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LIVESTOCK AND IRRIGATION VALUE-CHAINS FOR
ETHIOPIAN SMALLHOLDERS
“LIVES”
Detailed Project Proposal
Submitted by ILRI and IWMI
to
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
January 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACRONYMS 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
1. BACKGROUND 7
1.1 Ethiopia, economic growth and agriculture 7
1.2 Commercialization of agriculture 8
1.3 Increasing agricultural productivity 9
1.4 How the CIDA-funded IPMS project has contributed 10
1.5 Building on IPMS 13
2. THE LIVES PROJECT 19
2.1 Goal, Purpose and Objectives 19
2.2 Project Description 21
2.2.1 Scope of the project and timeframe 21
2.2.2 Main project activities 23
2.4 Project Management 39
2.5 Project Planning and Implementation 43
2.5.1 Project Implementation Plan (PIP) 43
2.5.2 Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation (RBM&E) 45
2.5.3 Gender Mainstreaming 45
2.6 LESSONS FROM OTHER PROJECTS 48
2.6.1 Lessons from IPMS and other ILRI projects 48
2.6.2 Lessons from IWMI projects 49
2.7 ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 54
2.8 EXPECTED BENEFITS 55
2.9 PROJECT RISKS 57
2.10 SUSTAINING THE ACTIVITIES BEYOND THE PROJECT 61
3. THE PROPONENTS 63
3.1 ILRI 63
3.2 IWMI 64
3.3 Planning and Partnerships 65
4. DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES 66
5. RECIPIENT COUNTRY GOVERNMENT SUPPORT 67
REFERENCES 68
ANNEX 1: INTERVENTION OPTIONS FOR OUTPUT 1 69
Livestock value chain interventions: results and lessons to inform scaling out 69
Small ruminant fattening 69
Dairy and fattening in rural areas – large ruminants 70
Fluid milk system in urban and peri-urban areas 72
Poultry development 72
Irrigated horticulture value chain interventions: results and lessons for informing scaling out 73
Irrigated fruit development 73
Irrigated vegetables 74
ANNEX 2: LOGIC MODEL 76
ANNEX 4. Detailed Project Implementation Schedule 79
Phase 1: Preparation of Project Implementation Plan 79
Phase 2: Putting into action the Project Implementation Plan 81
ANNEX 5: Proposals submitted to CIDA within six months of August 2010. 83
ILRI 83
IWMI 83
ANNEX 6: Work Breakdown Structure 84
1. Development context and challenges 85
2. Value chain development 86
3. Priority commodity value chains 87
4. Partnerships 89
ANNEX 8: Internal Project Monitoring Frame 91
1
ACRONYMS
ADLI Agriculture Development-Led Industrialization
ADPLAC Agricultural Development Partnership Advisory Council
AGP Agricultural Growth Project
AGRA ALLIANCE FOR A GREEN REVOLUTION IN AFRICA
AI Artificial Insemination
AU African Union
AWM Agricultural Water Management
BoARD Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development
BoFED Bureau of Finance and Economic Development
BoWR Bureau of Water Resources
BMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme
CAD Canadian dollars
CGIAR Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research
CIDA Canadian International Development Agency
CIFSRF Canadian International Food Security Research Fund
CPWF Challenge Program on Water and Food
CSSE Crop Science Society of Ethiopia
DA Development Agent
DFID Department for International Development (UK)
EADD East Africa Dairy Development Project
EAES Ethiopian Agricultural Economics Society
EAP Ethiopian Agriculture Portal
ECID Ethiopian Committee on Irrigation and Drainage
ECX Ethiopian Commodity Exchange
EDRI Ethiopian Development Research Institute
EEA Ethiopian Economic Association
EIAR Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research
EMDI Ethiopian Meat and Dairy Institute
ETB Ethiopian Birr
ESAP Ethiopian Society of Animal Production
EWRAC Ethiopian Water Research Advisory Council
FSP Food Security Programme
FTC Farmer Training Centre
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GoE Government of Ethiopia
2
GTP Growth and Transformation Plan
HABP Household Asset Building Program
IARC International Agricultural Research Centre
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IDRC International Development Research Centre
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
ILCA International Livestock Centre for Africa (now ILRI)
ILRI International Livestock Research Institute
IPMS Improving Productivity and Market Success of Smallholders in Ethiopia
IT Information Technology
IWMI International Water Management Institute
KM Knowledge Management
LDC Less developed country
LM Logic Model
M&E Monitoring and Evaluation
ME&L Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
MoARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Ethiopia)
MoFED Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (Ethiopia)
MA Master of Arts degree
MSc Master of Science degree
MUS Multiple Use Water Services Project
NEPAD New Partnership for Africa Development
NGO Non-governmental organisation
NPIC National Project Implementation Committee
NSC National Steering Committee
PASDEP Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty
PF Performance Framework
PIP Project Implementation Plan
PLW Pilot Learning Woreda
PMF Performance Measurement Framework
PSNP Productive Safety Net Programme
RALC Regional Advisory and Learning Committee
RARI Regional Agricultural Research Institute (Ethiopia)
RBM&E Result-Based Monitoring and Evaluation
3
RC Results chain
R&D Research and Development
REDFS Rural Economic Development and Food Security
RPIC Regional Project Implementation Committee
SIDA Swedish International Development Agency
SLM Sustainable Land Management
SNNPR Southern Nations, Nationalities and People
SSA Sub-Saharan Africa
ToT Training of Trainers
TVET Technical Vocational Education and Training College
USAID United States Agency for International Development
4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“Livestock and Irrigation Value-chains for Ethiopian Smallholders” (LIVES) is a four and a half
year initiative designed by ILRI (the International Livestock Research Institute), IWMI (the
International Water Management Institute) and their national partners to build upon the success
of the CIDA-funded project “Improving Productivity and Market Success of Smallholders in
Ethiopia” (IPMS).
Since 2005, IPMS has helped to create in its pilot areas an enabling environment in which the
public sector, smallholder farmers and private-sector agents, are empowered to increase the
production and productivity of crops and livestock through participatory, market-oriented
development. The successes resulted from applying innovation systems approaches to identify
and exploit opportunities in commodity value chains. LIVES will build on these lessons, but also
introduce new approaches and interventions, and will scale up and out, focusing on a more
limited number of value chains, and emphasizing the development of sustained capacity that will
continue to have impact beyond the life of the project.
The Goal of the Project is to “contribute to enhanced income and gender equitable wealth
creation for smallholders and other value chain actors through increased and sustained market
off-take of high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities.”
The Purpose of the Project is to “improve competitiveness, sustainability and equity in value
chains for selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities in target areas of four
regions of Ethiopia.”
The Objectives of the Project are:
1. To facilitate the identification, targeting and promotion of improved technologies and
organizational and institutional innovations to develop the value chains of selected high-
value livestock and irrigated crop commodities;
2. To improve the capacity of the value chain actors and of the support services at the
different administrative (kebelle to national) levels to develop the selected value chains
and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities;
3. To improve generation, access, flow and use of knowledge relevant to the value chains
within and amongst the different administrative (kebelle to national) levels;
4. To generate knowledge through action-oriented research on, and synthesis of lessons
learnt about, value-chain development;
5
5. To facilitate the promotion and dissemination of principles and good practices for the
development of value chains.
Some of the key principles that LIVES will work within include
Working directly with private and collective value chain actors to drive innovation and
uptake of improved practices and to develop new market opportunities
To use a Business Development Services approach to capacity building wherever
possible, thereby supporting key public and private organizations to sustainably deliver
capacity services beyond the life of the project
Mainstreaming gender targeting in all project activities, beginning with project staff and
processes, and focusing on value chains where women’s opportunities are strong
Using the best science available to identify, develop, and target project interventions to
increase likelihood of uptake and impact.
Early development of a coherent communications and exit strategy to guide knowledge
management, dissemination, advocacy and scaling up
Developing and leveraging linkages with other investments and initiatives to maximize
positive outcomes, including the Gov of Ethiopia Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) and
other donor supported programs
Employing a strong M&E and Results-Based Framework for objective monitoring,
reflection and redesign
While LIVES will build on the successful approaches and methods of IPMS, it will also be distinctly
different in ways designed to provide for sustained outcomes and impact, and to scale out and
up results. These differences include:
Targeting of “longer” value chains that may operate beyond the district to region and
beyond, to provide larger, more diverse and more sustained market opportunities
Clustering of districts in marketing of products and accessing services, so as to capitalize
on economies of scale, and build market power
Working higher up the technology and commercialization ladder among a sub-set of
producers that have potential to achieve greater levels of productivity and marketed
surplus, and so demonstrate future options.
Focusing on a limited set of value chains to maximize impact: livestock and irrigated high
value crops
6
Limiting the training exercises that will be conducted by project staff, and instead
focusing on developing sustainable Master Trainers among appropriate organizations
and individuals
New emphasis on partnerships at regional and national levels to scale up project
outcomes, through existing coordination and planning structures
Specific emphasis on linking activities with other investments by GoE, including new
complementary initiatives by ILRI and IWMI
LIVES will support the development of improved, competitive, sustainable and equitable value
chains for selected livestock and irrigated crop commodities in clusters of districts (woredas) in
four partner regions: Amhara, Oromiya, SNNPR and Tigray. Within the target clusters, it is
expected that at least 135,000 producer households will benefit directly from improved
productivity and increased income from the sales of the various high-value commodities that
have been identified as the priorities for development by the Regional partners. Of these an
estimated 20% are expected to be female-headed. Additionally an estimated total 1500 small-
scale private and cooperative agribusiness actors at District/village level are expected to benefit
from the project interventions, as well as another 40 at zonal/regional, national level. At the
level of key partners in research and development, 50 academic/scientific staff nationally will
benefit through joint research and capacity building for science, and some 1500 Development
Assistants to and 320 Subject Matter Specialists will benefit though targeted capacity building.
The requested budget for the Preparation Phase, resulting in the detailed Project
Implementation Plan is C$ 839,794 and the requested budget for the Project Implementation
Phase is C$ 18,418,490, a total of C$ 19,285,284. Additionally, ILRI/IWMI will directly contribute
an estimated C$ 859,745 in the form of management, administrative and support services, as
well as significant but less quantifiable support through closely related projects and research
activities, such as the new CG Consortium Research Programs on Livestock and Fish (ILRI-led) and
on Water and Land (IWMI-led), both of which will have substantial activities in Ethiopia.
7
1. BACKGROUND
1.1 Ethiopia, economic growth and agriculture
Although widespread poverty and hunger remain daunting challenges for Ethiopia, since
2004/05 the average annual growth rate of the agricultural GDP has been estimated at about
13%, reflecting a remarkable contribution by agriculture to reducing poverty and increasing per
capita food production (MoARD, 2010). Nevertheless, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE)
recognizes that much has yet to be done in the agriculture sector to tackle the problem of rural
poverty, to sustain increasing agricultural productivity and to realize its vision for the country to
achieve middle income status by 20201.
The achievements in the agriculture sector have resulted from coordinated efforts by the GoE
and the donor community through the design and implementation of national poverty reduction
strategy plans (currently PASDEP: Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End
Poverty; see MOFED, 2006). These have supported the implementation of GoE’s Agriculture
Development-Led Industrialization strategy (ADLI) to achieve a gradual shift of the economy
towards the non-agricultural sectors, industry and services: the share of agriculture in the GDP
declined from 53% in 1995/96 to 43% in 2008/09 (MoARD, 2010). Notwithstanding that
significant change, the agricultural sector still accounts for 85 percent of employment and
almost 90 percent of exports (World Bank, 2010).
Within the agricultural sector women have major roles and responsibilities: they head about
22% of families and account for 30-40% of the agricultural labor force (SIDA cited in Almaz,
2000). However, they play this role amidst a myriad of constraints including low access to
improved technologies, services and markets. Their involvement in efforts to improve
agricultural production and food security is critical.
Food insecurity and a dependence on subsistence cropping remain major challenges for the
more than 80% of Ethiopia’s population that lives in rural areas and depends for its livelihood on
smallholder rain-fed crop-livestock farming and, in pastoral systems, on livestock keeping. The
production from, and the productivity of, these systems are low due to population pressure,
limited technology and input services, land fragmentation, degradation, high rainfall variability
and associated vulnerability to drought and famine. Over the past two decades, the GoE and its
1 Middle income is defined as per capita income of $1,000.
8
development partners have sought to meet these challenges through investments that directly
support the livelihoods of food-insecure households.
1.2 Commercialization of agriculture
It is well recognized that long-term food security cannot be achieved through supporting
exclusively the subsistence of the vulnerable. Complementary efforts are required that will
enhance and sustain Ethiopia’s recent agricultural growth - thereby reducing food prices and
diversifying rural livelihoods - through investments that promote market-based agricultural
development and harness high potential opportunities, combined with recently adopted
innovations such as growth corridors. These market-based approaches are a key component of
GoE’s national development plan and will receive substantial support through the proposed
multilaterally-funded Agricultural Growth Project (AGP). Studies show that many areas have
unexploited potential for productivity growth in smallholder agriculture, particularly if
sustainable technologies are used and linked to input supply and market demand.
The GoE’s Agricultural Growth Program, which is expected to increase in scope and geographic
coverage beyond the proposed AGP(roject), is a principal component of the Ethiopia Compact of
the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) which was signed in
August 2009. This national version of the initiative of the African Union’s New Partnership for
Africa Development (AU/NEPAD) promotes a strategic framework to eradicate hunger and
poverty and to establish a path for sustainable socio-economic growth with market-oriented
smallholder agriculture having a central role. The four pillars of the Ethiopia CAADP strategy
which are embodied in the CAADP Compact are:
Pillar I: Improve natural resources management and utilization;
Pillar II: Improve rural infrastructure, market access and trade capacities;
Pillar III: Enhance food security and improve disaster risk management; and
Pillar IV: Improve the agricultural research and extension system.
To implement the CAADP strategy and drawing on the achievements, experiences and lessons of
the PASDEP, the GoE has prepared a Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) for 2011-2015 with
three basic pillars for agricultural and rural development (GoE, 2010):
Scaling up model farmers’ practices to all farmers
9
The average productivity of smallholder farmers is twice or three times less than that of model
farmers, making imperative the transformation of the farmers’ productivity to the level of the
model farmers. Hence, a scaling up strategy will be followed.
Transforming farmers to producing high-value agricultural commodities
Based on natural resource protection and development, improving water use practices and
expanding irrigation will be given priority. Through environmental protection, developing both
surface and groundwater will be emphasized, mainly through using and building the capacity of
farmers and supporting existing government structures.
Improving agricultural water use and expanding irrigation development
The third pillar will be commercial transformation of farmers through the production of high-
value agricultural commodities and integration into the market.
The GTP sets goals for cereal crop and livestock production growth: it stipulates an increase in
area under major crops from 11.8 m hectares in 2010 to 13.4 m in 2015, and an increase in
agricultural produce from 20.8 m tons in 2010 to 51.7 m tons by 2015; meat production is
targeted to increase from 613 thousand tons in 2010 to 836 thousand tons by 2015 and milk
production to increase from the current 3261 thousand tons to 11176 thousand tons by 2015.
The plan also envisions expanding significantly feed supply.
1.3 Increasing agricultural productivity
The key challenge facing development interventions is ensuring rapid and sustained increases in
land and labor productivity through accelerated, market-based agricultural development,
focusing on Ethiopia’s 13 million smallholder farm households, which produce around 98
percent of country’s agricultural output. Significant increase in livestock productivity will be
critical to achieving the targets for growth in the livestock sector. It is estimated that livestock
contribute 33% of Ethiopia’s agricultural GDP, a similar proportion to cereals (MoARD, 2010).
Women play an important role in livestock production. Population and income growth are
expected to sustain the increasing domestic demand for livestock products, particularly meat
(from cattle, sheep, goats and chicken), milk (from cattle) and eggs (from chicken). Ethiopia is
also seeking to exploit export markets for meat in, e.g., the Middle East. Accordingly GoE, fully
cognizant of these actual and potential sources of agricultural growth, has placed a high priority
on livestock sector development.
The overwhelming majority of crop and livestock products in Ethiopia come from rain-fed
agriculture, which is highly vulnerable to climatic variations. Cognizant of this GTP gives due
emphasis on irrigation development and agricultural water management. The success of
10
irrigation projects requires interventions that not only ensure sustainable productivity of land,
water and labor, but also at the post-harvesting stages of storage, processing and marketing
along the value chain. They also require the recognition of socio-economic issues such as water-
user rights, organization capacity of user groups as well as the role of women and women
water-users associations. A recent diagnostic study commissioned by BMGF (Awulachew, 2010)
shows that water resource management in agriculture is a critical contributor to the economic
and social development of Ethiopia. If successful, irrigation in Ethiopia can form the cornerstone
of the agricultural development of the country, contributing up to ETB 140 billion to the
economy and potentially moving up to 6 million households into food security. However, there
are four major challenges facing the irrigation sector in Ethiopia that deserve keen attention: i)
delivery of plans of development; ii) improving scheme performance; iii) overcoming scaling up
restraints; and, iv) sustainability of irrigation development practices. These thematic
recommendations also embrace the strategic importance of enhancing the value chains of
irrigated agricultural products and of exploiting productivity enhancement through crop-
livestock interactions.
To support the market-based development of rain-fed and irrigated smallholder crop and
livestock production, GoE is strengthening rural capacity (including its knowledge system -
agricultural extension, training, and research), supporting collective action (cooperatives and
similar institutions and associations), investing in rural infrastructure (roads, irrigation facilities
and telecommunications) and, wherever possible, facilitating linkages between smallholders and
private investors in agricultural input and output markets. Key areas of support are
strengthening service provision and addressing the gender imbalances that disadvantage
women. Projected investments in irrigated smallholder agriculture aim to utilize the vast water
resources potential of the country, enhance intensification, raise and sustain productivity and
cushion households against droughts and climate variability and change. The proposed AGP will
contribute to these efforts through two technical components: first Agricultural Production and
Commercialization, and second Small-scale Rural Infrastructure Development and Management.
A third component, AGP Management and Monitoring and Evaluation, will strive to create a
learning environment for the continuous improvement of the AGP design and other agricultural
growth interventions. Several cross-cutting issues including institutional and individual capacity
development and gender aspects, will be supported as part of the AGP. Ethiopia’s Agricultural
Sector Policy and Investment Framework (PIF), 2010-2020, serves as the integrating mechanism
for this and the other major initiatives led by the Ministry of Agriculture and the related
Ministries in their efforts to implement Ethiopia’s CAADP strategy and to strengthen the
private sector.
1.4 How the CIDA-funded IPMS project has contributed
11
CIDA has played a lead role in Ethiopia’s CAADP and Agricultural Growth Program initiatives. It
is committed to supporting GoE's efforts to achieve food security as a pre-requisite to
sustainable development and to address the root causes of chronic food insecurity by increasing
agricultural productivity and farmers' incomes by means of improved production techniques and
market-oriented approaches.
An important contribution to GoE’s efforts is the CIDA-funded project “Improving Productivity
and Market Success of Smallholders in Ethiopia” (IPMS). Since 2005, the project has helped to
create in its target areas an enabling environment in which the public sector and farmers,
working with private-sector agents, are empowered to increase the production and productivity
of crops and livestock through market-oriented development.
To achieve that, the IPMS partners use a participatory market-oriented, commodity value-chain
approach that holistically considers production factors, the supply of inputs and services, output
marketing, the role of business support services and policies that may inhibit or support
development initiatives. The project has been playing a key role in facilitating the involvement
and linking of private and public sector value-chain actors through knowledge and skills
development. The project’s strategy and implementation plan are gender-balanced and
environmentally friendly.
