N2Africa M&E May2016

From n2africa-ethiopia ilriwikis

ILRI-N2Africa Monitoring and Evaluation Workshop 10-12 May 2016, ILRI Campus Addis Ababa, Ethiopia


Introduction to the Workshop

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded project entitled “Putting nitrogen fixation to work for Smallholder farmers in Africa” (N2Africa) aims to build sustainable, long-term partnerships to enable African smallholder farmers to benefit from symbiotic N2-fixation by grain legumes through effective production technologies including inoculants and fertilizers. National level capabilities will be developed to sustain the pipeline and delivery of continuous improvement in legume production technologies tailored to local settings. The project will reach more than 550,000 farmers with a return on investment of US$3.5 for each US$ invested.

To enable assessment of progress in project implementation and its impacts, a Monitoring & Evaluation and Data management plan has been designed to support monitoring of all aspects of the project, i.e. providing information on general progress of the project, obtaining feedback from partners and beneficiaries, and also assessing the final impact. This plan has been implemented in 2014 and 2015 with Partners (using various methods and approaches). An assessment of status of implementation is required to enable the identification of lessons learnt, challenges and rectify such challenges.

Objectives of the workshop

The overall objective of the workshop is to have a common understanding of the performance monitoring plan by partners. Specific objectives will include:

  • To gain a common understanding of milestones/indicators and their data requirements to be able to monitor the progress made. Also link to the specific data collection tools.
  • To review and apprise partners with data collection processes (based on gaps identified during implementation in 2014 & 2015) including roles and responsibilities for data collection and reporting
  • To discuss, integrate and adopt M&E strategy for data collection and reporting, including partners with M&E systems
  • To integrate N2Africa M&E framework into partners M&E plan.

Expected outputs

  • Participants understand the linkages between the various activity areas and the overall project objective
  • Achieve clarity in data collection processes, responsibilities, analysis and reporting procedures
  • Strategy for M&E processes agreed upon and operationalized in 2016
  • A final data collection tool for data collection and reporting adopted at country level

Process to meet expected outputs

  • The N2Africa M&E framework will be presented to participants to ensure clarity. Roles and responsibilities for data collection, reporting and usage will be discussed. Feedback from participants will be obtained through plenary discussions. Training sessions will be held based on feedback obtained from participants. Group work will be done to at partner levels to ascertain M&E strategy per partner for 2016 and to ensure integration at partner levels.

Program

Day 1: 10 May, 2016
Time Activity Presenter/Facilitator Rapporteur
08:30 - 09:00 Opening of the Workshop, objectives and Expected outputs Endalkachew Tamiru/Birhan
09:00 - 09:20 Participants introductions & expectations and Program introduction Tamiru ^
09:20 - 09:40 Project Overview Endalkachew ^
09:40 - 10:20 The role of M&E (including overview of N2A M&E plan) in implementing N2Africa ToC Theresa ^
10:20 - 11:00 Presentation/discussions of milestones with respective indicators Theresa ^
11:00 - 11:20 Break ^
11:20 - 01:00 Group work: Partners break out into their respective partnership clusters,
identify challenges and interventions along the legume VC at cluster level,
identify and define indicators, data sources and collection at output, outcome and impact levels
Partners ^
01:00 - 02:00 Lunch ^
02:00 - 03:10 Plenary presentation of group work Group/cluster leaders ^
03:10 - 04:10 ODK collect, data management and data flow: Processes of data collection, analysis and reporting Joost ^
04:10 - 04:30 Break ^
04:30 - 05:15 Plenary discussions & Feedback: ODK data collection system, data management and data flow in N2Africa Birhan/Joost ^
Day 2: 11 May 2016
08:30- 09:00 Recap of Day 1 and outstanding issues Endalkachew Birhan/Tamiru
09:00- 09:20 Presentation of tools (M&E tool box) Tamiru/ Birhan ^
09:20- 09:40 Plenary discussions of tools/Feedback on tools from partners Tamiru/Theresa ^
09:40 - 10:30 Training on the use of tablets & data collection tools Joost/Theresa ^
10:30 - 10:50 Break ^
10:50 - 12:00 Training on the use of tablets & data collection tools Joost/Theresa ^
12:00 - 01:00 Group work: Integration of N2Africa M&E framework/tools into partner M&E framework By Partner Representatives ^
01:00 - 02:00 Lunch ^
02:00 - 02:30 Group work: Integration of N2Africa M&E framework/tools into partner M&E framework By Partner Representatives ^
02:30 - 04:15 Plenary presentation of partner strategy for M&E and integration of N2Africa M&E requirements Theresa Tamiru/Birhan/
Theresa
04:15 - 04:35 Break ^
04:35 - 05:05 Summary Strategy for M&E in 2016 Endalkachew/Theresa/Joost ^
Day 3: 12 May 2016
08:30 - 09:00 Recap of Day 2 and outstanding issues Participants Tamiru/Birhan
09:00 - 09:45 Presentation on Quality data checks Theresa ^
09:45 - 10:30 Feedback on 2015 Data uploaded: completeness, conformity, etc. Birhan/Tamiru ^
10:30 - 10:50 Break ^
10:50 - 12:35 Plenary Data analysis of 2015 data-Examples based on selected variables by partners Joost/Theresa/Endalkachew ^
12:35 Closure and lunch Endalkachew

Workshop Materials

N2Africa Project Overview The role of ME in implementing N2Africa ToC ODK collect data management and data flow Quality data checks Overview of N2Africa ME tools Feedbacks on 2015 Data uploaded

Pictures

Participants 800x146px 800x146px Participants

ARARI [Amhara Region Agricultural Research Institute] Balegreen [Balegreen Spice and Grain Development Plc] EIAR [Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research] FC [Facilitator for Change] Ghion Farmers Cooperatives Union HWU [Hawassa University] IFDC-2SCALE IITA [International Institute of Tropical Agriculture] ILRI [International Livestock Research Institute] Jimma University Mama Farmers Cooperatives Union MBI [Menagesha Biotech Industry Plc] OARI [Oromia Agricultural Research Institute] SCS [Sodo Chatolic Secretariate] SNV-C4C WUR [Wageningen University]