The adoption potential of biomass transfer and improved fallow practices in Eastern Uganda : Determining profitable and feasible options from a farmer perspective

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Assessing the performance of innovation platforms in crop-livestock agro-ecosystems in the Volta basin

To enhance integrated rainwater management in crop-livestock systems in the Volta basin of Burkina Faso, innovation platforms (IP) comprising of multiple stakeholders were established in the districts of Koubri and Ouahigouya. Quarterly IP meetings were organized to collectively identify and prioritize constraints and opportunities, and to design and implement strategies to address them. IP represents an example of putting the agricultural innovations systems’ perspective into practice. Several studies have evaluated the performance of IPs, but these are often based on external (mainly qualitative) assessments during mid-term and/or end evaluation. In this study we are interested in how key processes develop over time and how this is perceived by participants themselves, since this determines the participation and commitment of stakeholders and hence the success of the IP. To ensure adequate documentation of IP processes and activities, several monitoring and evaluation tools were developed. This paper focuses on the assessment of the IP performance in terms of consistency of participation across meetings and stakeholder groups, relevance of identified issues, information exchange, conflict resolution, participation in decision making, facilitation, and perceived benefits. For all the indicators used to assess the IP, the mean scores tended to increase with the lifespan of the IPs. This reaffirms that the IP is perceived as valuable by its members as a way to enhance agricultural development. At the same time though an IP is not a “quick-win”, but takes time to mature for it to become fully functional and achieve desired outcomes

Performance of innovation platforms in crop-livestock agro-ecosystems of the Volta basin in Burkina Faso

Linear approach to research has had limited success in sub-Saharan Africa and there is need for participatory approach. The CPWF Volta Basin Development Challenge project on integrated management of rainwater in crop-livestock systems (V2) took an overarching innovation platform approach that supports learning and exchange for action research and for scaling up and out of promising best fit rainwater management strategies. Innovation platforms (IP) comprising of multi- stakeholders were established by the project in the project sites in Burkina Faso and Ghana in mid-2011; regular quarterly meetings were organized to identify and prioritize constraints and opportunities to rainwater management in crop-livestock systems and the implementation of strategies to address them. To ensure adequate documentation of IP processes and activities, and for evaluation of the performance of the IPs, monitoring and evaluation tools were developed comprising of register of actors, IP meeting and activity report, and members’ assessment of the IP. The data collected during the IP meetings in the project sites in Ghana was of relatively low quality. Hence, the results reported in this paper were from data collected from IP meetings in Burkina Faso. This paper focused on the assessment of the IP functioning in terms of consistency of participation across meetings and stakeholder groups, relevance/interest of IP issues, participation in decision making, information exchange, facilitation and perceived benefits of IP activities. Results from the assessment of the IPs showed that attendance at the meetings ranged from 24 to 42 participants, of which at least 60% were men. In terms of the groups of the participants, the producers accounted for between 30 and 65% of the total participants at the IP meetings in both locations. Other actors in the IPs included trader, processor, credit agency, technical services, researcher and development agency. All the key stakeholders were consistent in participation at the IP meetings except for credit agency in Koubri. Major activities carried out by the IP in Koubri and Ouahigouya as reported by the members included training, soil and water conservation initiatives, linkage to financial and technical services, supply of agricultural inputs, group marketing particularly of onion, animal management and post-harvest management. From the members’ assessment of IP 1 activities, processes and outputs, gender only had significant effect in the score for participation in decision making where women gave lower score than men. For all the indicators for the IP meetings, the lowest score (2.53±0.16; score was from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)) was observed for the quality of facilitation in Ouahigouya for the meeting of March 2012 while the highest score (4.90±0.06) was for conflict resolution in the IP in Ouahigouya for the meeting in June 2013. Also, for all the indicators the mean scores tended to increase with the lifespan of the IP, that is the longer the lifespan the higher the scores given by the members for its performance. These results suggest that IP approach is not a ”quick- win” approach. This raises the challenge of maintaining the interest and participation of relevant actors

Gender, livestock and livelihood indicators

This guide is a reference point for some of the important indicators that ILRI can use to monitor the changing role of livestock in livelihoods in different production systems and the impact of livestock-related interventions. While this list of indicators is not comprehensive in covering all the areas in which ILRI works, it provides a starting point for the common objectives which most of our projects, be they in markets, biotechnology or the environment, hope to achieve. Some of these indicators are already commonly used in different surveys but their application has not always been consistent or comparable. With time, we expect to develop further common indicators around other areas of research in ILRI. This document should therefore be considered as a living document to which we will add core indicators around the thematic areas covered by ILRI’s research including such areas as partnerships, capacity building and the key thematic areas of markets, biotechnology and environment. This document should be used to guide your data collection within projects. These may include baseline data, evaluation (both internal and external), impact assessments, project appraisals and any other data collection within the projects and programmes across the institute, including surveys conducted by students where possible. Currently, the indicators are designed for data collection at household level and for integration into household surveys. Project teams should ask for assistance in adapting these indicators for use in other types of surveys such as community surveys, focus group discussions, market agent surveys and key informant interviews. Livestock play multiple roles in livelihoods. In deriving these indicators, we have used both the sustainable livelihoods framework, placing livestock within an assets and capital framework, and as a pathway out of poverty. The latter recognizes that for livestock to translate into poverty reduction the necessary conditions i.e. technologies and services to generate productive, sustainable and profitable markets are a pre-requisite. Section 2 of this document identifies 6 categories of indicators and gives a rationale for each of the indicators and how to measure them covering both the tools for data collection on the indicator and its calculation. Section 3 provides the initial basic survey data to capture in ILRI surveys, Section 4 focuses on study meta-data to document and Section 5 on household sampling

Networks among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda

The aim of this study was to explore the interactions that exist among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda as a way of identifying opportunities and gaps for operation of Innovation Platforms (IPs) under the proof of concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) research project. The specific objectives were to (i) characterize the agricultural stakeholders in the study sites (ii) determine the nature, diversity and relative importance of horizontal and vertical networks that exist among stakeholders in the Southwestern Highlands of Uganda. Data were collected from both stakeholder analysis and household interviews in Kabale and Kisoro Districts. Results show that extension staff, local governments and farmer groups accounted for approximately 75% of all categories of stakeholders in the area. Most of these organizations started after 10 to 15 years ago following the return of relative political stability in Uganda. Generally, stakeholder interactions in site with limited ARD intervention are more limited compared to their high-intervention counterparts. Sites with “good” market access have more institutions operating there but majority are isolated from each other. At household level, an individual household has networks with approximately two different organizations most of which are farmer groups or credit associations. The greatest proportion of horizontal networks that a household has is with fellow farmers. In order to make the value chain complete, establishment of IPs should pay special attention to including the private sector such as input and produce dealers. Facilitating IP actors to identify critical challenges and opportunities, and effectively articulate them will ensure cohesion. It is also critical to periodically monitor and evaluate stakeholders in terms of the quality of the networks to minimize conflict situations