Integral to the process applied by IPMS is the understanding that a value chain is “the full range
of activities that are required to bring a product or service from conception through the
different phases of production (involving a combination of physical transformation and the input
of various producer services), delivery to final customers, and final disposal after use”2 (Figure
1). Therefore, introducing and promoting organizational, institutional and technical innovations
involves many “actors” who contribute, directly or indirectly, to identifying and overcoming
constraints and exploiting the opportunities for producing and marketing more productive and
profitable agricultural commodities.
Figure 1 Schematic representation of a value chain and its principal components
2 Kaplinsky, R., and Morris, M. L. 2000. A handbook for value chain research. Ottawa, Canada: IDRC.
12
The essence of IPMS was testing innovation systems approaches, including strategies to
enhance women participation, in order to identify and exploit opportunities in commodity value
chains that are often location-and time-specific. In such complex and context-specific situations,
off-the-shelf technologies and complementary institutional and organization options require
careful selection and adaptation to suit local circumstances; there are no one-size-fits-all
solutions that can simply be rolled out in multiple locations. Therefore, critical to successful
development outcomes are the processes through which innovation is triggered and enhanced,
and the capacities of the institutions supporting the changes are strengthened.
The lessons and experiences learnt by the public and private sector partners active in IPMS,
emphasize six key principles:
the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders from the outset;
joint problem analysis and identification of possible solutions;
systems that enable expert and research knowledge to be integrated with local and
indigenous knowledge, market intelligence, consumer demands and prevailing
regulatory and policy environments;
integration of gender as a key principle in the design, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of interventions;
focused and demand-led capacity building; and,
development of solutions through learning, negotiation and brokering deals based on
mutual benefits and agreements amongst value-chain actors based on a full
appreciation of the system, local circumstances and the appropriate mix of the available
technical, socio-economic, institutional and policy options.
The linkages and partnerships brokered by IPMS serve to promote networking, negotiation of
roles and responsibilities, integrating different types of information and knowledge, promoting a
culture of continuous learning, and capacity building – both innovation capacity and specific
technical or organizational capacities. Key have been: (i) the capacity building and knowledge
management activities with and for national, regional, zonal and woreda organizations and their
linkages with public and private sector input and output market agents, and (ii) the technical,
organizational and institutional interventions in production, supply of inputs and services and
marketing.
The use of the participatory commodity value chain development approach by IPMS partners
has centred on ten Pilot Learning Woredas (PLW) in the four host Regional States: Tigray,
13
Amhara, Oromiya and SNNPR3, complemented by, and integrated with, institutional
strengthening at National, Regional and Zonal levels. These support the shift from a
development paradigm that strives for food security to one that delivers market-oriented
development of smallholder agriculture.
Now in its final year, IPMS is achieving important outcomes that support this market-oriented
development of smallholder crop and livestock production in the Pilot Learning Woredas. These
outcomes include:
Increased production, improved agricultural productivity and better market success in the
PLWs through appropriate technologies, innovative input-supply/output marketing and financial
services;
Strengthened and gender-sensitive innovation capacity of public organizations, farmers,
pastoralists and community-based and private-sector organizations;
Operationalized and functional agricultural knowledge management system at Woreda,
Regional and National levels that highlights innovations and appropriate technologies;
Strategies, policy and technology options, and institutional innovations developed from research
and process learning, documented and promoted.
1.5 Building on IPMS
IPMS outputs/outcomes and lessons learned can be used to develop a new project in support of
the further commercialization of small holder agriculture i.e. LIVES - Livestock and Irrigation
Value-chains for Ethiopian Smallholders.
LIVES will however not only focus on the scaling out of approaches and value chain
interventions, but would also focus on scaling up4 . Such a strategy is required since most of
IPMS’s interventions were limited to District level value chains actors with limited linkages to
higher level value chain actors. Scaling out of District level value chains interventions to more
3 Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region
4 Scaling out is here referred to as a quantitative and horizontal expansion of an innovation (technology,
organizational or institutional) across the same horizontal level, mostly expressed in an increase of
geographical coverage. Scaling up is referred to as the adoption and institutionalization of technological,
organizational, and institutional arrangements at different hierarchical levels in order to expand the use of
technological, organizational and institutional innovations tested at either one of the levels.
14
Districts will increase demand for inputs, services, processing and marketing of outputs. Many
such inputs and services can be supplied through small scale district level businesses linked to
regional/national level agro businesses and/or public service organizations. Such linkages have
been created in IPMS, though on an ad hoc basis i.e. between a single District and one
regional/national level agro business. For example, agro chemical suppliers based in Addis with
private/cooperative outlets in Metama and Bure; the national vaccines laboratory in Debre Zeit
with pullet producers in Dale and; a commercial feed processing company in Debre Zeit with a
dairy cooperative in Goma. The LIVES project would focus on a systematic development of agro
business dealer networks/linkages.
For the marketing of larger volumes of products, linkages with large scale processing/marketing
agents will be required. IPMS created some of these linkages including sale of honey from Goma
to a commercial company in Nazareth and sale of chick peas from Ada to commercial companies
in Nazareth. LIVES would focus on developing such linkages systematically – including the use of
contract farming.
Figure 2 Value Chain Approaches in IPMS and LIVES
F FF F
Ag Ag AgAg
Dis
tric
tF
ed/r
eg
A
GA
G
D1 D1 D2 D3
IPMS LIVES
IPMS versus LIVES value chain development
Short VC
Long VC
AG
FarmerF
Agribusiness
15
In summary, as compared to IPMS, LIVES would focus on district - regional value chains (referred
to as longer value chains5) instead of within district value chains (short value chains). To make
such value chains also attractive (create economics of scale) for the regional/national level
public and private agribusinesses, linkages will be created with a cluster of Districts instead of a
single District – see Figure 2.
As has been observed from various documented experiences, as well as from lessons learned in
IPMS, smallholder commercialization is a continuous process in which farmers, agri-businesses
move from subsistence to semi commercial to a commercial system. In general, as
commercialization progresses, demand/use of external/local6 knowledge will increase, while the
share of indigenous7 knowledge will decrease (see Figure 3).
In IPMS the focus was on initiating the process of commercialization for small holders and
agribusinesses using the participatory value chain approach. This multi commodity approach
was a good start as it gave farmers and agri businesses an opportunity to explore options to
enhance their participation in and benefits from commodity value chains, using a mix of
indigenous and external knowledge. In LIVES, the focus will not only be on scaling out
interventions and approaches for the initial stages of the commercialization process but also
addressing value chain interventions at the semi commercial level for more advanced farmers.
This shift in focus is expected to result in higher productivity gains and more efficient
input/service supply and marketing to result in higher benefits from the value chain for
participating actors. This will demand access to and availability of more new technologies,
organizational and institutional interventions, and new knowledge and skills.
The changes in focus and scale between IPMS and LIVES will limit the number of value chains,
which can be addressed by LIVES. The project proposes to limit the choice of commodities to
5 The longer value chains targeted by LIVES, regional or even national, include large urban centers at some
distance from production zones. Their attributes thus include greater volume of product demand, greater
long-term sustainability associated with that larger demand, and also increased opportunity for niche
market and product differentiation thus allowing potentially greater value addition. On the inputs and
services side, these value chains also offer the greater diversity of improved technology and services that
LIVES interventions will require.
6 In the context of this project, local knowledge as it is used here refers to relatively recent generated
knowledge based on local responses – or local innovation – to challenges faced in farming.
7 Indigenous knowledge refers to (explicit and tacit) knowledge which has been acquired over many
generations based on (traditional) farming systems..
16
livestock and irrigated high value commodities. Both commodities are an integral part of the
government’s development strategy and are the core competence of the project proponents.
Also livestock products are the commodity focus of ILRI (the implementing agency of IPMS),
which has extensive expertise and experience in supporting market-oriented smallholder
livestock production in Eastern Africa and in many other developing regions. IWMI, working with
a wide range of development partners, has a strong record of successfully addressing
constraints to irrigated crop production both as an implementing agency and in partnership with
ILRI. The proposed LIVES Project fits squarely within the commodity mandates of ILRI and IWMI,
who will bring their expertise and their extensive networks of national and international
partners to the Project and align these resources through carefully selected partnerships with
agencies having business-development expertise and a record of success in implementing
development projects in Ethiopia.
Figure 3 Commercialization and knowledge approaches in LIVES vs IPMS
Furthermore, in many water scarce regions of Ethiopia livestock and irrigation are interlinked in
complex ways. Not only do livestock use irrigation water for drinking, but crop residues are
often used for animal feed, animal manure is used for fertilizer and animal draught power is
used for land preparation. In a few places fodder is irrigated. However, currently the role of
Commercialization and use of knowledge
Subs.
Semi-
comm.
Comm.
Indigenous
knowledge
External
knowledge
Time
Deve
lop
me
nt
IPMS
LIVES
Local
knowledge
17
livestock is often largely ignored in irrigation planning and management. Recent research has
shown that assessing the interaction between livestock and crops and planning and managing
irrigation with livestock in mind from the outset can result in welfare benefits and can have a
positive effect on productivity.
The implication of scaling out and up as well as introducing more advanced knowledge
interventions will also have implications on staff qualifications and project team location
While in IPMS emphasis was on generalist staff, especially at District level, LIVES would focus on
using more specialist staff at zonal and Regional Levels. Also since new interventions for semi
commercial farming will be tested, specialist technical and commercial knowledge will be
required to advise, study and document these interventions.
Another implication of the much broader scale of operation of LIVES, as compared to IPMS is
the required capacity development of the various actors vis a vis available human resources.
Whereas in IPMS, capacity development was mostly organized using project staff and other
available resources, a much more focused trainers of trainers (TOT) approach with staff from
public and private edcucational/training institutions will be used for LIVES. Such an approach
will furthermore contribute to institutionalization of new approaches and knowledge in these
educational institutions.
Since AGP and other projects like USAID parallel funded AGP project are planning to focus on
crop and livestock agri business development and developing value chains , it is important for
LIVES to contribute/integrate its activities in the overall value chain development framework.
Synergies and complementarities with AGP need to be explored during the planning phase
including Districts and commodities selected and capacity development and other interventions
proposed by AGP. It is noted that for the USAID funded livestock agribusiness development
component, bidding companies are requested to link with the IPMS successor project. ILRI has
also been requested to partner with some of these companies. The scope and potential linkages
of AGP, LIVES and USAID funded projects are depicted in Figure 4.
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Figure 4 Relationships between LIVES and AGP
In summary, therefore, the LIVES project builds upon and extends IPMS through: (i) a focus on
developing institutional capacity at zonal and regional levels; (ii) an emphasis on interventions
to increase productivity; and (iii) partnerships that strengthen agribusiness development along
the selected value chains
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2. THE LIVES PROJECT
2.1 Goal, Purpose and Objectives
The Goal of the Project is:
Contribute to enhanced income and gender equitable wealth creation for smallholders
and other value chain actors through increased and sustained market off-take of high-
value livestock and irrigated crop commodities
The Project’s Goal reflects the shift to market orientation that is central to the GoE’s strategy for
the development of smallholder agriculture through high-value production from livestock and
irrigated agriculture. To achieve that increase in market orientation will require the
development of value chains that produce and deliver commodities demanded by consumers at
competitive prices, while giving a reasonable profit to the producer households and to the other
value-chain actors (e.g. input suppliers, traders and processors).
The Purpose of the Project is:
Improve competitiveness, sustainability and equity in value chains for selected high-
value livestock and irrigated crop commodities in target areas of four regions of
Ethiopia
The Purpose builds upon and will extend within the four regions the outcomes and outputs of
the IPMS project focusing on fewer and longer commodity value chains. ,. In addition the new
project draws on the extensive knowledge that IWMI, ILRI and their development partners have
accumulated in the fields of irrigation, agricultural water management and livestock
interventions.
To achieve the Project’s Purpose of improved value chains for horticultural and livestock
commodities that respond to strong market demand and are equitable, the project will build
upon, strengthen and extend the activities and the lessons learnt from IPMS and related
projects through achieving five Objectives.
These Objectives are:
1. To facilitate the identification, targeting and promotion of improved technologies and
organizational and institutional innovations to develop the value chains of selected
high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities;
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2. To improve the capacity of the value chain actors and of the support services at the
different administrative (kebelle to national) levels to develop the selected value
chains and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities;
3. To improve generation, access, flow and use of knowledge relevant to the value chains
within and amongst the different administrative (kebelle to national) levels;
4. To generate knowledge through action-oriented research on, and synthesis of lessons
learnt about, value-chain development;
5. To facilitate the promotion and dissemination of principles and good practices for the
development of value chains.
Using innovation systems and value-chain approaches tested and validated in IPMS, the Project
partners, facilitated by ILRI and IWMI, will introduce and promote organizational and
institutional innovations and improved technologies to develop the selected commodity value
chains, some of which may serve markets locally (short chains), while others may serve regional,
national and/or export markets (Long chains) (Objective 1). The Project partners will work at
and span the different administrative levels at which value chains operate: household; farm;
kebelle; woreda; zone; region; and national. These partnerships and the selection of value chains
will ensure that LIVES complements the related investments by GoE, especially projects within
the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP). Value-chain development will be within the clusters of
districts within the zone/s where the commodity is produced and along the market chain that
links the producers to the consumers. The latter may be within the district or zone where the
commodity is produced – short or medium-length value chains - or the consumers may live in a
distant market like the capital of another Region or in Addis Ababa – long value chains - or they
be served in another country via an export market chain.
Through the development and promotion of knowledge and skills and through action-oriented
research, Objectives 2 to 5 will strengthen and extend the capacity of the key actors and the
market-oriented knowledge system and facilitate the linking of private and public sector
partners. These Objectives will support the scaling-out of the effective approaches and the
interventions within and beyond the zones and commodities selected to be addressed by the
Project. These same processes will also support scaling-up, that is, the adoption and
incorporation by the partners of the concepts and principles as well as the technological,
organizational and institutional arrangements at the different hierarchical levels appropriate for
short, medium and long value chains. Integral to achieving these Objectives will be the project’s
strategy to ensure that its activities are gender-balanced and institutionally and environmentally
sustainable.
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2.2 Project Description
2.2.1 Scope of the project and timeframe
The LIVES Project will build upon and extend the partnerships with the four host Regional States:
Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya and SNNPR that were established during the development and
implementation of IPMS and during other relevant IWMI- and ILRI-implemented projects. As
noted above the selection of the target value chains and the development of strategic
partnerships for implementing the project will ensure that LIVES complements the related AGP
and other GoE and donor investments.
The proposed timeframe is for a project implementation period of 4.5 years, preceded by a
period of approximately 4-6 months for the preparation of the Project Implementation Plan
(PIP, during which the selection of commodities and zones will be reviewed and finalized).
Consultation meetings were held with each of the four Regions to select and rank priority high-
value livestock and irrigated crop commodities and ten zones with clusters of districts (to be
determined during the planning phase) in which the priority commodities are produced. Figure
5 presents maps of the zone and priority commodities that emerged from the consultations.
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Figure 5 Targeted LIVES commodities, based on regional consultations.
Subject to ratification during the preparation of the PIP these priority value chains will be
addressed by the Project. Details of the consultations and their results are given in ANNEX 7
(Project Appraisal). The consultations were facilitated by the Regional Advisory and Learning
Committees (RALC) of IPMS and involved the key public R&D organizations responsible for
agriculture and water development.
Through LIVES activities, it is proposed that, in each of the ten selected project zones, three
districts on average will be targeted for interventions to improve production and input supply
and marketing. The total number of households (HHs) within these 30 Districts is estimated at
900,000 (30,000 per District) of which an estimated 5% will be targeted to adopt relatively high-
input livestock and/or irrigated crop production (45,000 HHs) and an estimated 10% of
households targeted for low/medium-input production (90,000 HHs), i.e. a total of 135,000 HHs.
Of these, an estimated 20% are expected to be female-headed. In addition to these producers,
each District will have small-scale private and cooperative agribusiness beneficiaries, i.e. the
individuals who provide inputs and services for the production, processing and marketing of the
commodities. It is estimated that in each district, on average, 50 such (input and output) market
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agents will benefit from the project, a total, therefore, of 1500 of which an estimated 15% will
be women. In addition we estimate that, at the zonal and regional levels, a total of 40 public,
private and cooperative/unions service and input supplying organizations will benefit from the
project.
Besides the direct value-chain actors, public and private business-development service-
providers at District, Zonal, Regional and National levels will be key targets for capacity building
by the project and the basis for sustaining VCD. Critical to knowledge generation and
management and capacity building are the research and educational institutes with expertise in
livestock and irrigated agriculture, and mandate for capacity development (Objective 2). In each
Region, on average, one ATVET, one University and one Regional Agricultural Research Institute
will be targeted together with the National Agricultural Research Center, as well as the
Ethiopian Meat and Dairy Training Institute. It is estimated that, on average, five members of
each regional institute and five at the NARCs will benefit from working with the LIVES project, a
total of 50 academic/scientific staff Also benefiting from the project will be other business
service-providers including micro-finance institutions (MFI) and marketing agencies at District
and Regional Level: an estimated 30 district MFIs and four Regional marketing agencies.
In support of producer HHs, an estimated 50 livestock and (irrigated) crop Development
Assistants (DAs) in each of the 30 Districts will benefit – some 1500 staff (of which an estimated
20% will be women). And to strengthen capacity to support the DAs, an estimated 10 Subject
Matter Specialists (SMS) in livestock, irrigated agriculture, extension in each District will benefit
directly – another 300 staff, together with an estimated ten SMSs at zonal and ten at regional
level– bringing the total SMS benefiting from the project to 320 (of which an estimated 20% will
be women).
2.2.2 Main project activities
OBJECTIVE 1: To facilitate the identification, targeting and promotion of improved
technologies and organizational and institutional innovations to develop the
value chains of selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities
The core Objective of the proposed Project is facilitating the development of well-
functioning and equitable value chains for the commodities selected by the regional
partners.
In each of the four host Regional States: Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya and SNNPR, the value-chain
development will address the commodities that are the priorities of the smallholders (and that
complement related development investments), drawing upon the expertise of the main project
facilitators, ILRI (the International Livestock Research Institute) and IWMI (the International
24
Water Management Institute), and their private, NGO and public sector partners. Consistent
with GoE’s priorities and development plans, the LIVES Project proposes to address high-value
commodities from irrigated crops (vegetables, fruits) and livestock (including poultry and
apiculture) that are selected by smallholders. Demand for horticultural and livestock products is
growing in Ethiopia, particularly in urban areas where residents are increasing their
consumption of nutritious, high-value foods like vegetables, meat and milk. Many of the value
chains of these commodities extend beyond the Districts in which smallholders and pastoralists
produce the commodities.
Women play key roles in the production and marketing of high-value commodities from
livestock and irrigated crops. The LIVES project will use the successful strategies employed by
the IPMS project to support a more gender-balanced value-chain development (VCD) as well as
to scale out successful interventions. A successful strategy was targeting commodity value
chains in which women dominate production – these include butter in rural areas, poultry in
urban/semi urban areas, and the fattening and reproduction of sheep and goats. LIVES will
support this development with capacity development and improved access to credit. In value
chains in which women participate less in production, IPMS successfully facilitated technological
interventions which enabled women to participate more fully, e.g. conservation tillage greatly
reduced the burden of women in weeding as well as removed a cultural bottleneck in land
preparations. The introduction of improved bee hives as well as the placement of hives in or
near the homesteads is another example of an intervention which makes apiculture more
accessible for women. While the LIVES focus will be on production interventions, the role of
gender in the supply of inputs/services and marketing/processing will also be enhanced.
