IPMS project to scale up in its final year

IPMS logoThe Improving Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian farmers (IPMS) Program held its Annual Review and Planning meeting from 12th to 14th April 2010 on the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Campus in Addis Ababa. For the occasion, Research and Development Officers (RDOs) from the 10 districts distributed among the four larger states of Ethiopia where IPMS implements its program, also called Pilot Learning Woredas (PLW), came to Addis Ababa to discuss the program of work for 2010-2011 with IPMS headquarters team members. The theme of this meeting was a focus on ‘scaling up beyond the districts we are operating in’ and consisted, among others, of training sessions, M&E reports, presentations on gender and market issues, future workplans and publications-all targeted at how IPMS can take this forward and wider. According to Ermias Sehai, the project’s knowledge management adviser, “it is the last year of the project and it is very important that we document and communicate the lessons learned during the last five years of project implementation. We continue to capture, document and share our activities and results. Key to this is getting feedback and inputs from the RDOs on activities and results from their respective PLWs.” Zooming in… One of the training sessions focused on video recording and editing so RDOs can document the work done and results achieved in their PLW. Each participant was provided with a small digital camera recorder and over the course of the Annual Planning Meeting at ILRI, they will have to practice and each day during the APM, they are expected to bring a 3 minute footage of APM or non-APM related activities on campus. Selected footage will be posted on ILRI website. Bringing information ‘home’… Another training consisted of introducing the new ILRI website and the new knowledge base, Mahider, (‘portfolio’ in Amharic). “Often RDOs cannot see the ILRI website because of internet connection problems but in Mahider they can do subscriptions (ILRI feed subscriptions) which makes access to ILRI information easier”. explained Ermias Sehai. Getting together does not happen very often as the PLWs are far away from each other and scattered all over Ethiopia so being actually face to face and sharing experiences is a precious time for all. Extending our experiences… “Over the three days meeting, we also talked about GIS use in regard to the suitability of technologies” explains Noah Kebede, GIS research officer. “Borana cattle, for instance, is a high performing cattle breed in the South of the country. So we first did an analysis of the conditions, climate, grazing lands etc., and then using GIS we checked if there were similar conditions in other parts of the country into which we could introduce this species. Initial results show that areas such as Metema, located North West of Ethiopia, could be a viable prospect due to its similarities to the southern areas.” Next, RDOS will try the same process, introducing a Tigrayan breed called ‘begaiet ‘to the Alamata PLW. Understanding conditions for interventions… “The idea”, adds Abraham Getachew, M&E officer, “is that we always look at the market accessibility then combine this accessibility with the conditions of suitability for the various commodities, whether fruits, vegetables, cattle or forages. Then you can really work on interventions.” For Kahsay Bere, IPMS research officer, “it is not only important to consider biophysical aspects such as rainfall, grazing lands, etc. but socio-economic aspects as well. If we put cattle in a place with no people, it won’t work! Social mapping is an important component in regards to the commodities we deal with.” Getting closer to impact… A key aspect of the meeting and understanding the possibility for scaling up was the discussion lead by Lemlem Aregu, IPMS gender specialist, on the strategies for integrating gender and women in market oriented agricultural value chains. She pointed out that while everyone agrees on the importance of the role and status of women, it is still a strong issue for the group to learn and discuss about, in order to find concrete and viable ways of increasing women’s access to resources. Finally, tired but happy about the outputs of the meeting, Negatu Alemayehu, Ada’a RDO, commented that “it has been good to share experiences among RDOs. We learned about our strengths and weaknesses and hopefully we can use these lessons for the future.” In a positive conclusion, Dirk Hoekstra, IPMS project manager, reminded the IPMS team that “we are an action research program, and we hope that this meeting will contribute to the impact we are looking for.”