeds are produced in small plots within the rice paddies and are often exposed to drought periods. Producing rice seeds in village seed plots allows for better water management, better production monitoring and the scale-up of the production. The numbers of farmers engaged in seed production are increasing, but so is the demand for certified rice. In their article, the colleagues from Mali share not only a project outline and the lessons learned but also future steps to ensure the project’s sustainability.

Benin

In Benin, seed production is divided among a large number of actors. Without a joint platform, there was no dialogue, no joint approach and a lot of conflict about the different competences. The Government of Benin, together with IFAD and financial support from the EUFF, established a dialogue platform, to bring all actors together and create synergies in their work. The difficult undertaking was worthwhile. As a result, the availability of rice seeds and cassava cutting has increased significantly. Another experience the colleagues from Benin shared, was the use of biotechnology to ensure the quality of the cassava cuttings. A video documentary gives some background about the set up and results of this project.

Côte d'Ivoire

For Ivory Coast, the Project for Support to Small Scale Market Gardeners in the Savanes Regions (PPMS), shared the experience on the establishment of a process to produce certified rice and maize seeds. This process helped to ensure the use of quality seed and led to higher yields. With support of IFAD and the EUFF, the Project developed a four phase-certification process:

1. pre-inspection which includes the identification, accreditation and the training of seed multipliers as well as the choice of plots;
2. the field inspection to verify the quality of the pre-base seeds and the inspection of production conditions;
3. from the harvest of accredited farms samples were taken and analysed at the national seed laboratory,
4. depending of the results of the analysis, the producers receive a certificate of compliance or non-compliance by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Ghana

The Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme (RTIMP), initiated by the Government of Ghana and IFAD, developes the crop production through research and extension. With additional funding provided by the EUFF, the project’s efforts to sustainable increase the production of seed yam and cassava stems by small-scale growers could be scaled-up. Traditional methods of multiplying and distributing planting often come with low yields, the multiplication and spread of diseased planting material and a large input to produce seeds/stems. To ensure that farmers have high quality crops and higher yields, RTIMP introduced the minisett technology, a methods to produce yam seeds with less input and better results and established a sustainable system for the supply of roots to Good Practice Centres through the strategic multiplication and distribution of improved cassava planting materials. In their two articles, the colleagues from Ghana, describe how they spread the improved methods of producing planting materials, outline the different production methods and share their lessons learned.

All articles will soon be available on FIDAfrique.

Monitoring and Evaluating the IFAD Country Programme in Ghana

by Adriane Del Torto
 
Monitorting and Evaluation (M&E) is often considered one of the weakest links in development programmes. This is also true for IFAD. The IFAD Country Programme in Ghana took this as a challenge to overcome and started to invest in M&E about two years ago. After putting an emphasis on this theme for some time now, it was finally decided that the stakeholders involved in M&E should get together to share successes and address the gaps that still exist in M&E. From 12 to 14 December, a Ghana Country Programme Learning and Exchange Workshop on M&E took place at the Alisa Hotel in Accra.

The workshop , organised by the IFAD Country Office in close collaboration with the West Africa Rural Foundation (WARF) brought together representatives from all IFAD projects, the Roots and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Project (RTIMP), Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP), Rural Enterprises Programme( REP II), Rural Agriculture Finance Programme( RAFIP), Northern Region Poverty Reduction Project (NORPREP), WARF, the Government of Ghana - the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFIP) and the National Development and Planning Commission (NDPC) and partners IFPRI/SAKKSS, IPA, University of Ghana, Busylab , Esoko Mobile Technology, in  an innovative and interactive workshop.

The overall objective of this workshop is to identify how to use M&E to its fullest capacities. This means using the information generated by M&;E on implementation progress as a management tool rather than an institutional requirement. The workshop helped identify outcomes, output and impact of projects while emphasising on the qualitative side of M&E which is often excluded.

The basis of the discussion were the newfound focus on M&E for the Ghana Country Programme, the recommendations from the last country programme supervision mission (which took place mid November to mid December 2011) , the current national and project M&E structures, capitalisation efforts and finally research in M&E undertaken by our implementation partners.

After each project identified the key issues raised by the supervision mission, the partners making their presentations, the workshop allowed each project to review the M&E indicators making sure they are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound) and ensure that these indicators are the right one to measure the outcomes and impacts desired by the project. It also allowed for the identification of research needs that will improve the M&E and impact reporting

The workshop highlighted the good results in M&E in the Ghana portfolio until now, and also how much these efforts contribute daily to the improvement of the systems and the improvements still needed. Most importantly, projects have shared and exchanged on how to improve their indicators and how to address the difficulties they are facing. Some recurrent themes are the following:

- need to improve data collection at the field level by involving beneficiaries and possibly digitalising

- need to strengthen grassroots institutions
- need for data control at all levels
- need for better data management and analysis
- need for commitment of all actors
- need to fill information gaps through studies
- need to identify, undersand and maintain linkages
- need for better gender mainstreaming
- need to identify further partnerships through good planning

Each project came up with an action plan during the workshop that will be mainstreamed into the AWPB to ensure its implementation.

Most importantly, a topic that came up on many occasions is the importance of good communication and the importance of making the time to exchange on the positive outcomes achieved. In order to ensure good communication there are several Fora in Ghana to ensure exchanges between stakeholders on themes of on microfinance, rural finance and value chains. Furthermore, WARF and FIDAFRIQUE are imporant partners in Ghana but also for IFAD projects in West and Central Africa: they help will ensure that the information to be shared is well articulated and diffused on the regional platform.


Outstanding challenges and considerations for the future are how to make adequate time to engage in proper M&E activities and to ensure that the lessons learned from good M&E fit into policy dialogue.