Successful practices observed in IPMS in the production of fruit seedlings and vegetable
seedlings can be scaled out. In these and related ways the project will facilitate incremental
improvements to the participation of, and the benefits to, women while also identifying for
them productive new roles in the target value chains.
As IPMS has shown, to be successful in developing a value chain, innovation systems
approaches are required that include, from the start of the diagnostic process, a wide
range of the stakeholders who participate in joint problem identification and analysis.
This enables expert and research knowledge to be integrated with local and indigenous
knowledge, market intelligence (including prevailing regulatory and policy
environments) and consumer demands. The constraints and opportunities that are
identified are often complex and off-the-shelf technologies and complementary
institutional and organization options require careful selection and adaptation to suit
local circumstances. Within each Region the selection of these target commodity value
chain/s and the programming of activities will take into account related investments by
25
GoE and its development partners with special attention given to private-sector
development at regional and national levels. During the preparation of the PIP,
stakeholder and institutional landscaping will explore the opportunities for strategic
partnerships and ensure complementarities of the LIVES activities with, e.g., AGP. In this
way, and through its multi-level management structure (Figure 8), the Project will
ensure that CIDA’s investment in LIVES leverages resources from these other programs
and projects and strengthens their collective and individual returns.
During the preparation of the PIP this holistic diagnostic process by the stakeholders will
systematically consider production factors, technologies, the supply of inputs and services
(including credit), output marketing, the role of business support services and policies that may
inhibit or support the development of the selected commodity value chain from the source of
production (the target cluster of districts within a zone) to the product’s consumers. Secondary
data, spatially disaggregated where possible, will be used to identify candidate sites based on
relevant biophysical, socio-economic and institutional indicators. Later, key partners will
conduct a participatory assessment of candidate sites, including visits, in order to decide on the
final set of woredas and/or clusters of woredas. At the end of this iterative, evidence-based
process, value chains in the selected sites will be identified and participatory mapping used to
describe each selected value chain and the linkages amongst its gender-disaggregated
stakeholders: it will identify where women, men and youth are in these chains, what are their
constraints and what opportunities exist to improve their participation and benefits from the
commodity chains. Strategies to address these constraints and seize the opportunities will be
identified with stakeholders. The participatory methods used will include IWMI’s diagnostic
toolkits. As part of the preparation of the PIP, an environmental impact assessment will be
carried out.
Project staff will initiate this process of describing and analyzing the value chain selected for
improvement. During the actor analysis they will identify possible facilitators to champion the
development of the value chain and its components. These champions may be individuals, a
business team, an NGO or staff of the relevant Ministry.
Subsequently, stakeholder meetings with the key players in the value chain (including input and
output market agents) will identify and prioritize the initial interventions, drawing upon the
menus of intervention options given in ANNEX 1. They will also develop participatory impact
pathways8 that spell out how the proposed interventions, if successful, will lead to
8 An Impact Pathway is an explicit theory or model of how the project sees itself achieving impact. It
specifies how activities/inputs lead to outputs, which through the process of innovation leads to technical
26
improvements along the value chains. These impact pathways will serve as the basis for value-
chain level monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) during the implementation phase, and
will be updated over the course of the project as lessons are learned and interventions are
adapted, added or dropped. The project level ME&L framework (ANNEX 8) will synthesize both
technical and process lessons from across the value-chain M&E processes to accelerate learning
and capture the strategic lessons about the contrasting institutional needs and demands for the
development of value chains in emerging and mature market-oriented areas.
The initial interventions that are selected may be organizational and institutional innovations
and/or improved technologies that serve to increase the competitiveness of the value chain at
the various stages beginning with the production of the high-value commodity through to its
consumption (Figure 1 and ANNEX 1). Given the continuing importance of the public sector
delivery of input supplies and services, particular attention will be given to these key
components, while striving to improve the linkages with, and the contributions from, private
sector input and output market agents. Emphasis will be given to strengthening business
development services (e.g. using hub concepts and agro business dealership networks,) and
links to credit agencies. The latter is of particular importance since the project is not envisaged
to have its own source of credit funds.
Successful examples of organizational and institutional innovations and improved technologies
from IPMS include collective institutions to rehabilitate and conserve communal grazing (Fogera
and Atsbi), the input supply of fruit seedlings by women (Dale and Bure) and technologies for
the fattening of small ruminants (Goma PLW). These and the other successful examples from
IPMS and related projects (e.g. irrigation and agronomic good practices from the CIDA-funded
SWISHA project) will contribute to the portfolio of intervention options that will be drawn from
the Project’s comprehensive network of partners (BoARD, BoWR, Universities, National and
Regional Research Institutions, IARCs, seed, feed, agro-chemical and veterinary companies,
NGOs) and through accessing the global knowledge system. As was noted above, menus of
intervention options for the selected commodities are presented in ANNEX 1.
or organizational change (outcomes), which in turn leads to social, economic or environmental change
(impact). In addition to the definition of this logic, it also describes the arrangement of partners and
stakeholders who will produce the outputs and the outcomes. This is a tool used to guide project
management in complex environments and may evolve based on learning over time during project
implementation.
27
Either during the initial diagnostic assessment or as the Project moves to the full
implementation of activities, constraints may be identified that cannot be alleviated with
existing knowledge or technologies and require, for example, targeted training (Objective 2) or
action-oriented research (Objective 4) to generate and implement solutions. Key will be
enhancing innovation capacity through the stakeholder-driven diagnosis and joint actions for
resolving constraints and exploiting opportunities. Innovations for increasing participation by
and benefits for women and youth from commodity value chains, such as engagement of
women groups, identification of priority commodity chains and segments thereof for women,
men and youth, savings clubs to increase access to innovations and technologies, will be
explored.
In support of the diagnostic process and the introduction, validation and promotion of the
innovations for improving the selected value chains as described in the impact pathway, an
operational budget will be provided to the zones for the various activities within the cluster of
districts (woredas) and the market channels. Activities will include demonstrations of technical
and institutional interventions and related extension methods.
Activities to achieve Objective 1, therefore, interact with the main activities of
Objectives 2 to 4 and contribute directly to Objective 5 to ensure that individual and
institutional capacities (in both the public and private sectors) and knowledge systems
for innovation are enhanced and that market linkages, for input supplies and services
and outputs, are strengthened.
OBJECTIVE 2: To improve the capacity of the actors along the value chains and of the support
services at the different administrative (kebelle to national) levels to develop
the selected value chains and respond to emerging challenges and
opportunities
The primary principle that will be used in the capacity building interventions of the project will
be that of working with and through organizations that have the mandate and ability to deliver
various trainings and capacity building exercises, so as to increase the likelihood of sustained
and ongoing capacity strengthening beyond the life of the LIVE project – a Business
Development Services (BDS) approach. Some of these will be public institutions with training
mandates, but also private and NGO partners where those with the required abilities can be
identified.
Targeting development beneficiaries
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In order to enhance innovation capacity for developing and sustaining value chains, the
improvement of institutional and human resource capacity will focus on the key actors (male
and female; adults and youth) from the public and the private sectors contributing actually or
potentially to the various components of the value chains (Figure 6). The gender-disaggregated
and age-specific capacity development will be targeted at the regional, zonal and woreda level
public sector development staff (and, if required, at the national level), farmers and their
associations, and the actual or potential private sector actors according to the need in each
commodity value chain. The bulk of the training will be aimed at District level development
workers, farmers and agribusinesses, with more limited targeted training of development staff
and agribusinesses at higher administrative level. Wherever possible the capacity building will
be integrated with that of related projects in the same locations, e.g. AGP, HABP, the USAID-
funded LGP and NGO programs. Signicant experience in creating synergy in capacity
development with other programs was gained in IPMS. For example IPMS provided trainers for
events organized by other programs/projects at District as well regional/national level e.g.
national/regional level research and development staff training on genetic improvement
livestock financed by the Rural Capacity Development Project (RCDP); Regional level staff
training on market assessment financed/organized by IFAD’s marketing project and training on
commodity VCD in Districts for PSNP+ projects/staff..
Figure 6: Capacity Development Actors Illustrated
29
Training needs/topics
During the preparation of the PIP (Project Implementation Plan) the capacity development
needs, activities and the partnerships required to develop and the selected value chains, will be
identified. The activities will be described in detail during the PIP based on the systematic
analysis of the gender-disaggregated and age-specific capacity gaps of stakeholders and
partners and the requirements for value chain development including any needs specific to a
commodity and its public- and private-sector institutions.
Training topics for public sector development staff will include participatory extension
approaches/tools, gender mainstreaming, marketing extension, knowledge management, and
irrigation, crop and livestock technologies. Training will focus on appropriate technologies for
different levels of commercialization, based on the needs of different farmers. Training of
producers will focus on irrigation, crop and livestock technologies, including the production of
inputs such as seedlings and seeds.
Technical training of development workers and farmers will also improve skills and knowledge
on post-harvest aspects and address the environmental management issues arising from the
intensification of crop production through irrigation and of livestock production. Specialist
training will be required on the handling, processing, storage, grading and packaging and the
quality management of perishable, high-value commodities, as well as feed resources
development, waste management and soil and water conservation. Capacity required for
providing needs-based training -both continuous and refresher- in topics such as: book-keeping;
report writing; pesticide application and safety; basic irrigation technologies; pump operation;
food safety and hygiene will also be covered.
Training topics of agribusiness actors at district and higher level is expected to be tailor made
depending on needs. For service providers, instructors will be trained to address topics such as
para-veterinary skills, agro-chemical supply and use, and the repair of irrigation equipment. For
producer associations topics likely to be required include leadership and management, business
planning, book-keeping and soft skills in ICT, topics that will also be relevant for processors’ and
market associations. Course content will include addressing gender- and age-specific issues.
Use will be made of relevant training materials developed by the IPMS project, IWMI and the
project’s strategic partners.
Training modalities and institutions
Different modalities will be used to build capacity for development workers, farmers and agri-
businesses, but in all cases effort will be made to employ BDS approaches to that capacity for
training is sustainable and continues beyond the life of the project.
30
Training modalities development workers and producers.
Commodity specific training and extension approaches/tools training of District level
development workers and farmers will use Training-of-Trainers (ToT) as the principal approach
to achieve both scaling-out within the target regions and the selected Zones/Districts. The ToT
will focus on training of TVET instructors (and NGO and private sector staff as appropriate) and
University staff with two or more persons trained from each Region, and one person or more
from each focal zone and/or Region for each field of training, selected on the basis of their
ability and interest to build such exercises into continued, remunerable activities. LIVES project
staff and specialised staff from IWMI and ILRI will be responsible for training the trainers. The
trainers streamline the fields of training in the curricula for up-scaling to national level. In
parallel, in each region the zonal trainers will provide training to the Woreda level trainers and
they train the Development Agents (DAs) in a given Woreda. Support will also be given to
update and strengthen the curricula and to develop tailor-made courses for groups of DAs. The
number of expected beneficiaries was presented in section 2.2.1.
Prior to the content training -and repeated as and when necessary- the participants will receive
comprehensive training on Adult Learning and Training Techniques to strengthen their
capacities to design, disseminate and evaluate trainings and to fulfil their responsibilities as
‘Master-Trainers’. The various components will enable the participants to: design and plan
training programs independently; describe the basic principles of adult learning and apply them
to training programs; describe the key elements of Participatory Learning Process; and, evaluate
and assess the impact of trainings.
Integral to the training of BoARD and BoWR staff through to DA level, and their counterparts in
other Ministries and the NGO and private sector, will be their skills development for facilitating
and supporting actions within communities and through groups to address constraints to high-
value commodity production and marketing. The training will serve to strengthen producer
organisations and associations of market agents, women and water-users, etc.
Agribusiness training
Responding to needs specific to the private sector identified during the needs assessment and
during the activities that deliver Objective 1 (including those specifically related to gender and
age), demand for training is expected to come from input suppliers, service providers, producer
and processor associations, market agents and marketing associations. ToT as well as direct
training by specialised organisations will be the model for Project support for delivering these
capacity building activities and their scaling-up and -out. The payment-for-service training by
NGOs and private sector groups is likely to be an effective model for delivering and sustaining
these activities.
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Target institutions
Relevant institutions from which the “Master-Trainers” will be trained and the broad areas of
interest that will be addressed, include: irrigation water management and irrigation agronomy –
AMU; horticulture (vegetables and fruits) – Jimma; livestock – EMDTI and Alage; extension –
Haramya/Ambo (participatory and marketing extension and gender mainstreaming will receive
particular attention). An ICT institution will be identified. In addition to delivery through public-
sector institutions, the possibility of providing capacity building on a contractual basis by NGO
and private-sector actors will be explored. Through its business development service principles
this approach is expected to be more sustainable.
Strengthening capacity for knowledge generation
A key component of capacity building is the strengthening of skills in adaptive research through
MSc training9. The number of students receiving the training will be driven by the problem-
solving required to address specific constraints (including gender-related issues) within the value
chains identified in Objective 1: we estimate approximately 20 students annually of which 50%
will require full fellowships and 50% thesis research support. ILRI and IWMI will provide
selection criteria to identify suitable students for the MSc program. The selection will focus on
academic performance, inter-personal skills and relevant experience and will strive to ensure
gender balance. ILRI and IWMI staff will co-identify research problems with partners and
national universities, provide co-supervision and feedback of results to the value chain actors as
well as their publication in scientific literature. Integrated with the training of MSc students will
be, as necessary, short courses on market analysis, quality control, market identification,
irrigation planning and management etc.
Trainees engage in problem-oriented research and support farmers’ and institutional
innovations through skill transfer during their field research. Universities and RARIs benefit
through linking the academic and research program to problem-solving research5. On
completion of their studies, the students contribute to build capacities of livestock and irrigation
value chains at various levels within the public and private sectors or become entrepreneurs on
their own.
9 The thesis research, which will follow the course tuition, will partner BoARD, BoWR, RARIs and
Universities (Objective 4).
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OBJECTIVE 3: To improve generation, access, flow and use of knowledge relevant to the value
chains within and amongst the different administrative (kebelle to national)
levels
Knowledge management contributes to developing the tools, methods, processes and
conducive environments required for the generation, access, flow and use of knowledge needed
or produced by the other components of the project. The need for knowledge is determined by
knowledge gaps identified and emerging from objective 1, while project specific knowledge
generation is linked to the project knowledge generation component (Objective 4). Knowledge
sharing will take place with the help of project specific sharing initiatives as well as with larger
audiences through the project’s promotional events (objective 5)
Wherever possible, the activities will build and strengthen linkages with the private sector.
Experiences from IPMS and related projects have shown the value of face-to-face knowledge
sharing supported by investments that improve access to IT-based knowledge services. During
the PIP an information-needs assessment of men and women producers, traders and other
actors in the value chains will be carried out and the extent to which existing services are
fulfilling these needs will be evaluated. Gaps will be identified for addressing information
requirements of the different stakeholders and key players. The Project’s ME&L framework will
assess impact pathways as a mode for monitoring and improving the balance between the
various components of the knowledge management (KM) strategy serving the target districts,
zones and regions and the requirements nationally.
Based on lessons learned in the IPMS project, the following KM activities, to capture, synthesize
and share knowledge, are proposed for scaling out:
At the Regional/Zonal/Woreda/Kebele levels
1. Market information system: This key activity at regional and zonal levels will be to work
through appropriate organizations and program to support the collection and dissemination
of market information using local (regional) FM radios, mobile phones or other means.
Institutional sustainability will be developed through linking with the activities of Objectives
1, 2 and 4. Where appropriate linkage will also be established such as with ECX (Ethiopia
Commodity Exchange).
2. Agricultural and agri-food system technology exhibitions: organized regionally (or in a zone
or zones, if appropriate) are good venues for creating awareness and promotion amongst a
broad target audience – while ensuring gender and age differentiation - and will serve the
Project’s knowledge management generally and Objective 5 specifically.
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3. Workshops, seminars, and expert consultations sessions: Such events organized nationally,
regionally or in a specific zone, will be utilized to broaden dialogue among stakeholders and
partners of the project and to create opportunities for creating productive networks among
“knowledge generators” in the agriculture sector. They will incorporate gender- and age-
specific issues ( also see Objective5).
4. Establishment of knowledge centers (or agricultural knowledge resource centers): These will
be established at Woreda and Zonal centers (if not already available) and current
operational sites will be strengthened to form a regional network. Based on the utilization
and sustainability experiences of IPMS, the Project will support ICT interventions at Woreda
level but not at FTCs (Farmer Training Centres) unless emerging needs indicate otherwise.
Inputs will include ICT hardware and software, a generator (for TV-DVD based training and
demonstrations in farmers’ fields), monthly Internet usage fees and content (hardcopy and
digital (CD, DVD) materials). Tracking of the use of these services and their usefulness
covering different stakeholder groups including women will be monitored and services
adjusted accordingly. The lessons learnt will guide the regional and zonal strategies for
scaling-out. The project will liaise closely with other projects which will be supporting similar
initiatives like the Bill and Melienda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
5. Farmers’ field days – utilizing FTCs (wherever or whenever feasible): Well-planned and well-
coordinated farmers’ field days have proven to be excellent knowledge-sharing events and
venues and they will form an important part of the implementation of the KM plan at zonal
and regional levels. The field days will be designed to accommodate the needs of women
and young people.
6. Targeted study tours: Study-tours have proven to be key mechanisms for stimulating the
testing and adoption by smallholders and other value-chain actors of productivity- and
profitability-enhancing innovations. However, they can be costly and logistically demanding,
unless carefully planned. Regional and zonal coordination offices (Figure 7) will ensure that
the tours meet specific project objectives. The planning will ensure that women and female-
headed households who may have both time and mobility constraints can benefit from
these study tours.
7. Learning linkages: The need to establish project specific structures at different level will be
established vs integration of project learning into already established structures – see
Objective 5
At the National/International level
34
8. Strengthening and support for Ethiopian Agriculture Portal (EAP), http://ww.eap.gov.et Each
project component will target EAP (a product of IPMS) as a “target” outlet (and repository)
for all knowledge outputs, augmenting the content of the EAP and serving as an example to
other “knowledge generators” to do the same. It will also serve as a promotional tool for
project objectives and scaling-out purposes.
9. Transmission of regular programs on mass media (radio, TV, newspapers): Publication
materials (print or digital) will be developed in multiple delivery formats - including mass
media – especially those with broader target audiences. The Project will seek long-term
partnerships with specific media outlets (public or private) using as a model successful
HIV/AIDS-related weekly training programs that are being broadcast on local FM radio in
Addis. A potential partner is Farm Radio International, a not-for-profit NGO specializing in
reaching rural audiences through effective use of radio in sub-Saharan Africa. FRI has had
outstanding success in achieving large-scale farmer uptake of technologies via radio through
the use of participatory radio campaigns10.
10. National workshops/seminars As indicated in point 3, above, these will facilitate dialogue
and lesson-learning among stakeholders and partners internal to LIVES and amongst the
“actors” in related programs and projects nationally, providing opportunities for productive
networks among knowledge generators, managers and users in the agriculture sector.
At the Project level
11. Project website: An interactive project website will be developed that highlights the
planned, current and completed activities of the project – utilizing “rich media” (text, video,
audio) whenever feasible.
12. Publications: working papers, newsletters, brochures, tool kits, guidebooks/manuals.
13. Experimental initiatives in the use of innovative processes and tools (mobile phones, mp3
audio players, social media tools, etc) for knowledge sharing – especially for time-sensitive
information (market prices, seasonal advice on various farm activities, etc) - will be
explored. Care will be taken to relate the proposed tools to ground realities. For example, if
10 African Farm Radio Research Initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by Farm
Radio International, developed and tested the PRC methodology in 5 African countries with 5 radio station per
country participating. The initial analysis of data shows that across the board technology uptake was at least 20% in
areas where people could listen to the campaigns and that 3/4 of the available audience actually did listen.
