Overview of the Southern Cluster Partnership: The scope, progresses and way forward

N2Africa Partnership Meeting  

14 September,2015

Beshale Hotel

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Tulu Degefu, HwU’s N2Africa project coordinator

Hawassa University

Partnership objectives

The scope of the partnership

Progresses

The way forward

Outline

Partnership objectives

• A systematic attempt to facilitate change through joint action

• Problems in a system can be hard to tackle piecemeal– Scale:– Complexity, Information etc….

Formation of partnership: Changing roles of various stakeholders at different phases

Local participants

R&D Organisations

Bringing partners together

Phase 1: Engaging with stakeholders

Phase 2: Planning, learning and assessing

Phase 3: Ensuring sustainability

Interest

Collaboration

OwnershipLeadership

Leadership

Facilitation

Backstopping

Private Sector

Interest

Collaboration

Commercial opportunity and farmer

support

Tim

e

Key result by 2018

• 25,000 farmers in Sidama, west Arsi, Shala, Halaba and Wolyta will have access to improved legume technology package and linked to market

• Average productivity of common bean rotating crops will increase by 30% and 20%, respectively

• 25% women participation

Pillars/Strategic Objectives of the Partnership

Nurturing long-term sustainability

of

LoI signed….ILRI N2Africa

• The parties have decided to work together, thus had LoI, which defines the framework for the cooperation

• The partnership is based on mutual recognition of complementarities and synergies to achieve the projects activities through joint implementation

The Scope: Key partners and role mapping

Designing and Facilitation of partnerships

Technical support

M&E

Grants and leverage resources

Evidence generation

M&E, communication

Technical support

Develop extension materials

Liaise with other VC partners

Trainings on legume business,

Support technology dissemination campaigns,

Technology dissemination and scale up,

Mobilize and facilitate dissemination campaigns

Supply inoculants

Trainings on inoculant applications, handling, storage and distribution

Channel for Input delivery distribution and product bulking, marketing

Mobilizing farmers

Source of grain legumes

Grain buyer,

Seed supply (ACOS variety, limited amt)

Support trainings on grain quality & grading

Communication & coordination

The Scope: Beneficiary farmers

Targeting (25000 farm households By 2018)Site and SHFs identification (Coop members)

Target Woredas

Target Farmer Organization (PCs and Clusters)

Total Targets

Total Beneficiaries (75% success rate)

Boricha Sidama Elto Union (Kayo PC)

6,250 5,000

Damot Gale Damota Wolayita Union

6,250 5,000Sodo Zuria 6,250 5,000Halaba

Uta Wayu Union6,250 5,000

Shalla 6,250 5,000Target Women Farmers (25% of the total beneficiaries)

6,250

Capacity Development

A total of 4Trainings (2 by HwU & 1 by CRS & 1 by MARC)

on legume agronomy, inoculation

BoA mobilized and coordinated the training participants

(farmers, etc)

HwU, CRS, MARC & BoA was responsible for

training data collection

How far we went in terms of the four pillars

Partnership Progresses

Dissemination (Demo and Adaptation trials)

Demonstration Cluster

We have established a total of 26

demonstration trials for haricot bean of

which

10 demo trials in Boricha and Halaba (5

in each) , 3 were established at Sodo

zuria woreda with Nasir Variety

Partnership Progresses…cont’d

• While 10 demo trials by MARC at Shala and the remaining 3 were established at Boricha involving coops members (ACOS Keyo Haricot Bean seed )

The red bean variety was sourced from

ACOS

All gender disaggregated (25% women)

Adaptation Cluster

A total of 780 farmers were reached

400 farmers by HwU and 130 farmers by

partners (CRS and Sidama Elto Union), 250

farmers by MARC

BoA , the Unions mobilized and coordinated

farmers for dissemination

Partnership Progresses…cont’d

Input Supply

MBI with biofertilizer (700+ sachet), Nasir variety from Sidama Elto

Unions and other sources, and red bean variety (50kg) from ACOS

Inclusion of red bean variety was the interest of buyer (ACOS)

Input distribution was coordinated…fairly all partners were involved

For example red bean variety distribution partners (ILRI, ACOS,

SEU, HwU, BOA) all were involved

The inputs were distributed to individual farmers via their

organization

Partnership Progresses…cont’d

Market linkages

ACOS provided red bean variety (50kg) for potential market

links

3 demo site at Boricha each with 25 farmers/demo site

30 farmers participated on adaptation trial

All farmers coops member

Taken together, the synergy among partners is not

functioning as expected (a reflection that PPP is new).

Partnership Progresses…cont’d

Major challenges and opportunities

• There is lack of understanding among partners involved (roles and responsibilities)

• Lack of robust communication among the key partners

• Country-wide flactuation and erratic rain

Way forward

• Role mapping to let all partners know their roles and responsibilities

• So that the platform will really function well – i.e we work together as a cluster not as an individual

SOME PICS

Thank You