35
knowledge management issues are identified as a constraint in a specific value chain in
Objective 1, action research to test the feasibility of alternative technologies could occur
under Objective 4.
OBJECTIVE 4: To generate knowledge through action-oriented research on and synthesis of
lessons learnt about value-chain development
Central to the successful implementation of development interventions, and to creating the
platforms required to scale them out beyond project target sites and borders, is an integrated
and comprehensive joint learning, research and evaluation process. The activities under this
objective address that project need by providing in an integrated manner:
a) priority setting and targeting within target areas to best address needs and
opportunities
b) identifying and piloting technology and other interventions to improve productivity and
market performance;
c) outcome and impact assessment to evaluate the benefits emanating from project
investments; and
d) analysis of innovation processes to better refine and design capacity building and scaling
out activities (Annex 2). The data and learning generated by these activities will also
support the project M&E and Results-Based Framework.
For each commodity value chain within its target cluster of districts and taking account
of the technical, institutional, regulatory and policy environment from the point of
production to the effects of national policies and regulations, it is expected that many of
the identified constraints and opportunities will be addressed using available
technologies and organizational and institutional innovations that draw on the expert,
local and indigenous knowledge found within the stakeholder group and its Project
partners (see Annex 1, Menu of options). Besides scaling-out District-level value chain
interventions, tested during the IPMS project and in related projects, LIVES will also
introduce commercially more advanced interventions to boost productivity as outlined
in section 1.5. However, some constraints and opportunities will not be immediately
amenable to resolution through these knowledge sources and they will require targeted
action-research to identify and/or adapt the technical and/or non-technical solutions
appropriate to the commodity and its local circumstances of production or marketing.
36
For example, the research will assess the benefits and costs associated with a particular
technology or innovation in a target site or population, or explore how a specific
technology or organizational innovation can be adapted for dissemination among a
particular target population. Market structures and the operation of markets may need
to be investigated in order to develop institutional innovations to improve performance.
Institutional support services for agricultural development may need to be critically
evaluated to design and recommend alternative service supply systems. Results of the
research will feed back into the value chain development processes (Objective 1), and
will also be disseminated nationally and internationally through workshops, publications
and other media (Objectives 3 and 5).
It is proposed that much of this problem-solving will be addressed through designing research
with the regional universities and research centres that can be implemented by researchers
from the international and regional centers and universities, and through their supervision of
graduate students (mainly MSc/MA). Their research training will contribute to building capacity
within the knowledge systems of the regions through their tackling the critical factors inhibiting
key steps in the development of a value chain or chains. Their role has been described in the
activities of Objective 2. One of the major benefits of the collaborative research is strengthened
capacity of Ethiopian researchers and research institutions to design and carry out targeted
applied research and to use the results to advice farmers and to inform policy makers,
implementers, and investors.
While many of the critical factors will be technical in nature, socio-economic constraints are also
expected to be important. For example, action-research on alternative ways to provide input
services (public and/or private-sector) to support the increased availability of improved dairy
cattle through AI (artificial insemination) will likely be a key activity. These input services are
often located at regional or zonal levels and require organizational and institutional innovations
to better serve smallholder producers. In the same way, market economics research will be
conducted to support the development of value chains linked to domestic and international
market outlets. More generally, action-research will be required on how to strengthen the
functioning of value chains and associated business development services, including the
provision of credit, and to assess environmental impacts of productivity-enhancing activities.
Research on the gender implications of the different value chains, technologies and institutional
innovations will be crucial in order to derive lessons for effectively addressing gender issues in
market-oriented agriculture. Of importance will be the trade-offs with food security, intra-
household income management and decision-making and the broader evaluation of gender
strategies and their effectiveness within a market-oriented agriculture program.
37
Action research involves piloting interventions combined with careful monitoring and evaluation
of the outcomes and impacts to allow stakeholders to determine whether the results are useful
for alleviating the identified constraint or whether additional work is necessary. Therefore the
action research conducted under this objective will involve assessment methodologies
appropriate to the type of interventions, and will be linked to the value chain level M&E
described in Objective 1.
Complementing this action-research will be the iterative participatory processes within the
monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) framework from which the strategic lessons will be
learnt about the processes and innovations required to improve the functionality of the value
chains and the capacity of the knowledge systems to support the innovation process.
The learning activities will include process-monitoring and evaluation to conduct comparative
analysis and synthesis of lessons from the value-chain level M&E that occurs as part of Objective
1 across sites and value chains.
OBJECTIVE 5: To facilitate the promotion and dissemination of principles and good practices
for the development of value chains
To disseminate the approaches, methods, tools and lessons learned beyond the Project’s
immediate public and private beneficiaries, the Project will have activities that collate, compile,
promote and disseminate these outputs. These will be integral to the Project’s communications
and exit strategies, which will contribute to building the critical links required to sustain of the
institutional developments supported by LIVES.
Four principal target audiences are envisaged:
a) Learning Zones/Districts with similar commodity potentials to the cluster of Districts
in which the interventions are taking place;
b) AGP and PSNP Districts with similar commodities or value chains;
c) Regional and national policy- and decision-makers; and,
d) National and international research and development agencies.
These will however be contingent on the Communications Strategy that the project will develop
at the beginning of its implementation phase. That will employ an outcome mapping (OM)
approach to identify the key targets for improved practices, and the intermediate actors and
partners that can play a role in bringing that about. Based on those, outcome strategies will be
38
developed and implemented, a central part of which will be communication and advocacy
activities. Through a combination of a) development of capacity among appropriate
organizations to sustain training activies (Objective 2), and b) a successful communication
strategy that leads to changed practices, the exit strategy of the project will be achieved.
To reach these audiences, the dissemination activities contributing to the Project’s
communications strategy will include:
Project visits: For key value-chain actors from both the public and the private sectors in the
learning Zones/Districts and the relevant AGP and PSNP Districts, the Project will organize study
tours to the intervention Districts.
Participation in learning platforms, policy taskforces and professional association events: These
will include:
- RDEFS, AGP, EDRI/IFPRI’s ESSP projects and the newly established Agricultural
Transformation Agency in the Prime Minister’s Office
- the MoARD’s Research and Extension Advisory Committees at National, Regional and
Zonal levels (These are now being transformed into Agricultural Development Partnership
Linkages Advisory Concil – ADPLAC), their equivalents in the MoWR. ;
- the Ethiopian Irrigation Steering Committee;
- Events convened by, e.g., Ethiopian Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (ECID),
Ethiopian Water Research Advisory Council (EWRAC), Ethiopian Society for Animal
Production (ESAP), Crop Science Society of Ethiopia (CSSE), Ethiopian Economic
Association (EAA), Ethiopian Agricultural Economics Society (EAES);
- Commodity-based platforms with public and private sector participation, e.g. the Honey
Board and the emerging Ethiopia Dairy Board
Conferences and workshops: To extend the reach of the results of the Project, staff and partners
will take part in regional, national and international conferences. In addition the Project will
organize regular workshops for regional and national audiences to share its experiences with
particular attention given to the MoARD, MoWR, MoFED, donor agencies, NGOs and projects
with related objectives.
Use of mass media: Lessons learned, in particular on good practices, will be extended to learning
Zones/Districts, AGP/PSNP Districts and national audiences using mass media. The project will
collaborate with the four regional radio, TV stations and news media and allocate an annual
budget.
39
Publications: Complementing the activities of Objective 3, the Project will publish its own
working-paper series to highlight major findings. The project will also publish manuals and
guides related to technical and institutional/organization innovations for the development of
value chains. These will be distributed to educational institutions, BoARDs and relevant Zones
and Districts. Papers for international peer-review journals will also be produced. Whenever
possible, the publications will be made available on the websites of the participating partners,
EAP and the Project’s own website.
Internet-based tools: Through its own website (Objective 3) and its links to EAP, the Project will
facilitate access to decision-support and other interactive tools. A quarterly electronic
newsletter will be published.
Promotional materials: The project will develop brochures and posters on best practices for use
within Learning Districts/Zones and AGP/PSNP programs and to broaden public awareness
about the Project and its outputs. Other promotional materials like calendars with project logos
will be distributed.
Leveraging new investment towards an exit strategy: Through its collaborative modus operandi
for the implementation of the Project (Figure 8 and sections 1.5, 2.4 and 2.5), LIVES
management will actively identify and facilitate uptake of project outcomes by other investors
and development agents. In turn this will strengthen the institutionalization (scaling-up) of the
innovation systems and value-chain approaches that are central to the Project and to the
sustainability of the interventions beyond the Project’s lifetime, and thus forms a core part of
the exit strategy.
In summary, therefore, through delivering the Objectives 1 to 5 in the way described above and
as captured in the Logic Model (Annex 2), the Project will contribute significantly to developing
improved, competitive, sustainable and equitable value chains for the selected livestock and
irrigated crop commodities in the target areas of the four partner regions. At the same time it
will put in place strengthened institutional capacity and a much improved knowledge system to
extend and sustain the development of market-oriented smallholder agriculture elsewhere in
Ethiopia.
2.4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The Project will be managed by ILRI (the lead institution) in partnership with IWMI. ILRI, which
will be responsible to CIDA for technical and financial accountability, will appoint a Project
Manager to oversee and lead all aspects of the implementation of the Project. The appointment,
which will precede the preparation of the PIP, will be made in consultation with IWMI.
40
The Project Manager will lead a team of technical and administrative staff based in Addis Ababa
that is expected to include Experts in Value Chain Development, Agribusiness, Livestock,
Irrigation, Communications, Gender, the Environment, GIS and M&E. The exact composition
and roles will be refined during the project preparation phase. This National team will support
four “Regional” teams, one in each host Region, comprising a Regional Coordinator, Livestock
and Irrigation Experts and support staff. In turn, each Regional team will support Zonal
Coordinators in each of the target Zones/cluster of Districts that will be selected during the PIP
by the local stakeholders (see Annex 7 and section 2.2.2, Objective 1). These are all illustrated
in Figure 7 below.
Figure 7 Project Organizational Chart
Therefore, the lowest level of the LIVES organizational structure is the Zone or cluster of
Districts (woredas) selected for implementing the VCD activities, with these activities linked to
the regional and national levels. The LIVES zonal coordinator facilitates and promotes
41
interventions to support value chain development (VCD) through the zonal and woreda
structures of the Offices of Agriculture and Water Resources partnered by relevant public and
private sector organizations and NGOs.
Figure 8 Project Governance and Functional Structure
The Project’s governance and functional structure is illustrated in Figure 8. A National Steering
Committee (NSC) chaired by CIDA will assist the LIVES management teams to address strategic
42
issues such as partnerships and leveraging. NSC members (probably totaling no more than ten)
will include ILRI, IWMI, a representative of each of the four participating Regions and a
representative of the federal government. The Project Manager will serve as the secretary of the
NSC. The role of the NSC is to provide overall guidance for the strategic implementation of the
Project and the preparation of the annual program of work and its budget. The NSC will meet at
least every six months.
The Project will have a National Project Implementation Committee (NPIC), comprised of ILRI,
IWMI, national Project staff and a Project representative from each of the four Regions, a
membership of no more than twelve. The NPIC, which will oversee the project’s operations and
its adherence to milestones, will meet quarterly to review plans and discuss progress and to
report to the membership of the NSC.
In order to encourage inter-regional collaboration, communication, lesson-sharing and debate,
the meetings of the NSC and NPIC will rotate amongst the four regional capitals.
At the Regional level the Project will be guided by Regional Project Implementation
Committees (RPIC) comprised of ILRI/IWMI Regional staff and representatives of Project
partners, a membership of no more than ten. The RPIC will meet quarterly to review plans,
discuss progress and to report to the NPIC.
These management structures will support project implementation (Figure 8). Their
responsibilities will include planning and coordinating national, regional, zonal and District level
learning events such as seminars, conferences and field/exchange visits.
Parallel to these management structures, project partners will participate in leaning structures
at different levels - - see Objective 5.
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2.5 PROJECT PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
2.5.1 Project Implementation Plan (PIP)
During the first six months of the project (April-Sept., 2011) a Project Implementation Plan (PIP)
will be prepared by teams comprised of Project staff (see Figure 8), consultants (including
specialists in value-chain and private-sector development) and regional /zonal agriculture and
water resources staff. Their sequential tasks will include: selection of target production areas for
identified value chains; value-chain mapping and rapid diagnosis which includes stakeholder
analysis and identification of broad brush constraints and opportunities; and, potential
interventions. In addition, specialists will carry out an environmental impact assessment.
Selection of target production areas: The commodities and their Zones that were identified by
the regions as priorities for value-chain development are presented in ANNEX 7. Using a
participatory, evidenced-based process, within each of the selected Zones the Project teams will
identify a cluster of Districts each having good potential for producing one or more of the
commodities chosen by the Region for value chain development. Preference for inclusion in the
Project will be given to clusters that combine two or more priority commodities and will take
into account related GoE investments in commodity and VC development (AGP, the USAID-
funded LGP, etc) as explained above in section 2.4 Project Management.
Value-chain mapping: Beginning in the target production areas, gender-disaggregated actor
(stakeholder) mapping will identify for each selected commodity value chain the private and
public partners who do or could have a stake in the development of the value chain. As well as
smallholder and other producers of the target commodity, the complex of stakeholders would
be expected to include (as appropriate for a livestock or crop commodity):
Trade and regulatory bodies
Supply of livestock inputs/services (public and/or private)
i) Potential sources/suppliers of concentrate feeds
ii) Suppliers of veterinary drugs and services
iii) Sources/suppliers of improved genetic animal materials
iv) Providers of technical and advisory services
v) Providers of financial services.
Sale of livestock products
i) Local traders
ii) Potential large-scale consumers of animal products (universities, army camps)
iii) Export abattoirs
iv) Dairy processing industries
Supply of irrigation inputs/services
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i) Irrigation system developers and managers
ii) Irrigation equipment (pumps, drip, sprinkler, storage etc)
iii) Repair and maintenance service
iv) Water-users associations
Supply of (irrigated) agricultural inputs/services
i) Suppliers of agro chemicals, fertilizers
ii) Suppliers of seeds, seedlings, grafting materials
iii) Crop spraying services
iv) Storage facilities
Sale of (irrigated) agricultural products
i) Local traders
ii) Potential large-scale consumers of irrigated agricultural products (traders,
universities, food processors)
iii) Exporters such as horticultural businesses, associations
Educational institutions
i) TVETs, Universities and specialized educational institutions which provide training in
hard and soft skills for extension staff and agribusiness entrepreneurs for selected
livestock and irrigated agricultural commodities.
ii) Universities who are willing to partner with the project to define and conduct
research with thesis students
Research institutions
i) Agricultural Research Centers, which can be involved in undertaking research and
defining and conducting/supervision of MSc thesis research
ii) EDRI
iii) International research centers
Projects/programs
i) The project will identify and collaborate with government and NGO implemented
projects such as the PSNP/FSP and SLM to create, complement and create synergy.
Participatory value-chain diagnosis: Drawing upon the gendered value-chain actor mapping,
representative stakeholders will be invited to participate in a rapid diagnosis of the value chain.
Through an interactive meeting or series of meetings, the participatory value-chain analysis will
identify and discuss district-level commodity-specific value chain problems and potentials and
the linkages with zonal, regional level input supply/services and processing/marketing
actors/stakeholders. This identification process will include an assessment of existing and new
gender-disaggregated and -sensitive roles and actors and the linkages amongst them.
Identification of potential interventions: During these value-chain actor meetings, potential
interventions will be identified and discussed. These interventions may include technologies
45
and/or organizational or institutional innovations. Policy issues may also be raised. These
possible interventions will form the basis for the planning of the initial development, testing and
validation of interventions to improve value chain performance and the efficiency of the
components. The roles and responsibilities of each of the potential actors in the action will also
be identified.
Design of the detailed work program
Based on the diagnosis of the selected value chains and the identification of the target areas and
populations, the Project’s detailed plan of work, based on the value chain impact pathways, will
be developed in support of Objectives 1, 2, 3 and 5. Key decisions will include the partnerships
to develop for delivering the capacity building (Objective 2) and the knowledge management
and dissemination (Objectives 3 and 5).
The planning phase and its various steps will also inform the development of a detailed multi-
location research plan (a component of Objective 4) to answer generic questions identified and
prioritized during the diagnostic exercise. This will complement the action-research and lesson-
learning components of Objective 4.
2.5.2 Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation (RBM&E)
A participatory monitoring and evaluation system will be developed that utilizes the results-
based management system that has been effective in supporting the management of the IPMS
project (Gebremedhin, Getachew and Amha, 2010). Details of the RBM&E are given in Annex 8.
2.5.3 Gender Mainstreaming
In Ethiopia rural women contribute significantly to agricultural development. However, there is
still a great untapped potential due a mixture of economic constraints and cultural norms which
constrain their contributions to, and their benefits from, the production of marketable
commodities. Despite many initiatives at policy and institutional levels, gender roles and
relationships continue to play determining roles in distribution of workloads, the use of
resources and the sharing of the benefits of production. The emphasis on market-oriented
production of high-value commodities often disregards the gendered consequences and many
benefits bypass women. This has important implications for gender equality and the long-term
sustainability of these market-led initiatives.
By taking a systematic approach to integrating gender mainstreaming into the activities of the
Project, it will strive to overcome the barriers faced by rural women. These include: their having
limited access to and control over important agricultural resources like land, water access and
cash; the cultural norms and traditions that put women at lower social position in community;
46
the limited experience, skill and awareness on gender mainstreaming of many partners; the
absence of regular follow up and monitoring by partners on the progress of reaching more
women in commodity development; and the frequent staff turnover in most government
offices.
Therefore, in the LIVES Project, understanding the gender context of selected value chains in the
target zones/cluster of districts and identifying opportunities for supporting gender equality will
be central to the success of the Project. The project will focus on gender mainstreaming at two
levels –
(a) amongst project and partner staff – enhance their understanding of the importance of
addressing gender issues in value chain development; enhancing their capacity to
effectively integrate them into the value chain development efforts and; monitor the
outcomes and impacts of such efforts.
(b) Amongst target communities and households for effective mainstreaming.
Built into the activities of the LIVES Project will be the following success factors learnt from
IPMS:
Set a specific target for women’s participation in the activities of the Project that
captures the imagination of staff and partners and that they strive to achieve.
Learn from and share the experience of women’s economic and social empowerment
with community members and partners through market-led initiatives from elsewhere
in the country.
Present evidence and facts to raise the awareness of Project partners regarding the
importance of gender in market-led initiatives
Prepare a gender action plan and scan the plan and all Project activities with a gender
lens
Training on tools and approaches that ensure that the Project reaches out to and
engages more women in market-led growth initiatives
Work in partnership with the respective Women’s Affair Offices
These concerted efforts to mainstream gender into the Project’s activities will strengthen both
its contribution to addressing gender imbalance in the target clusters of districts and the
continuing capacity of the host and partner institutions.
The broad areas of intervention will be:
Understanding the gender context of the priority commodity value chains by
47
o As part of the diagnostic process and through follow up studies collecting and
analyzing site and priority value chain specific information on gender differences
in
division of labor in producing and marketing priority commodities
access to and control over resources and benefits
gender participation in decision making
capacity needs to be engaged in priority commodity value chain
development
o Developing strategies to address gender issues in commodity chains with
partners.
Identifying opportunities and implementing strategies to enable women and men to
have equal opportunities in the project activities by
o Identifying constraints and opportunities for women’s participation in the
selected value chains
o Implementing strategies to address these constraints and to take advantage of
opportunities. Some of these strategies will include but not be limited to:
Targeting women from female-headed households who have land for
vegetable production
Targeting women to engage in input supply systems like fruit tree
nurseries, pullet production, feed block preparation
Involving women and women groups in value addition/processing (e.g.
juice and paste making, honey processing)
Giving more focus and support to women in women-dominated
enterprises (e.g. dairy and poultry)
Adapting enterprises to more effectively engage and increase benefits
to women, e.g., honey production in modern beehives
Supporting women to identify and develop joint enterprises like small
ruminant fattening
Providing access to credit and market linkages for women to better
engage in capital-intensive enterprises such as cattle fattening
o Evaluating these strategies to understand which strategies work, where and
under what conditions to improve women’s benefits from market-oriented
agriculture and increase their economic and social empowerment
Increasing women’s access to technologies and institutional innovations for improving
enterprise productivity and profitability. This may include but not be limited to:
o Engaging women water-users’ associations to increase access to irrigation
technologies
48
o Using participatory technology adaptation and evaluation approaches that
enhance women’s participation such as farmer participatory research, farmer
field schools, participatory video
o Setting targets for women’s participation in project activities including
dissemination, capacity building etc
o Working with community organizations to sensitize and gain community
acceptance of role changes, when involving women in non-traditional roles,
Increasing awareness on gender issues among project staff and partners through
o Providing the necessary skills and knowledge to Project staff and partners on
gender issues related to priority commodities
o Developing methodologies and tools for collecting sex-disaggregated data with
regard to each priority commodity and each of the services carried out by the
Project
o Developing and training project partners on strategies to integrate gender in
enterprise development, technology adaptation and dissemination
o Identifying key indicators to monitor change with respect to gender equality
during the life of the Project
2.6 LESSONS FROM OTHER PROJECTS
2.6.1 Lessons from IPMS and other ILRI projects
As was detailed in the Background section, the CIDA-funded, ILRI-led IPMS project is the
predecessor of this LIVES project. Key lessons from IPMS and related ILRI-implemented
projects include: the importance of involving a wide range of stakeholders from the start
of the development and implementation of a projects; the joint identification of the
core problems; utilizing innovation systems that integrate expert and research
expertise with local and indigenous knowledge, market intelligence and consumer
demands; consider the prevailing regulatory and policy environments; ensure that
capacity building is a core activity; and, develop solutions from the available technical,
socio-economic, institutional and policy options through negotiation and brokering.
Applying these lessons and practices has resulted in IPMS delivering outcomes that include:
increased production, improved agricultural productivity and better market success in its pilot
districts through appropriate technologies, innovative input-supply/output marketing and
financial services; strengthened innovation capacity of public organizations, farmers, pastoralists
and community-based and private-sector organizations; a functional agricultural knowledge
management system at the various administrative levels that highlights innovations and
49
appropriate technologies; and, strategies, policy and technology options and institutional
innovations that were developed from research and process learning.
ILRI is a major partner in the ongoing East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) Project, funded by
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). EADD builds upon and extends the lessons from
the DFID-funded Smallholder Dairy R&D Project, which was implemented in central Kenya, to
other areas of Kenya and to Uganda and Rwanda. These projects contributed to the lesson-
learning outlined above and were test-beds for approaches to analyzing and addressing
constraints in livestock commodity value chains and the associated development of input and
output services.
Key to success is the innovations systems approach, the application of which was refined for the
feed components of the livestock sub-system of crop-livestock systems in Ethiopia, India,
Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam by ILRI and its partners during two recent “fodder innovation”
projects funded by DFID and IFAD. The approach and its methods are currently being applied
through an IFAD-funded, ILRI-led project addressing goat value chains in India and Mozambique
in which spaces - innovation platforms - allow individuals and organizations to come together to
address issues of mutual concern and interest. A key role is that of innovation brokers,
individuals or organizations, such as locally established and respected NGOs, who facilitate and
support the platform. They promote networking, negotiation of roles and responsibilities,
integrating different types of information and knowledge, promoting a culture of continuous
learning, and capacity building – both in terms of innovation capacity and specific technical or
organizational capacities. These platforms are dynamic and exist only as long as they are useful,
and their composition changes over time as different issues are addressed. They may evolve into
a producers’ associations, cooperatives or even businesses, or be reconfigured to address a new
set of problems. The basic concept, loosely applied, of innovation platforms will be
implemented by LIVES at zonal and regional levels to scale-out and –up the lesson learnt in IPMS
and elsewhere.
These lessons for supporting innovation in the operating environment of crop-livestock and
pastoral systems and their value chains will be invaluable for the success of the LIVES project
and achieving its goal of enhancing the income and wealth creation of smallholder agricultural
households.
2.6.2 Lessons from IWMI projects
IWMI is currently completing or implementing projects supported by various development
partners that are producing information and innovations directly relevant for improving
irrigation policies and practices (and more broadly Agricultural Water Management (AWM)) in
sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in general and Ethiopia in particular. This includes tapping the
50
knowledge from Asia where IWMI has a strong presence. IWMI has a strong interest in
disseminating the findings and recommendations of these projects, thus enhancing the
likelihood that they will lead to real impacts on poverty, livelihoods and contribution to growth.
In the IWMI project portfolio, there are a number of recently completed and ongoing projects
that provide important inputs to the LIVES project. Some of the key development lessons that
have been learnt include:
Provision of even relatively small amounts of water at key times can make an important
contribution to peoples’ well-being and livelihoods. Irrigation and access to agricultural
water management technologies can significantly reduce poverty as measured by per
capita or household income.
Direct and indirect benefits of irrigation (i.e. increased crop productivity, employment,
wages, increased food supplies/food security/food affordability etc.) vary greatly across
settings.
Irrigation investments, whether in new development or in the improvement of existing
systems, will not always reduce poverty in a significant way. In fact, depending on
circumstances, irrigation can be strongly pro-poor, neutral or even anti-poor.
Equity and security in access and rights to resources matter for larger poverty impacts.
The poor performance of many small-scale irrigation schemes is related to flawed
project design and lack of adequate community consultation during project planning
and implementation.
Implementation of individual water management technologies is rarely successful but
implemented in an integrated manner they can make very important contributions to
rural development and agricultural growth.
Past investments in irrigation and water harvesting have rarely integrated livestock
management and crop production options and so have often failed to maximize benefits
and sustainability.
Poor people need and use water for a wide range of essential activities. Deliberately
making provision for these multiple uses of water when designing and managing water
supply and irrigation schemes can greatly reduce poverty, increase gender equity and
improve health at little additional cost.
Communities can improve their livelihoods and natural resources significantly despite
having degraded biophysical and socio-economic conditions around them. However, to
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achieve this drivers are needed in the form of strong individuals, new community
organizations, innovative technologies and practices and/or external agents.
Participatory rapid diagnosis and action planning of irrigated systems is a successful
approach for planning schemes that is, at least in part, successful because it generates
farmer ownership.
Rainfall variability is a major impediment to the livelihoods of many poor people that
will most likely get worse as a result of climate change. Under such circumstances water
storage, in a variety of forms, is a key intervention, but in any given location it must be
fit for purpose.
The recently completed projects that have contributed to this lesson learning include:
Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture This was a major six-year,
multi-partner initiative led by IWMI that identified the lessons learned from past experiences
with AWM, documented the current trends with regard to meeting global food security, poverty
reduction and environmental conservation goals, and proposed a wide range of policies,
interventions and solutions to use agricultural water productively (Molden et al, 2007). The
outcomes of this work have strongly influenced the global AWM development agenda as well as
IWMI’s own strategic programmes.
Improving Irrigation Performance in Africa (French acronym: APPIA; supported by France). This
project produced and field tested in Ethiopia and Kenya a participatory diagnostic tool that
farmers and technicians can use to identify gaps in irrigation scheme performance and develop
implementable solutions.
Multiple Use Water Services Project (MUS; supported by CPWF). This project documented the
outcomes, benefits and costs, and implementation strategies of MUS as opposed to single-
purpose water supply schemes, using a “learning process” as a means for participants to learn
together. A global project that included work in Ethiopia, its approach has also been
recommended and promoted by donors,
Irrigation and poverty impact in Ethiopia (supported by Austria). This project documented
irrigation development and future potential, and analyzed the performance of irrigation, with a
special focus on the impacts of irrigation investments at household level on poverty reduction,
food security and income in Ethiopia. It also analysed impacts of such investments at a broad
national scale and economy. It has provided tools, methods and guidelines for assessing, testing
and refining irrigation impacts, which can be used by implementing agencies in other countries
as well as Ethiopia.
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There are also several projects currently being implemented:
Re-thinking Water Storage for Climate Change Adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa. This project,
supported by Germany, is assessing a variety of options for water storage for AWM as a way of
adapting to the impacts of climate change. Its outputs can be used as input in the irrigation
commodity value chains, specially looking at inputs and production.
Agricultural Water Management Landscape Analysis: Assessing the feasibility and potential
impacts of on-farm water control interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This
project, supported by the BMGF, aims to provide investors, policymakers and implementers
with concrete knowledge and tools to make agricultural water management interventions more
successful in terms of benefiting the greatest number of poor women and men at the least
social and environmental cost. Combining its resources with those of this new project will
enhance its impacts.
Groundwater in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for food security and livelihoods. This project,
supported by AGRA and the Rockefeller Foundation, seeks to identify the potential and
opportunities for exploiting groundwater for AWM in sub-Saharan Africa. As this project
produces outputs, they will provide lessons for harnessing the untapped ground water resources
in Ethiopia.
Agricultural Water Management Technologies in Ethiopia This project, supported by USAID,
brings together researchers, policy makers and implementers of AWM in Ethiopia to share
lessons learned. It is also carrying out an inventory of AWM practices in Ethiopia and assessing
the poverty impacts of the most promising of these technologies and practices. The new project
will utilize the recommendations to prioritize interventions, enhance investments, and build
capacity and dissemination.
Nile Basin Development Challenge: Improving rural livelihoods and their resilience through a
landscape approach to rainwater management in the Ethiopian Highland. This project, which
will be funded by the CPWF, focuses on rain-water management to improve the livelihood and
income of farmers, improve productivity and ecosystem functions of the land and water
resources and reverse environmental degradation. A major portion of this project is dedicated
to networking, outreach and uptake for impact not only in Ethiopia but also in the Nile Basin
region. Some of the sites of implementation of the new project overlap with the LIVES project,
and therefore can create strong synergy and learning alliances.
Irrigation Diagnostic: 1) Irrigation Potential in Ethiopia: Constraints and opportunities for
enhancing the system; 2) Rapid assessment of selected water-led projects in Ethiopia. This
project, funded by BMGF, is currently under completion. The first component undertook
53
diagnosis of irrigation sector in general, identified potentials and challenges and put forward ten
major recommendations to improve systems delivery, out-scale irrigation investment, enhance
performance of the existing system and enhance sustainability and equity. The second
component focused on assessment of Fenatle irrigation schemes, Boreana water supply and
Tigray Natural Resources Management interventions. The study provides “lessons learned” for
the government and other stakeholders in terms of improving each project as it moves forward,
and successfully introducing similar irrigation schemes in different regions. Incidentally, these
three sites are in the identified interventions zones as selected by the regions
The above projects provide ample lessons that will strengthen the delivery of various outputs of
the LIVES Project and they will provide strong synergies for enhancing learning alliances and
impacts through the various development agency partners.
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2.7 ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
Striving for environmental sustainability is integral to CIDA’s investments and programming to
support long-term food security and agricultural growth in Ethiopia and elsewhere. ILRI and
IWMI, the implementing agencies for the Project, share these same values, which are embedded
in this and all their projects. Considerations to overcome environmental degradation and to
ensure environmental sustainability will be part of all activities in the Project. They will be
highlighted in the work planning and decision-making with each of the partners and with the
partners collectively at the international, national, regional, zonal, woreda and kebele levels of
the Project.
The roles and responsibilities of each partner will reduce the likelihood of any possible negative
environmental impacts of Project activities and ensure that collectively, the Project promotes
environmental sustainability through activities that are in line with CIDA’s Operational
Objectives. The activities will serve:
1. To ensure that environmental considerations, including opportunities for enhancing
environmental sustainability, are integrated into sector and cross-sector programs,
program assistance, and project planning and implementation, taking into account
views of beneficiaries and local communities;
2. To promote and support environmental and broader socio-economic policy dialogue,
program assistance and projects that directly address environmental issues;
3. To implement design measures that minimize negative environmental impacts and
enhance environmental benefits of projects, or identify alternatives;
4. To encourage and support Canadian, international and developing country partner
organizations to develop policies, programs and projects that further the objectives of
environmental sustainability;
Through its planning during the PIP and subsequently, the LIVES Project will:
1. Provide an ex-ante assessment of the environmental impact of technologies,
organizational and institutional arrangements and policy options being considered
through the Project in rain-fed and irrigated agriculture for adoption by Ethiopian
smallholders and livestock producers, collective-action organizations and policy makers.
2. These assessments will consider both local and larger scale impact and take into account
trade-offs among the existing land-use and production systems for rain-fed and irrigated
agriculture, those that are proposed and other alternatives. Considerations will include
impacts of agricultural development on environmental health, soil, biodiversity, and
water quantity and quality.
55
3. When necessary, qualified consultants, environmental NGOs and The Ethiopian
Environmental Protection Agency will be invited to assist in environmental assessment
and planning. At the local level, community-based self-assessment will take into
account environmental issues within the target areas of the proposed clusters of
districts for each of the priority livestock and irrigated crop commodities.
4. Appropriate, practical, relevant and gender-disaggregated environmental assessment
indicators will be included in the Project M&E and its learning processes such that
during the implementation of the Project, activities can be assessed regularly and, if
need be, modified.
These efforts will enable each of the partners working in the LIVES Project to develop and have
in place an in-built EIA system so that any negative environmental consequences can be
addressed and that positive effects are maximized through scaling up and out.
2.8 EXPECTED BENEFITS
The LIVES Project has three sets of expected direct beneficiaries:
the resource-poor households in the target areas being supported to produce high-
value livestock and irrigated crop commodities;
the various private and cooperative input and output market agents and service
suppliers (including an increasing number from the private sector at various levels); and,
the public-sector bodies responsible for providing a conducive operating environment
for the production and marketing of the commodities.
Indirect, but no less important, beneficiaries will be the consumers of these high-value
commodities who will enjoy better availability of more cost-effective, quality products.
The expected direct benefits to the producer households will include increased market
orientation and participation resulting in income from the sale of the high-value commodities
and an increased capacity for sourcing innovations to improve the productivity and profitability
of their livestock and/or irrigated crop production and the marketing of these products. Given
that the Project will emphasize issues related to institutional and environmental sustainability,
other benefits to the producer households will be an expected increased efficiency, resilience
and robustness of the production and marketing systems for the various commodities and,
therefore, a reduction in the risks associated with the production, storage, processing and
marketing of the commodities.
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As described in section 2.2.1, within the target clusters of districts of the four Regions in which
the Project will work, it is estimated that a total of 135,000 producer households (approximately
800,000 people) will benefit directly from increased income from sales of the various
commodities that have been identified as the priorities for development by the Regional and
Zonal partners.
Benefits for the market agents and service suppliers will include an increased demand for their
services and, therefore, increased potential income, profitability and sustainability of their
businesses. An important additional benefit will be a strengthened capacity for sourcing
innovations to improve their businesses. As described in section 2.2.1, it is estimated that in the
target clusters of districts in the four Regions the Project will contribute to improving the
livelihoods of more than 1500 market agents and service suppliers, of which approximately
three quarters of businesses are expected to be from the private sector.
Strengthened knowledge and institutional capacity for supporting the increased market
orientation of smallholder agriculture and private sector involvement will be the main benefits
gained from the Project by the public-sector bodies responsible for providing an enabling
operating environment for the production and marketing of the selected commodities. As
described in section 2.2.1, an estimated 50 academic/scientific staff at research and educational
institutes, some 1500 DAs and 320 SMSs, of which 20% will be women, will benefit from the
Project. Capacity building and knowledge learning processes will not only better equip them to
serve their primary clients, the resource-poor producer households, but also to support more
efficiently the development and delivery of cost-effective services by private-sector market
agents and service providers. A key element of that support and a significant benefit from the
Project will be the increased capacity of the public sector bodies to, first, identify policy
constraints that inhibit a conducive operating environment, second, to develop policy options
for overcoming the constraints and, third, to engender an institutional environment that favors
the promotion and implementation of the policy options.
Important additional benefits will result from the pro-active collaborative modus operandi of the
Project. As highlighted throughout this proposal, LIVES management will actively engage with,
and leverage resources from, programs and projects with related objectives in order to
reciprocally facilitate development outputs and outcomes. These additional benefits will
contribute significantly to strengthening the institutionalization and sustainability of the
innovation systems and value-chain approaches within and beyond the target areas of LIVES.
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2.9 PROJECT RISKS
The anticipated risks and risk management approaches identified by ILRI/IWMI are outlined in the Risk Register presented on the following page. The Risk Register will be reviewed and revised during the preparation of the PIP (Project Implementation Plan).
Through its long history of implementing large projects funded by CIDA and other major funding
agencies, ILRI has proven experience in successfully managing R4D programs. Effective inter-
institutional co-operation and inter-project/program collaboration will be central to the success
of the LIVES Project, a major development initiative. The co-operation and collaboration critical
to that success will build upon and extend the successful partnerships developed by ILRI during
the design and implementation of the CIDA-funded IPMS project, during the preparation of this
LIVES proposal and during the various recent and ongoing projects between ILRI, IWMI and their
key development partners in Ethiopia, the principal of which are the BoARD and the BoWR.
Given the established relationships and the LIVES Project’s planned transparent governance
structures and practices, the risk of that productive co-operation deteriorating is assessed as
low and the probability of successful cooperation and collaboration is rated high.
The key factor determining that success will be the effectiveness of the Project’s management in
facilitating productive partnerships with agencies having proven records of success in value
chain and business development and the associated capacity-building components. These and
the other anticipated risks and risk management approaches are given in the Risk Register
below.
58
Risk Register
Title Livestock and Irrigation Value-chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES)
No. Team Leader
Country/Region/Institution Ethiopia Budget $19.28 million Duration
59
Risk Definition Risk Level
(Add columns as needed)
From Program
Risk Profile?
(Y/N)
Indicate Investment LM
Result Level Mitigation needed
Risk owner
Risk Definition Risk Level
(Add columns as needed)
From Program
Risk Profile?
(Y/N)
Indicate Investment LM Result
Level
Mitigation needed Risk owner
Operational Risks Initial Rating
Date 2
Date 3
Date 4
Op1
Inadequate government coordination and support constrains public sector delivery of essential input services and supplies
Medium No Intermediate
Project’s inclusive organizational structure with key responsibilities of senior federal-to-district staff addresses resourcing and management issues supported by strategic capacity building and knowledge management inputs
ILRI/IWMI
Op2
Staff turn-over (e.g. amongst trainees for ToT) weakens HR capacity of project’s public sector partners to sustain the delivery of key outputs
Medium No Immediate Outcome
SWOT analysis of actual and potential partners (public, private, NGO) for delivery of capacity-building components to identify alterative suppliers with proven performance for imparting VCD skills and knowledge generation and management
ILRI/IWMI
Op3
Failure to develop effective linkages with other VCD including finance servies and related projects, programs reduces scale of deliverables
Low No Immediate Outcome
LIVES’s organizational structure and inclusive, systematic approach includes a strategic emphasis on inter-project/program collaboration and resource-sharing from district to national levels
ILRI/IWMI
Op4
Risk aversion and inexperience of some target producer groups restricts participation in VCD
High No Output
LIVES’s innovation systems approach facilitates confidence-building, awareness and incentives through dialogue, exchange visits and targeted training.
ILRI/IWMI
Financial Risks
Fin1
CIDA funds transferred to implementing partners in untimely manner and/or are mismanaged
Low
No Immediate Outcome
LIVES business plan includes agreements with implementing partners for accounting standards and reporting to minimize financial risks.
CIDA
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Development Risks
Dev1
Political instability and natural disasters such as epidemics and droughts may threaten CIDA development results
Medium
No Ultimate Outcome
LIVES cooperates with health agencies to mitigate risks from epidemics and ensure that drought-mitigation and other good environmental practices and insurance schemes are integral to VCD.
ILRI/IWMI
Dev2
Poor enterprise management skills of target producers and potential market agents limit scope for VCD
High
No Intermediate
Needs assessments for training and information identify effective agencies and innovative methods to develop requisite skills for VCD and enterprise management
ILRI/IWMI
Dev3
Poor physical infrastructure (eg roads, IT, elect.) serving rural communities limits input and output market services
Medium
No Immediate
LIVES facilitates the development of innovative organizational approaches to reduce transaction costs and improve margins for service providers
ILRI/IWMI
Dev4
Portfolio of interventions does not meet needs for VCD in all the diverse communities and target areas
Low
No Outputs
Participatory action-research to select, test and adapt innovations backed by effective support to the adaptation process
ILRI/IWMI
Reputation Risks
Rep1
GoE (and MoARD specifically) perceives CIDA negatively because project invests more in NGOs and private sector (including producer assocs) than public sector
Low
No Outputs
Dialogue between CIDA and GoE to develop shared appreciation of the importance of strengthening private sector participation, its linkages with public sector and positive role of NGOs. CIDA to emphasize to ILRI/IWMI the strategic roles and essential involvement of key GoE actors, e.g. BoARD and BoWR.
CIDA
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2.10 SUSTAINING THE ACTIVITIES BEYOND THE PROJECT
Building upon and extending by scaling-out and -up the successes of IPMS, the LIVES Project will
focus on how to link and promote the better access to and supply of technologies and
organizational and institutional innovations that respond to and satisfy enhanced effective
demand. Human and institutional capacity building will enhance the availability, access and
utilization of knowledge systems to support innovation by producers and market agents and by
the public-sector bodies responsible for the provision of an enabling operating environment. As
shown by IPMS and related projects, the development through this process of self-reliant
farmers and cost-effective institutions, particularly in the private sector, is the key strategy for
promoting both sustainability and impact. Experiences in IPMS and other projects show that a
gradual transition from public-sector driven development to a more public/private sector
development will enhance sustainability. Therefore, facilitating private-sector partners to
complement public-sector ones is an important sustainability strategy.
Sustainable agricultural development ensures that the natural resource base (soils and water) is
not depleted. Elements related to afforestation, the grazing management of communal
pastures, improved soil and water conservation, development of water resources, and
integrated watershed management will be key components of Project activities at local and
Woreda levels and will be consistent with SLM project strategies. These elements of natural
resource management will be carefully integrated to support the intensification of smallholder
agriculture and livestock production by pastoralists in ways that increase land and labour
productivity and that are both sustainable and profitable.
During its lifetime and beyond, the Project will support the development of institutional
sustainability through:
More effective and efficient public and private institutions that will provide leadership,
policy initiatives and other support to enhance the market participation and
competitiveness of Ethiopian farmers, traders and other clients;
Improved capacity of public and private services to lead, foster and support
scaling-up and -out to achieve widespread impacts on the sustainable production
of rain-fed and irrigated smallholder agriculture and its access to, and utilization
of, markets for high-value commodities;
Demonstration of competitive and equitable value chains for the high-value
commodities in the target zones/clusters of districts that enhance the livelihoods of
resource-poor households and of the market agents who serve them and that can be
applied elsewhere in Ethiopia and beyond.
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However, ensuring that the activities delivering capacity building and knowledge
generation and management can be sustained by the relevant public organizations will
require that the Project’s management structure effectively informs and influences GoE
and private sector investments in human resource development and operational
budgets. Achieving that in the short-term (less than five years) is more likely in the
private than the public sector. For the latter, the effectiveness of the LIVES National
Steering Committee and its chairmanship by CIDA will be critical.
In support of institutional sustainability, the Project will benefit the following
stakeholder groups through these broad outcomes:
Policy makers who will have increased knowledge on how best to support
market orientation in rain-fed and irrigated smallholder agriculture and the
requirements of the market for high-value (and often perishable) commodities.
More challenging will be embedding these activities in ongoing and planned
programmes;
The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and other Ministries and Institutions
contributing to rural development which will be better placed to develop and
deliver their services to support agricultural development through market
orientation, the key principle for achieving Ethiopia’s poverty-reduction strategy.
For success budgetary support will be essential;
Resource-poor smallholders and livestock producers within the target zones/
clusters of districts, during the Project lifetime and beyond, these households will
have increased access to, and utilization of, technologies, knowledge systems
and markets and better support from local, regional and national institutions (if
public investments are continued). Within the wider Ethiopian rural community,
households will benefit from a more effective and responsive knowledge system
that supports innovation relevant to improving rural livelihoods through market-
oriented agriculture (again assuming that public investments are continued).
The regional, national and international agricultural research and development
communities will gain greater understanding of how action-research and
strengthening the availability and utilization of knowledge systems can
contribute to effective rural development in Ethiopia (subject to adequate and
continuing budgetary support) and provide important lessons applicable in other
less-developed countries (LDCs).
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The various private-sector actors, especially input and output market agents,
serving the commodity producers and processors in the value chains will benefit
from increased capacity to deliver cost-effective supplies and services, improved
access to knowledge systems and being better able to respond to changing
market conditions subject to continuing profit incentives and an enabling policy
and institutional environment.
3. THE PROPONENTS
The suitability of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International
Water Management Institute (IWMI) as lead agencies to implement the LIVES Project were
presented in the earlier section “Background” (relating to IPMS) and the sub-section “Lessons
from other projects”. Their text describes the expertise of the two institutes and their
experience in implementing projects. It also describes recent and current projects directly
related to the expertise and the partnerships required to design and implement the Project
presented in this proposal. The details of the projects and partnerships are given in the sub-
section “Lessons from other projects”.
3.1 ILRI
The LIVES Project fits squarely within ILRI’s mandate: securing assets to reduce vulnerability;
increasing productivity to improve livelihoods; and increasing incomes by enhancing market
competitiveness and access. To address that mandate, ILRI works at the crossroads of livestock
and poverty, bringing high-quality science and capacity-building (i.e. training others to sustain
the areas of improvement that science and technology have developed) to bear on poverty
reduction and sustainable development for poor livestock keepers and their communities.
In support of its mandate, ILRI’s vision is serving as a major knowledge resource (through
knowledge generation and integration) for livestock development; it uses the knowledge not
just to improve understanding of livestock issues but to influence livestock actions globally and
in its main target regions of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia. Through its activities the
institute creates capacity to facilitate and convene livestock research and development actors
around pro-poor livestock issues and global livestock development challenges that enhance the
positive and mitigate the negative aspects of livestock development. It is, therefore, very well
placed with its partners to implement the Project.
ILRI’s comparative advantage lies with the partnerships and strategic alliances it has
with the stakeholders in Ethiopia that go back to the establishment of its predecessor,
ILCA (the International Livestock Centre for Africa, headquartered in Addis Ababa), in
1974. Partnerships are central to ILRI’s strategy and way of working. Within Ethiopia,
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partnerships between ILRI and IWMI and their national partners include the Nile Basin
Development Challenge, funded by the CGIAR’s Challenge Program on Water and Food.
Through its emerging Consortium Research Programs, the activities of the CGIAR, ILRI’s
and IWMI’s parent body, will further complement and strengthen the activities of the
LIVES Project.
ILRI will seek to bring additional resources and expertise to LIVES through associated project.
One of the new Consortium Research Program, being led by ILRI, will be addressing Livestock
and Fish value chains in a selected number of focus countries
(http://livestockfish.wordpress.com/). Ethiopia has been selected as a focus country for small
ruminant value chains, both sheep and goats. This effort will provide support to LIVES through
significantly strengthening the technical resources available for those specific value chains, but
will also more generally provide additional staff input in such areas and livestock economics,
impact assessment, and gender.
3.2 IWMI
IWMI’s mission, improving the management of water and land resources for food, livelihoods
and nature in developing countries, and its overall vision, water for food secure world, are very
relevant for the overall goal of the project. To achieve its mission IWMI is organized around four
themes that were derived from a comprehensive analysis of the key water, food and poverty
alleviation issues. The themes are strongly interrelated and work together in combination with
external partners to solve complex multidisciplinary issues. The themes cover Water Availability
and Access; Productive Water Use; Water Quality, Health and Environment; and Water and
Society. Since its inception, IWMI has developed a comprehensive understanding on the
management of water in the agriculture sector through research in key areas such as water
productivity from field to basin scales, water access, allocation and distribution, agricultural
water management, groundwater management and conjunctive use of groundwater and surface
water, environmental flows and wetland management, and wastewater irrigation.
IWMI’s headquarters are based in Colombo, Sri Lanka and the Centre maintains regional and
sub-regional offices throughout Africa and Asia. With a multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary
research staff of over 100 IWMI is well placed to make cross comparisons of results and learn
from the knowledge and experience generated in different hydro-ecological and socio-cultural
environments. In Ethiopia IWMI has its regional office for East Africa and the Nile Basin. Over
the last ten years IWMI has implemented, with its partners, a range of research projects in
Ethiopia and built up a considerable knowledge base on water for food related issues. IWMI
maintains good contacts with the government of Ethiopia and is often approached for advice. It
has, for example, established a national irrigation steering committee composed of ministries,
donors, NGOs and private sector; chairs the water resources research advisory council; and
recently completed an irrigation diagnostic as input to agricultural transformation and
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requested by the Prime Minster’s office and through the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation.
IWMI has considerable knowledge and successful working experience in relevant topics of
irrigation value chains such as water management interventions, irrigation performance
measurement, participatory rural appraisal, analysis of irrigation impacts to poverty and
economy, irrigation and gender, institutional arrangement, irrigation management transfers,
environmental impact assessment, etc, which will be applied in this project. In addition IWMI
has in recent years been building up skills in action research and for the project will recruit staff
with the requisite managerial skills to implement their component of this project. Furthermore
the project will benefit from IWMI’s triple approach to the uptake of its research results. This
includes building uptake strategies into projects, involving regional strategies to continue with
uptake after the life of the projects, and aligning corporate information and communications to
support uptake strategies.
As in the case of other ILRI above, the LIVES project will interact closely with other IWMI
initiatives being conducted in Ethiopia. For example: i) the new Consortium Research Programs
of the CGIAR and in particular the “best bet” on irrigation in CRP5 (being led by IWMI) which is
focused on existing and new surface irrigation investment and modernization; iii) the Challenge
Program for Water and Food Nile Basin program which is investigating sustainable rainwater
management strategies for increasing agricultural productivity in the Ethiopian Highlands and
has a focus not just technologies, but also the institutions and polices required to ensure
interventions are successful and sustainable – and hence is addressing issues pertinent to value
chains; iii) work IWMI is conducting with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World
Bank on the development of a National Strategy for Small-Scale Irrigation.
3.3 Planning and Partnerships
Regarding the development of this Detailed Proposal, the planning activities built upon the
productive working relationship between CIDA and the IPMS Project partners. The discussions
and the planning were the response by ILRI, IWMI and their national partners to requests by
CIDA and the Ethiopia authorities for applying the lessons from, and extending the successes of,
IPMS and the related market-oriented projects in Ethiopia, eastern Africa and elsewhere. To that
end the proposal and its planning process (a key part of which will be developing the PIP) aims
to deepen, as well as scaling-out, market-oriented agriculture growth interventions that are now
a pillar of CIDA’s programming in Ethiopia.
Building upon the strong partnerships in IPMS and the related projects in which ILRI and IWMI
play key roles in Ethiopia, the principal partners are the MoARD, the BoARDs, MoWR, BoWR,
MoFED, EIAR, RARIs, EDRI, Universities, TVET centers and business development organizations.
These partners will participate in the PIP and its preparation along with the key private sector
66
bodies, companies and input and output market agents serving the priority commodity vale
chains.
The principal steps during the planning for this Detailed Proposal were the iterative
consultations between CIDA, ILRI, IWMI, the regional authorities and the various partners in the
four regions in which IPMS operates. The strong support of the regions for the Project is
expressed in their letters presented in section below. The consultations regarding the project
design included the discussions that are presented above in the section Project description
Scope of the project and timeframe, in which the key public sector partners, led by the BoARD,
identified the zones and their priority commodity value chains recommended for targeting by
the Project. As was explained in detail in the Background section, the Goal and Purpose of the
LIVES Project are consistent with and address the strategic objectives of GoE’s development
plans and, guided by the regional consultations, the Project’s Outputs are designed to ensure
that it will deliver development outcomes that meet regional priorities for sustainable, equitable
and environmentally friendly economic growth.
4. DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES
Two of CIDA’s thematic priorities to support development in Ethiopia, increasing food
security and promoting economic growth, are addressed by this LIVES Project, the Goal
of which is aligned closely to the CIDA Country Strategy for Ethiopia. The Project aims
specifically to increase food security through improved agricultural productivity and the
application of market-oriented approaches. As was described at length in the
Background section, the Project’s Purpose and Objectives are consistent with, and
supportive of, GoE’s Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) and CIDA’s role in this major
initiative. At the same time, the Project will contribute to Ethiopia’s efforts towards
achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and particularly, Goal 1 - the eradication
of extreme poverty.
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Figure 9 Locations of LIVES and AGP Zones
Figure 9 presents a map showing the locations of LIVES and overlapping AGP target Zones and
Woredas. Of the 10 Zones targeted by LIVES, 6 are also AGP Zones and the Woredas selected by
the AGP program are also shown. During the LIVES planning phase, selected Districts and
selected value chains will be compared with the AGP programs in these Zones. Opportunities
will be examined for the development of synergies, particularly in joint efforts in development
of value chains, capacity building and knowledge management and joint development of tools.
The non-AGP Zones that LIVES will work in provide opportunities for comparative piloting of
approaches and expanding the uptake of relevant AGP-supported efforts.
Building upon the successes and lessons of the CIDA-funded IPMS project, the LIVES Project will
further strengthen and extend the institutional capacity of the public and private sectors to
support the increased production and improved productivity of high-value commodities from
livestock and irrigated crops through value-chain development. The Project will emphasize
business principles and explore public-private partnerships for the development of input supply
and service delivery and output-market channels.
5. RECIPIENT COUNTRY GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
Letters of support from each of the four host regions are attached.
68
REFERENCES
Anandajayasekeram P and Berhanu Gebremedhin. 2009. Integrating innovation systems
perspective and value chain analysis in agricultural research for development: Implications and
challenges. Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers Project
Working Paper 16. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. 67 pp.
Awulachew, B. S. 2010. Irrigation potential in Ethiopia: Constraints and opportunities for
enhancing the system (Unpublished Report to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
Berhanu Gebremedhin, Abraham Getachew and Rebeka Amha. 2010. Results-based monitoring
and evaluation for organizations working in agricultural development: A guide for practitioners.
ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. 75 pp.
Kaplinsky, R., and Morris, M. L. 2000. A handbook for value chain research. Ottawa, Canada:
IDRC.
MoARD (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development). 2010. Ethiopia’s Agriculture Sector
Policy and Investment Framework: Ten Year Road Map (2010-2020). Draft
MoFED (Ministry of Finance and Economic Development). 2006. Ethiopia: Building on Progress,
A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) 2005/06-2009/10,
September, 2006, Addis Ababa: Ethiopia.
Molden, D. et al., 2007. Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water
Management in Agriculture. Earthscan/IWMI
World Bank. 2010. Ethiopia Agricultural Growth Project. Project Appraisal document. Addis
Ababa: Ethiopia.
69
ANNEX 1: INTERVENTION OPTIONS FOR OUTPUT 1
In this Annex, we describe potential interventions to support Value Chain Development in
Output 1, based on experience from IPMS as well as other ILRI and IWMI experiences in Ethiopia
and other relevant countries and settings.
Livestock value chain interventions: results and lessons to inform scaling
out
District level livestock value chains were developed for small ruminants rural systems, dual
purpose meat/dairy for rural systems, dairy for urban/semi-urban systems and poultry
Small ruminant fattening
Improved breeds for enhancing production: To improve small ruminant production, the project
introduced improved breeds (Bonga sheep) in Goma on two farms where management practices
mainly include stall feeding and tethering. It is premature to comment on the impacts or make
definitive recommendations, but it was noted that an undiagnosed disease (suspected to be
peste des petite ruminants – PPR) occurred in the third year which resulted in the death of a
considerable number of animals on one of the farms. This calls for a better health diagnostic
system both at the community and District levels and ILRI has recently developed diagnostic
approaches/kits, which could be field tested in new project sites. Furthermore ILRI has
developed a thermo stable vaccine plus delivery system for “peste des petite ruminants” – PPR -
which will be ready for field testing in December 2011. Community based breeding was also
introduced with Washera rams in collaboration with ARARI in some communities in Fogera.
Farmers liked the offspring and arranged for the separation of their own local rams from the
herd. Such a community model, including use of superior local rams may be scaled out; however
attention should be paid to a follow up breeding strategy, with replacement rams to avoid
inbreeding in the future.
Credit and insurance support: Fattening of small ruminants in general has been a successful
intervention in several PLWs, in particular for women. Net returns of Birr 100 to family
labour/animal/3-month cycle (2007/08 data) have been observed. Since this is a relatively low
reward per animal, a larger (5 or more) number of animals/cycle is required to make it a
commercially attractive enterprise. In Alamata and Bure, farmers initially fattened animals in a
group, and distributed labour duties amongst members on a daily basis to reduce input cost per
animal as well as to learn from each other. The project focused on capacity development of
producers and the provision of credit through existing lending institutions to purchase animals
as a group and/or individuals (5 or more) plus the necessary concentrate and drugs. This system
worked well (resulting in 18 – 24 offspring in 2.5 years/farm) and farmers were able to repay the
loan in the first two years by selling the offspring This new “financial product”, especially
70
targeting women farmers, was new for some lending institutions, and may be used for scaling
out. However, the group collateral requirement of some MFIs is too large (30 members in a
group), resulting in non revolving loan funds for all even when few members default.
Another intervention which can be scaled out is community based insurance which was
developed in a participatory manner by communities, OoARD staff and IPMS in Goma. Such a
scheme may be used for existing social groupings – like Idir – or group structures created by
microfinance institutions. This insurance scheme which operates separately from the loans of
the MFIs may also be considered as collateral for the individual and/or group loans.
So far, marketing of small ruminants has not encountered any major challenges and most of the
projects’ interventions have focused on creating a more transparent market by providing market
information and linking farmers’ groups to new (export) markets. However with an increased
numbers of animals, a more detailed value chain analysis including regional and national level
actors (e.g. export abattoirs) , interventions which can enhance the performance of the value
chain and ensure equitable distribution of benefits along the chain should be identified and
implemented.
Dairy and fattening in rural areas – large ruminants
Improved breeds for enhanced meat and milk production
Borana breed was introduced in some locations and a nation wide map was prepared to identify
suitable areas for introducing the breed. In addition, Begait cows and Fogera bulls have been
introduced into Alamata and Fogera PLWs, respectively. Improved or local male animals may be
used for draft power and fattening, while female animals can be used for reproduction, milk
production and processing into butter in rural areas and, meat production. Different breeding
service delivery models were tested. Private bull stations in the rural areas were not much
successful due to lack of knowledge on heat detection, fear of spread of reproductive diseases
and cultural practices which does not usually allow payment for such services and prefers
mating in natural surroundings. Emphasis is now being placed on natural mating in large
communal or private herds with local bulls being separated from the herd. The use of AI with
hormonal oestrus synchronization (to induce heat at a planned time) was also tested to improve
efficiency and effectiveness of AI services. This approach is based on the ‘polio vaccination
campaign style’ used by the Ministry of Health, in which all available resources are
pooled/mobilized for a short period of time to accomplish a certain task. The main lesson
learned is that this approach can work, but that considerable investments and improvements
are needed in awareness raising, mobilizing the community and staff capacity. It can be further
field tested with the help of partner institutions (EDMTI, EIAR, RARIs, BoA) which have shown
considerable interest. This approach could also be enhanced by introducing sexed semen and
embryos; with choices for either dairy (female) or beef (male) production.
71
Credit support: The project also stimulated the development of short term fattening of animals
(mainly oxen) in rural areas by providing credit to purchase animals through MFIs, especially for
experienced famers who wanted to fatten more than the traditional one or 2 animals per cycle.
Returns to labor per fattened animal per 3 to 5 month cycle ranged from Etb 650 to
2600/animal. Repayment was 90 to 100 % indicating a potential for larger sized loans with
individual collateral.
Feed and fodder resources development: Grazing area development through enclosures worked
very successfully and resulted to be beneficial for fatteners as well as butter producers. Use of
these enclosed grassland areas for cut and carry and/or rotational grazing as well as access
rights by the community members showed great diversity within and across Districts – indicating
the need for context specific collective action arrangements.
Backyard fodder development (Oats, Rhodes, Virus free Napier and Desho grasses and some
legumes – pigeon peas, vetch, lablab), for either fattening or butter production is also spreading
in many of the PLWs. The key to the expansion of this intervention is the multiplication system,
for which FTCs and private farmers have been successfully engaged in several Districts. In
several PLWS famers have become involved in the commercial production of forage seeds such
as oats, Rhodes grass and legumes.
Use of crop residues was encouraged and is commonly practiced by fatteners and butter
producers. Treatment of straw showed positive results in terms of milk yield and lactation
period, but farmers are demanding less labor intensive methods for preparation.
Use of locally available by-products from agi- processing (wheat bran, rice bran, atella) are
commonly used and use of commercially available concentrate (cotton meal, nough cake) –
especially for fattening animals - has started. Some of these feeds are made available through
collective purchases by the fatteners, while others purchase the concentrate from local
shops/suppliers. New concentrate manufacturers have started their operation especilly in and
around Addis and Debre Zeit and linkages between these companies and possible local dealers
should be explored to further improve delivery and use of concentrate.
Use of urea molasses blocks to supplement roughage was accepted in some PLWs and may be
considered as a survival or an emergency feed with strategic feed reserve approach. Stall
feeding for fattening was well accepted in particular in areas where land is scarce.
Animal health services provision: Training of Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) took
place in Miesso and Alaba, while credit was also provided to the CAHWs in Alaba. The service
have been appreciated by the recipients, however it has been noted that more business
orientation will be required.
72
Processing and marketing: Processing and marketing of butter is usually in the women’s
domain. It has been observed (case study) that local butter production increased as a result of
the various interventions. No major marketing and processing intervention were tested,
however interventions to improve quality of butter could be tested in the future.
Marketing of fattened animals was supported by providing price information and linking
fatteners with new market outlets. It was observed that some farmers organized themselves to
sell animals collectively, an intervention which can be scaled out to other Districts
Fluid milk system in urban and peri-urban areas
To improve the genetic potential of animals in peri-urban areas, the project assisted in
introduction of alternative AI services, i.e. decentralized private service. Other projects are also
working on similar interventions as the demand for AI is high. However the scale of operation
and the institutional arrangements to support such an alternative system are still at infancy and
require further development at Regional and National levels.
Backyard fodder development (see large ruminants) was successful in most PLWs and
contributed to the enhanced production of milk for consumption and sale.
Use of crop residues and concentrates is common amongst most peri-urban farmers based on
locally available materials. New concentrate manufacturers have started their operation and
linkages between these companies and possible local dealers should be explored to further
improve delivery and use of concentrate.
To stimulate the sale of milk and milk products in the urban areas the project tried to create
collection points where farmers could bring their milk on specific times of the day to be
collected by one of the processors. Studies showed that such systems have also been organized
by farmers themselves in Miesso and Dale. The project also tried to support small scale
cooperatives in rural centers with technical assistance and credit to improve collection,
processing and sale. Results varied considerably as a result of economics of scale, degree of
business orientation, management and leadership skills.
Poultry development
To stimulate poultry development, the project focused on the input supply systems for
improved genetic materials, feed supply and disease management. While several attempts have
been made to produce day old chicks at District and village levels by small scale entrepreneurs
and/or communities, no sustainable functional system has been developed as yet. Main
bottlenecks have been the unreliable electricity supply in rural areas and/or amount of labor
required for a manually operated hatchery system.
73
In Dale, production of pullets from day old chicks financed from the project’s credit innovation
funds was successfully tested with 80 women forming 5 groups, each woman having 50 day old
chicks –. Survival rate was around 87%, with most mortality on a few farms. Day old chicks, hay
box brooders, feed and vaccines were collectively purchased with the credit funds with
assistance from the OoARD. Marketing of the 3 month old pullets was also organized with the
help of the OoARD. On an average, each woman earned about Birr 700 from sales and retained
about 5 pullets valued at Birr 50/each for their own use.
In Goma, day old chicks and hay box brooders were also successfully tested with a few farmers,
who kept the pullets for their own use. Training and vaccination were provided by staff of the
OoARD and Jimma University. Egg production with small scale commercial units is on-going in
peri urban areas with units ranging from 25 to 400 birds (youth groups). Credit has been
provided (from the IPMS credit innovation fund) to some of these producers to purchase day old
chicks, feed, vaccines and to construct proper housing Feed has been purchased with the help
of a dairy cooperative in Jimma, who has established linkages with commercial feed
manufacturers in Debre Zeit. To market the eggs, contracts/linkages have been made with local
restaurants for the supply of eggs.
Poultry value chain development is still in its infancy, and more technological interventions will
be required to make it sustainable. Project studies have shown that the local chicken production
system is presently characterized by low productivity as a result of low egg production, high
losses due to mortality and predation, slow growth rates mainly due to poor feeding, housing
and management systems. Key interventions are the i) establishment of a production/supply
system for day old chicks (at regional or District/community level) ii) establishment of a
vaccination system which can be handled by farmers themselves (thermostable vaccine) and a
dealer network to link feed manufacturers local level feed suppliers/manufacturers with large
scale feed producers. Two other lines of poultry can be developed i.e. broilers for short term
meat production and egg/meat production with local chickens.
Irrigated horticulture value chain interventions: results and les sons for
informing scaling out
Irrigated fruit development
Most of the locally available fruit varieties are not grafted and are of unknown origin/variety and
often of poor quality. At the same time, good quality fruits are increasingly being demanded by
the better off consumers as reflected in the high prices currently being paid for avocados (10
birr), mangoes (15 birr), papayas (9 birr), bananas (6 birr), and apples (28 birr) per kilo gram in
the Addis Ababa and or Regional capitals market.
To stimulate the production of these fruits, the project identified Districts with potential under
irrigated or high rainfall conditions through a participatory approach. The key intervention was
74
the establishment of village level fruit nurseries by entrepreneurial farmers. Farmers were
trained in fruit tree management, and particularly nursery management which included raising
rootstocks and grafting techniques with the help of technical experts from the research system
and NGOs. The nursery operators purchased improved/grafted seedlings to serve as future
mother trees from the research system, state farms and NGOs. The raised rootstocks were
grafted by the trained nursery operators with scions obtained from the same sources mentioned
above. Sales of grafted seedlings to private farmers as well as government/donor funded
programs took place after 6 months. It was noted that survival rate varied considerably between
nursery operators.While the supply of scions from internationally known varieties remained a
bottleneck in the early stages of the private nursery establishment, resulting in some operators
ceasing their operation, several nurseries have now started collecting scions from their own
mother trees. Once sufficient scions are available, top working of existing fruit trees may also be
considered – a technique used successfully in Kenya. The private nursery concept can be scaled
out to other Districts, but does require specialist technical support from research, specialized
NGO staff and trained farmers to improve seedling survival, especially after grafting. It is also
recommended that some quality control measures ne instituted where nurseries and the
products thereof could be certified by the research system and/or the MoARD so that seedlings
grafted and sold to farmers are true to type. Pruning of grafted trees to improve fruit setting
and tree shape has just started and this practice should be further developed.
Bananas were introduced in areas where experts and farmers identified them as having a good
ecological adaptability and market potential. The key to the introduction of good cultivars
(dwarf and giant Cavendish, Poyo) was the introduction of a small number of suckers with 4
interested farmers. Subsequent sucker distribution took place farmer to farmer, with the initial
farmers taking the lead in sucker sale. Farmers were also trained in proper agronomic and
irrigation management techniques as well as harvesting/ripening of banana fruits. It was learned
that once the scale of banana production reaches a level which goes beyond the local demand,
improved kerosene ripening techniques should be employed to reach new, more distant
markets and enhance shelf life. This system will also help ripen bigger amounts of fruit in a
given time.
Marketing of the improved fruits is also in the initial stages, and was supported with the
identification of potential market outlets and channels. To reduce transaction costs, farmers
may use collective action to bulk and sell the fruits to markets outside the District. For lower
quality fruits, linkages with emerging fruit processing agri-businesses can be made, while fruit
processing in “juice” houses can also be considered.
Irrigated vegetables
In Districts where irrigated vegetable production had the potential, the project strategy was to
improve the existing production system as well as contribute to expansion of irrigated
75
area/production with low cost inputs. All Districts have seen an increase in the irrigated
vegetable area due to a shift in land use (from cereals), increase in irrigable land and use of
pumps. It has been noted however that this development should be carefully monitored to
avoid overexploitation of water resources. Improvement of agronomic and water management
included use of new varieties, good land preparation, improved pest/disease and soil fertility
management, staggered planting, post harvest management, appropriate irrigation frequency,
furrow irrigation and water conservation systems. Most of these interventions can be scaled out
to other Districts taking into consideration their specific context. The project encouraged the
involvement of experienced farmers to exchange skills and knowledge with “beginners”. The
project also worked with water users associations to regulate water use from a common source.
While the low cost gravity irrigation schemes are relatively easily managed by communities,
more attention is required for tube well irrigation schemes, which depend on expensive external
inputs. Farmers for such schemes should be carefully selected to make optimal use and be able
to raise sufficient funds for the operation of the schemes. Considerable attention has also been
paid to the improvement of the vegetable seed supply system in particular onion seeds. This
intervention can be scaled out to Districts in which supply of seeds is a constraint; however
particular government institutions are required to inspect bulbs used for seed production
purchased from other Districts and also to certify seeds which are sold outside the producing
Districts. Credit to purchase pumps was supplied by the project, government and donors in
several Districts. This intervention can be scaled out easily, however care should be taken to
select entrepreneurial farmers, quality pumps and linking/training local available repair services.
Involvement of District level private entrepreneurs was successful in several Districts.
To improve marketing, the project introduced improved production methods through staggered
planting, pre harvest irrigation management and post harvest management. Attention was also
paid to making the market more fair/transparent for the producers by providing price
information, linking producers and traders and collective action to bulk produce in central places
e.g. cooperative stores or road side to attract buyers. Once such interventions have been
introduced, it was learned that maintaining and developing them further is best left to the
actors involved.
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ANNEX 2: LOGIC MODEL
Title Livestock and Irrigation Value-chains for
Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) No. Team Leader
Country/Region Ethiopia Budget $19.28m Duration 5 yrs
ULTIMATE OUTCOME
Increased market off-take of high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities through the value chains of sustainable market-oriented agricultural systems contributes to enhanced income and wealth creation for 135,000 smallholder households within the project target areas, and increased capacity among other value chains actors and organisations
INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES
Value chains that are more competitive, sustainable and equitable developed for six or more selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities in ten target areas of four regions
IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES
1. Improved technologies and organizational and institutional innovations contribute within the target areas to more competitive, sustainable and equitable value chains for selected high-value livestock and irrigated crop commodities.
2. Improved capacity of the actors along the value chains and of the support services at kebelle to National levels to develop the selected value chains and to respond to changes in market and natural resources conditions within and beyond the target areas.
3. Strengthened agricultural knowledge system and improved and functional linkages amongst public and private sector actors at kebelle to National levels support value chain development within and beyond the target areas.
4. Enhanced evidence-based knowledge on strategies, policies, research methods and tools, technological, organizational and institutional innovations available to the knowledge management system in support of value chain development within and beyond the target areas.
5. Principles and good practices (policies, technology options and organizational institutional innovations, research methods and tools) for the development of value chains promoted and disseminated within and beyond the target areas.
77
OUTPUTS
11 Value chains, stakeholders and target areas identified and constraints to, and opportunities for, improving performance analyzed;
12 Strategies to address constraints and exploit opportunities and their impact pathways agreed;
13 Organizational and institutional innovations and technologies for improving value-chain performance tested, adapted and validated;
14 Needs for targeted training and action-oriented research identified;
15 Actions to mitigate negative environmental impacts embedded in project activities
21 Gender-specific needs and partnerships for developing capacity along the value chains identified;
22 Key public- and private-sector actors trained as trainers (ToT) to strengthen institutional capacity for supporting the selected value-chains;
23 Capacity for carrying out problem-oriented research to support organizational, institutional and technical innovations improved.
31 Gender- and actor-specific information needs assessed, gaps identified and strategies to address the deficiencies identified and their impact pathways agreed;
32 Organizational, institutional and technical innovations identified, tested and adapted to strengthen the agric. knowledge system and improve linkages amongst its public and private sector actors;
33 Project management and dissemination of outputs facilitated by a Project website and publications.
41 Performance of the organizational, institutional and technological innovations assessed;
42 Methods for disseminating specific innovations to their target populations evaluated;
43 Lessons on strategies, policies, research methods and tools, technological, organizational and institutional innovations for synthesis and scaling out within and beyond the project’s target areas captured.
51 Principles and good practices for value-chain development compiled and synthesized;
52 The principles and good practices promoted and disseminated within and beyond the Project’s target areas.
78
ACTIVITIES
111 Participatory assessment of the selected value chains and their candidate sites to decide on target sites (clusters of woredas);
112 Participatory mapping of the selected value chains and the linkages amongst its gender-disaggregated stakeholders;
113 Identify facilitators to champion the development of the value chain and its components;
114 Participatory identification of the constraints to, and opportunities for, improving participation in and the benefits from the value chains;
121 Participatory development of the strategies to address the constraints and exploit the opportunities;
122 Develop participatory impact pathways for the interventions proposed to improve value-chain performance;
131 Participatory testing, adaptation and validation of the proposed organizational and institutional innovations and the improved technologies;
141 Identify targeted training and action-oriented research required to generate and implement alternative solutions.
151 Assess environmental impact (EIA) of the project and develop and implement a strategy to embed EIA in the project’s activities.
211 Assessment of gender- and value chain-specific needs and partnerships for capacity development;
221 Training-of-Trainers (ToT) for the key public- and private-sector actors supporting development of the components along the value-chain organized with and through partner organisations and projects;
222 Prior to technical training, ToT participants taught Adult Learning and Training Techniques;
231 Training in problem-oriented research to support technical, institutional and organizational innovations given to MSc students.
311 Information needs assessment of gender-disaggregated producers, traders and public/private organisations to evaluate existing services and identify gaps that require addressing;
312 Develop participatory impact pathways for the interventions proposed to improve the knowledge system;
321 Where necessary and at appropriate levels, establish and/or support participation in knowledge centers, market information systems, targeted study tours, producer field days, exhibitions, workshops and seminars;
322 At the Fed./Int. level, strengthen the Eth. Agric. Portal and participate in other mass media methods fro strengthening the knowledge system;
331 Develop a website and publications to support management of the Project and the dissemination of its outputs.
411 Assess performance (benefits and costs) of the organizational, institutional and technological innovations being tested (in 131);
421 Evaluate how specific innovations can be adapted for dissemination to their defined target population;
431 (Together with the Project’s ME&L activities), capture lessons on strategies, policies, research methods and tools, technological, organizational and institutional innovations for synthesis and scaling out within and beyond the project’s target areas.
511 Process M&E to identify and synthesize lessons (principles and good practices) from the value-chain analysis and development carried out in 111 to 131;
512 Compilation and synthesis of lessons from the action-research (411 to 431);
521 Promotion and dissemination of the principles and good practices through: participation in learning platforms, taskforces and professional association events; conferences and workshops: use of mass media; publications; etc.
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ANNEX 4. DETAILED PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE
The Activities of the LIVES project delivering the five Outputs that will lead to the five Immediate
Development Outcomes and their aggregate Intermediate Development Outcome, are
presented in detail in the Logic Model (Annex 2).
Their implementation will follow a two phase schedule, the first phase – lasting four to six
months in 2011 – for the preparation of the Project Implementation Plan, and a second phase,
the four and a half years proposed to carry the activities that will result in each of the five sets of
Outputs presented in the Logic Model.
Phase 1: Preparation of Project Implementation Plan
As described in section 2.5.1 in the main text of this proposal, the PIP will be prepared during
consultations led by teams comprising Project staff, regional/zonal agriculture and water
resources staff and consultants (including specialists in value-chain and private-sector
development and EIA). Critical to this process will be consultations with AGP and other
development initiatives at the national, regional and zonal/district levels, as described in the
main text. Their sequential tasks will include:
(i) Selection of target production areas: Using a participatory, evidenced-based process, within
each of the ten selected Zones described in Annex 7 the Project teams will identify a cluster of
Districts each having good potential for producing one or more of the commodities chosen by
the Region for value chain development.
(ii) Value-chain mapping: Beginning in the target production areas, gender-disaggregated actor
(stakeholder) mapping will identify for each selected commodity value chain the private and
public partners who do or could have a stake in the development of the value chain. Probable
stakeholders were listed in section 2.5.1.
(iii) Participatory value-chain diagnosis: Representative stakeholders will be invited to
participate in a rapid diagnosis of the gender-disaggregated value chain. Interactive meeting/s
will identify and discuss district-level commodity-specific value chain problems and potentials
and the linkages with zonal, regional level input supply/services and processing/marketing
actors/stakeholders. Existing and new gender-disaggregated and -sensitive roles and actors and
the linkages amongst them will be assessed.
(iv) Identification of potential interventions: The meetings will be identify and discuss potential
technological, organizational and institutional innovations and any policy issues. The possible
interventions will form the basis for the planning of the initial development, testing and
80
validation of interventions to improve value chain performance. The roles and responsibilities of
each of the potential actors in the action will also be identified.
(v) Environmental Impact Assessment: Drawing upon the outputs from (i) to (iv) the consultant/s
specializing in EIA will carry out the assessment covering the various areas to be targeted by the
Project.
(vi) Compilation of the PIP: Drawing on the outputs from the participatory process in the ten
target zones described in (i) to (v) above, the Project team will compile the draft PIP for review
by the National Steering Committee (NSC) chaired by CIDA, and its subsequent revision for
approval by the NSC and its appraisal by the National Project Implementation Committee (NPIC).
The preparation of the PIP, therefore, includes these Activities:
Objective 1: Value chain development
115 Participatory assessment of the selected value chains and their candidate sites to decide on
target sites (clusters of woredas);
116 Participatory mapping of the selected value chains and the linkages amongst its gender-
disaggregated stakeholders;
117 Identify facilitators to champion the development of the value chain and its components;
118 Participatory identification of the constraints to, and opportunities for, improving participation
in and the benefits from the value chains;
121 Participatory development of the strategies to address the constraints and exploit the
opportunities;
122 Develop participatory impact pathways for the interventions proposed to improve value-chain
performance;
Objective 2: Capacity development
211 Assessment of gender- and value chain-specific needs and partnerships for capacity
development;
Objective 3: Knowledge management
311 Information needs assessment of gender-disaggregated producers, traders and
public/private organisations to evaluate existing services and identify gaps that require
addressing;
312 Develop participatory impact pathways for the interventions proposed to improve the
knowledge system;
Objective 4: Knowledge generation
81
421 Evaluate how specific innovations can be adapted for dissemination to their defined target
population;
Phase 2: Putting into action the Project Implementation Plan
The design and detail of the work program – the PIP – will, therefore, depend upon the results
of the detailed participatory analyses carried out during the first six months of LIVES and the
subsequent sequential implementation of, often iterative, steps and processes.
This detailed plan of work will be based on the value chain impact pathways that will be
developed in support of Objectives 1, 2, 3 and 5. Other key decisions determining how activities
are implemented will include how and with whom to develop the partnerships for delivering the
capacity building (Objective 2) and the knowledge management and dissemination (Objectives 3
and 5). Outputs from the Phase 1 will also inform the development of a detailed multi-location
research plan (a component of Objective 4) to complement the action-research and lesson-
learning components of Objective 4.
This systematic building of a logical sequence of planning steps will, therefore, lead to the
timetabling of the following activities which will deliver the Project’s five Outputs that will lead
to its five Immediate Development Outcomes and their aggregate Intermediate Development
Outcome:
Objective 1: Value chain development
132 Participatory testing, adaptation and validation of the proposed organizational and
institutional innovations and the improved technologies;
142 Identify targeted training and action-oriented research required to generate and implement
alternative solutions.
151 Assess environmental impact (EIA) of the project and develop and implement a strategy to
embed EIA in the project’s activities.
Objective 2: Capacity development
221 Training-of-Trainers (ToT) for the key public- and private-sector actors supporting
development of the components along the value-chain organized with and through partner
organisations and projects;
222 Prior to technical training, ToT participants taught Adult Learning and Training Techniques;
231 Training in problem-oriented research to support technical, institutional and organizational
innovations given to MSc students.
Objective 3: Knowledge management
82
321 Where necessary and at appropriate levels, establish and/or support participation in
knowledge centers, market information systems, targeted study tours, producer field days,
exhibitions, workshops and seminars;
322 At the Fed./Int. level, strengthen the Eth. Agric. Portal and participate in other mass media
methods fro strengthening the knowledge system;
331 Develop a website and publications to support management of the Project and the
dissemination of its outputs.
Objective 4: Knowledge generation
411 Assess performance (benefits and costs) of the organizational, institutional and
technological innovations being tested (in 131);
431 (Together with the Project’s ME&L activities), capture lessons on strategies, policies,
research methods and tools, technological, organizational and institutional innovations for
synthesis and scaling out within and beyond the project’s target areas.
Objective 5: Promotion and Dissemination
511 Process M&E to identify and synthesize lessons (principles and good practices) from the
value-chain analysis and development carried out in 111 to 131;
512 Compilation and synthesis of lessons from the action-research (411 to 431);
521 Promotion and dissemination of the principles and good practices through: participation in
learning platforms, taskforces and professional association events; conferences and
workshops: use of mass media; publications; etc.
In aggregate these activities represent the schedule, Phase 2 of LIVES, that will comprise the
framework that will emerge from Phase 1, the preparation of the PIP.
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ANNEX 5: PROPOSALS SUBMITTED TO CIDA WITHIN SIX MONTHS
OF AUGUST 2010.
ILRI
In the past six months (August 2010) ILRI has participated in three Concept Notes submitted by
other partners to the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) supported by
IDRC & CIDA. In all of these ILRI was proposed as a relatively minor partner in projects led by
others:
a) Integrating dairy goat and root crop production for increasing food production, nutrition
and income security of smallholder farmers in Tanzania for CAD 275,402 for a 3.5-year
project led by University of Alberta in partnership with Sokoine University in Tanzania
and ILRI. (The Concept Note was accepted and the team is preparing the full proposal).
b) Improving livelihoods of dairy smallholders in East Africa: Development and
Implementation of an agro-ecological integrated management approach for the Napier
Stunt disease for CAD 4,208,100 for a 4-year project. The project was meant to be lead
by Sporometrics, Canada with partners ILRI, ICIPE, KARI, EIAR, NaLIRRI and NBCP.
(Rejected at Concept Note stage);
c) Novel livestock vaccines for sub Saharan Africa for CAD 4,769,263 for a 3.5-year project
led by VIDO Canada in partnership with ARC, South Africa, National centre for foreign
diseases on animals, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and ILRI.(Rejected at Concept
Note stage);
IWMI
In January 2010 IWMI submitted the following proposal to CIDA:
Preparing for an uncertain water future in Nepal through sustainable storage development, for
CAD 225,000 for a three-3 year project. The project is led by IWMI and the main collaborating
partner is the University of British Colombia Okanagan. This proposal was approved and
implementation has started.
84
ANNEX 6: WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
The Project’s work breakdown and their implementation are given in the Activities section of the
Logic Model, ANNEX 2.
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ANNEX 7: PROJECT APPRAISAL
The LIVES project proposal presents ideas gestated and tested during a long and sustained
programme of support for the agriculture of Ethiopia and similar countries by the project’s two
main proponents, ILRI and IWMI and their national and international development partners. It
draws on the strength and effectiveness of evidence-based action-research to support
development agencies and agribusiness to better serve Ethiopia’s 13 million smallholder farm
households through investments in value chain development (VCD).
The analysis of the proposed project considers: 1. the development context and challenges; 2.
VCD; 3. priority commodity value chains; 4. partnerships.
1. Development context and challenges
As described in the Background of this Proposal (sections 1.3 to 1.5), a major source for
understanding the development challenges and for justifying the Project is the CIDA-funded
project “Improving Productivity and Market Success of Smallholders in Ethiopia”. IPMS is led and
facilitated by ILRI and implemented with partners from the public, NGO and private sectors.
Under the aegis of the MoA, IPMS has strengthened the processes and support required for
developing sustainable and equitable value chains linking smallholder production of agricultural
commodities to consumers within the project’s four target regions of Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya
and SNNPR. The objectives, methods and approaches of IPMS and of the proposed successor
project, LIVES, are wholly supportive of and consistent with the strategies and plans described in
the GoE’s Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) for 2011-2015 and its recent Agricultural
Sector Policy and Investment Framework (PIF), 2010-2020.
The experiences of IPMS in its four target regions have shown that, to effectively develop
sustainable and equitable value chains requires introducing and promoting organizational,
institutional and technical innovations. This involves facilitating interactions amongst the many
“actors” who contribute, actually or potentially, to identifying and overcoming constraints and
exploiting the opportunities for smallholders to profitably produce and market agricultural
commodities (Anandajayasekeram and Berhanu Gebremedhin, 2009). These findings are
consistent with results elsewhere in Ethiopia and in other developing countries where market
opportunities, particularly for high-value commodities, are stimulating increased agricultural
production and efforts to improve productivity. If resource-poor rural households are to benefit
from these opportunities, then innovative support to value chain development is required.
Specific issues related to the development of high-value commodity value chains associated
with irrigated agriculture are addressed in the main body of the proposal in sections 1.3 and
2.6.2. Important lessons directly relevant to the design and implementation of the irrigation
component of LIVES are:
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Given that rainfall variability is a major impediment to improving agricultural-based
livelihoods, water storage - in a form appropriate to the location - is a key intervention;
Provision of even relatively small amounts of water at key times can make an important
contribution to peoples’ well-being and livelihoods;
When designing and managing water supply and irrigation schemes, provision of water
to satisfy multiple uses can greatly reduce poverty, increase gender equity and improve
health at little additional cost;
Lack of adequate community consultation during the design, planning and
implementation of many small-scale irrigation schemes has resulted in poor
performance;
On the other hand participatory rapid diagnosis and action planning and integrated
water management technologies can contribute significantly to improved livelihoods
and agricultural productivity provided there is support from strong individuals, new
community organizations, innovative technologies and practices and/or external agents;
Past investments in irrigation and water harvesting have rarely integrated livestock
management and crop production options and so have often failed to maximize benefits
and sustainability.
A major challenge for LIVES is, therefore, ensuring active participation of all key stakeholders
and taking an inclusive approach to assessing constraints and opportunities.
2. Value chain development
The participatory value-chain approach applied by IPMS partners enabled stakeholders to
identify promising commodities and the key interventions for VCD, opportunities which were
explored within ten pilot learning woredas (PLWs) for a range of commodities. Background and
details are given in sections 1.3 to 1.5 in the main text. Drawing on these lessons in the context
of the broader zonal, regional, national and export markets and their value chains, consultation
meetings were held during July 2010 with key development actors in each of the four Regions.
The formal consultations built upon the discussions that had been occurring amongst the IPMS
partners regarding how best to extend the benefits being delivered by IPMS. Their conclusion
was that supporting the development of the value chains of high-value commodities should be
the core of the project.
The July meetings, therefore, sought to identify and rank priority high-value commodities (with
the focus on livestock and irrigated crop commodities) and the zones with clusters of districts in
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which the priority commodities are produced, as expected targets for a large development
project to scale-out and scale-up the lessons from IPMS. The consultations were facilitated by
the core governance unit of IPMS, the Regional Advisory and Learning Committees (RALC) and
involved the key public R&D organizations responsible for agriculture and water development.
The consultations set out to select no more than four high-value commodities per Region and no
more than ten zones in total. The aim was to maintain the same regional distribution as the
current PLWs: Amhara 3; Oromiya 3; SNNPR 2; Tigray 2, and to build upon those partnerships
and their organizational and institutional innovations. The selection of fewer commodity types
(four) and few zones (no more than ten) aimed to focus the resources of the proposed Project to
better achieve impact through its principal activity – systematic collective action and learning by
public and private sector partners vertically & horizontally to achieve sustainable and equitable
value chain development.
3. Priority commodity value chains
Based upon the participants’ expert knowledge of current production systems and market
demand, the livestock commodities that were considered were: beef and live animals; chicken
meat and eggs; honey and bee wax; milk (from cattle); sheep and goat meat and live animals.
The irrigated crop commodities that were considered were: vegetables; fruits; and livestock
feed. During the discussions it was decided to consider livestock feed as an input into each
specific livestock commodity rather than address it as a priority commodity in its own right.
The commodities and their zones that were selected by the regions as priorities for value-chain
development are shown in the Table below. The decisions regarding the priorities amongst
these commodities for each region were based on the participants’ estimates of: the region’s
resource base; the market potential; the expected number of beneficiaries; the available
capacity and knowledge of the public sector; and, potential links to the private sector as well as
the potential to benefit men and women, male- and female-headed households and the youth.
TABLE: Priority commodity value chains and their zonal locations selected by the four Regional
States
Region/Zone Beef /live
animals
Chicken meat/eggs
Honey & bee wax
Milk SR meat/ live
animals
Fruits Veg- etables
Total
Amhara (10)
- Gondar N/S*
- - - √ - (√) √ 2
- South Wollo - - - √ √ √ √ 4
- West Gojam - - - √ √ √ √ 4
Oromiya (12)
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- E Shoa √ - - - √ √ √ 4
- W Shoa - - √ √ - √ √ 4
- Jimma - - √ √ √ √ - 4
SNNPR (5)
- Gamo Gofa - √ √ - - - √ 3
- Sidama** - √ - √ - - - 2
Tigray (8)
- Central - - - √ √ √ √ 4
- Eastern - - √ √ √ - √ 4
Total 1 2 4 8 6 6 8 35
Note: N – North, S – South, E – East, W – West; *growth corridor ** Hawassa milkshed
The selection took into consideration GoE’s plans for developing growth corridors and on-going
or expected zonal, regional and/or National initiatives for the supply of inputs and services and
the processing/marketing of specific commodities. It was emphasized that each selected
commodity and the zone/cluster of districts in which it is produced should complement, not
compete with, the commodity target/s of other on-going or planned projects or programs.
When consistent with regional priorities, preference was given to zones with an IPMS PLW
because the PLWs can act as learning sites for the activities of the proposed Project and they can
build on the scaling-out and –up already started within the zone. While these priorities were
decided as guides for the design and implementation of the LIVES project, the on-the-ground
selection of the value chains to be supported by the proposed LIVES project in each of the target
production zones or clusters of districts will be determined through participatory selection by
smallholder households and their value chain partners. The participatory diagnosis and
selection are core activities during the preparation of the Project Implementation Plan (PIP,
section 2.5.1).
Support for the VCD will be expected not only from the LIVES project but through the carefully
managed integration of the activities of LIVES with those of AGP, HABP and the related
development projects that are or will support the commercialization and transformation of
smallholder agriculture. It is clear that a major challenge for the LIVES project management will
be achieving effective integration and complementarity of the LIVES activities with those of AGP,
HABP, etc. These aspects will be considered in detail during the preparation of the PIP.
The consultations considered the experiences nationally and internationally that relate to the
interventions for effective VCD for the commercialization of smallholder agriculture: the
discussions addressed the options required to support production, input supplies and services
and (output) marketing in the four target Regions. Annex 1 presents the detailed results – the
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list of intervention options – for each of the priority commodity value chains that were
developed and revised during the consultations. During the PIP (and as each priority value chain
is developed) these options will be reviewed and revised to address the needs for the point of
production to the point of consumption (Figure 8).
Specific lessons for irrigated crop production learnt from IPMS and related projects in Ethiopia
were that profitable production of irrigated vegetables required an integrated approach to
better agronomy, water management and marketing. Integrated interventions included use of
new varieties, good land preparation, improved pest/disease and soil fertility management,
staggered planting and post-harvest management and access to good seeds, credit and market
information. For the production of irrigated fruit crops the important interventions
demonstrated by IPMS were establishing village-level fruit nurseries by entrepreneurial farmers
using proven stocks of good quality varieties and, ensuring that for distant, high-price outlets,
collective marketing was available. The importance of these same principles of taking an
integrated approach to resolve constraints to production and input and output markets were
confirmed in the IPMS activities addressing opportunities for increasing production and
improving productivity in small ruminants, dairy and beef cattle and in chickens for egg and
meat production.
4. Partnerships
The text in the main body of the proposal describes the two lead proponents, ILRI and IWMI,
and lists the stakeholders – the value-chain actors and business/learning support institutions –
who will be their key partners in the project at the district, zone, region and National levels. The
target regions and zones are listed in the Table above. A preliminary assessment of medium- to
large-scale public and private suppliers of inputs and services and processing and marketing
businesses from outside the selected cluster of districts has been carried out and will be verified
as part of the location-specific value chain assessment during the PIP. These actual or potential
value-chain actors will be linked to the District level producers and input/service providers using
geographical hub concepts and agro-dealership networks.
Program/projects promoting VCD Strategic partnerships will be required with and through
Government flagship projects like AGP and HABP that are also targeting smallholder value-chain
development. Parallel projects in support of such programs are also emerging. During the PIP
phase, complementarities and synergies between LIVES and these programs/project will be
explored. It is expected that significant synergies will be achieved by: i) knowledge sharing on
VCD interventions; ii) inputs to capacity development; and, iii) technical assistance in
government flagship programs and parallel projects.
IPMS has gained some experience using these modalities in its program. Knowledge sharing with
other programs and projects is an integral part of the program either through IPMS-organized
events or events organized by other programs/projects - a recent example of the latter are IPMS
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presentations in the MoARD/OXFAM UK annual learning event. Synergy and complementarity in
capacity development was achieved by providing IPMS trainers for events organized by other
programs/projects at District as well regional/national level, e.g., national/regional level
research and development staff training on genetic improvement livestock financed by the Rural
Capacity Development Project (RCDP); Regional level staff training on market assessment
financed/organized by IFAD’s marketing project and training on commodity VCD in Districts for
PSNP+ projects/staff.. Technical assistance and documentation of interventions is provided to
partner program in PLWs which have gradually “taken over” VCD interventions for specific
commodities, e.g., Apiculture in Ada by Ratsons, Para-vet interventions by Farm Africa in Alaba,
and Haricot bean development by the Productive Safety Net Project (PSNP) in Dale. These
partnership lessons will be extended during the implementation of LIVES but will need to take
into account that most of the “future” programs are not yet developed (including USAID’s
proposed dairy program), so rather then wait for these potential projects to develop their
programs and adjust LIVES to them, it is proposed to also use a more pro-active approach in that
the LIVES programs are clearly defined before any of the others. USAID-funded AGP projects will
offer excellent opportunities for linking agribusiness development outside targeted Districts
with producers and small scale agribusinesses in the targeted Districts.
In all the partnerships it will be critical to negotiate a contract having defined deliverables, their
milestone dates, agreement on a code of practice and the budget for the program of work.
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ANNEX 8: INTERNAL PROJECT MONITORING FRAME
Results-based management system: A participatory monitoring and evaluation system will be
developed that utilizes the results-based management system that has been effective in
supporting the management of the IPMS project (Gebremedhin, Getachew and Amha, 2010).
M&E staff: The system will be supported by specialist M&E staff recruited to the LIVES
“National” team (see Project Organizational Chart (Figure 7) and section 2.4 Project
Management). They will work hand-in-hand with the senior Project management and their
Regional and Zonal counterparts and partners.
Performance Framework: The result-based management system utilizes a Performance
Framework (PF) which depicts the concept of the Project and identifies resources, reach
(beneficiaries), goal and purpose of the intervention and the cause and effect relationships
among activities, outputs and a chain of results.
Associated with the PF is the Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), which structures
the basic information that is needed to measure performance. Built within the PMF are the
expected results, performance indicators, data sources, methods and techniques of data
collection, frequency of data collection and responsibilities.
The process includes a systematically designed baseline study, the data for which will be
collected from secondary and primary sources during the first year of the Project’s
implementation. The indicators and all the data collected will be disaggregated by gender to
capture key gender issues and impacts of the project interventions on men, women and other
stakeholder groups.
Output and outcome M&E: The basis for the results-based M&E is the results chain (RC) or logic
model (LM; Annex 2) which illustrates the causal or logical relationships between the inputs,
activities, outputs, and outcomes of a given project (CIDA, 1996).
Input and activity monitoring of the project will be conducted on an ongoing basis by regional
staff starting from the first year of implementation. Output and outcome monitoring and
evaluation will be conducted starting from year 2 and 3 of the project life, respectively. Year 4
M&E activity will focus on measuring changes related to outcome and end-of-project
performance.
Reports will be posted on the Project’s website (see section 2.2.2, Objective 3, point 9) and they
will be subject to review by the Project’s National Steering and Project Implementation
Committees (see 2.4 Project Management).
Reference
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Berhanu Gebremedhin, Abraham Getachew and Rebeka Amha. 2010. Results-based monitoring
and evaluation for organizations working in agricultural development: A guide for
practitioners. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. 75 pp.
