Meeting+7+(January+17+2012)

MONTHLY MEETING


 * Date **: January 17, 2012
 * Venue **: DG Conference Room
 * Time **: 13:00pm


 * Agenda 1 **
 * Feed back: Tilahun Amede **

Project report was sent to CPWF management team in November 2011 to which feedback has arrived. In general feedback is on the positive side ensuring the attainment of the next tranche of money for all individual projects. However some points for improvements were also mentioned.

N2: Need to go beyond talk show on innovation work N3: Bring scattered pieces of information together and create concrete materials, tools that can be tested and implemented N4: Refining methods taken to measure hydrology N5: Uploading major and different milestones of the project and producing a video clip

Feedback is on the basis of the last 6 months performance. Response time to these feedbacks vary to be within the coming six months or immediately. Full detail of the comments will be shared to respective project leaders who will decide how to share to the rest of their team and also the wider Nile group (from Alan: I keep saying this, but let's have some transparency and get these reports circulated among project personnel).

Project leadership is in transition from Bharat to Simon. All the three sites are instrumented and records are flowing in regularly starting end of August 2011. Local observers are recruited for the different readings of the measurements. Two mishaps respectively in Fogrea and Diga have happened resulting in theft of instruments. Discussion is on going with the local police and concerned parties on further actions.
 * Agenda 2 **
 * Project Update **
 * N2: Simon **
 * Biophysical Measurements:

Ideas were suggested to approach the Kebele Milita for the watching act but more importantly to create community and partner forums to discuss the issues. Attaining endorsements from PA and religion leaders was also sited to be very useful.

Generating a protocol for the innovation platforms was also pointed out. At the moment the research that is undergoing is said to be more extractive that it is less likely to clearly ensure what the community will get back in return. Therefore it is essential to introduce research feedback into the system, establish post research legacy from the very beginning and link research and innovation platforms as well. Towards this end Tilahun is assigned to look for and bring experiences in this regard from other basins during his CPWF Basin Leaders meeting in France.

It is progressing with Alan and Beth leading it. Effort is being made to link it with an EU project (from Alan: not aware of this - which EU project?). As side information, it was indicated that meeting was held on set of Monitoring & Evaluation tools of Innovation Platforms to be tested in a small group constituted of Alemayehu, Kebebe, Alan and Beth. The report of the meeting is available on this link: [] Note was made to link this work with that of what Kees and Pamela are doing for west Africa to share lessons, experiences and collaborate further. Kees is assigned to find out common areas and establish linkages as well.
 * The analysis for the survey is ongoing as led by Katherine
 * Work on innovation platforms

It is developing well focusing on agricultural marketing studies; its feature, problem and opportunities. MSc students are sent to the field since last November to collect data on the brokerage institution in Fogera (focus on Fruit & Vegetables), if farmers are producing cash or food crops in Diga (focused on Sesame) and on potato value chain in Jeldu. This task is to be finalized in June. Gap is noted that Livestock is not part of this study. Remark was made that discussion was made during the science workshop in May 2011 on how to link the two sides; crop and livestock as a site level intervention identifying priorities that are market intensified built around a common interest of the community to bring all efforts together through the innovation platform. Therefore it is decided that this gap shall be taken up with Ian Wright and Alan Duncan ( from Alan: not sure this was in ILRI's workplan but happy to discuss. We have 2 MSc students working on livestock feeding and management but not really on marketing). A brief presentation was made showing the review of the year 2011 and plans for the year 2012. See below for presentation file.
 * Work on the subject of value chain
 * N3: An **


 * N4: Charlotte **
 * Six students are sent out to the field to collect land use, soil, livestock and crop data which be worked on by Teklu and Amare for Crop-livestock modeling. Kindie is investing on ecosystem modeling. Successful efforts are made to link the ecosystem modeling with SWAT by collaborating with Marcella of the Andes basin.


 * Gap is expected on the policy side of the project as Ranjitha will soon be leaving and also until scenario development is completed from N3 side.


 * Challenges are faced in finding soil, climate, land cover, meteorological and hydrological data. At the moment the team is extracting global climate and soil data with the support from Cornell University. Data that surfaces with key role players in the discipline are said to be the same and over used ending with lower resolution which makes further processing more difficult.


 * Agreement is reached to get support from SEI US on WEAP skills required.


 * Formation and functionality of the Topic Working Group was also mentioned as one success. An will be representing the group on the upcoming CPWF Basin Leaders meeting in France. Expectation from the meeting is to attain support from CPWF. The next TWG meeting will be hosted by the Andes.


 * Simon is assigned to discuss the issue of Land Cover data with ICRAF and also discuss data issues with the contact person of Brummell during their upcoming meeting at GIZ.


 * N5: Tilahun **
 * Effort was made to sell the Rain Water Management agenda in National and global initiatives:
 * Water 2011 event at Mekelle: NBDC was represented with a big team and organized own session on RWM attaining a huge recognition both for IWMI & ILRI


 * Stakeholder workshop at Bahir Dar where many important partners and high level research figures were present


 * COP 17 Durban: organized and led a session on RWM


 * IFWF: Strong representation of the Nile team and established sessions on innovation, RWM, SAM and livelihoods. Establishment of the African platform in RWM was materialized. The Nile, Volta and Limpopo basins are major stakeholders. Currently Tilahun is working with Amy Sullivan to share insights on this platform during the CPWF Basin Leaders meeting. It is not yet decided what sort of a platform it should be. Debates are between policy and rather evidence to convince politicians that it works ensuring its endorsement. It started with 60 institutions but it has gone down to 47.


 * 2nd National Platform meeting: focused on the institutionalization of the platform which is now linked through its Chair Person; Mr. Betru Nedassa, Coordinator of the MERET project (a well known project that works on Natural Resource for many years) under the Ministry of Agriculture. A steering committee is already established that leads the future direction of the platform. Various groups on different areas are formed. The groups will be led by actors that took championship on the respective areas. They will share their progress and all activities to the National platform.


 * Assist the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI) to establish regional platform that consists of Seven universities among other partners.


 * Attachments of two PhD students from Addis Ababa and Wagningen Universities and one MSc student working on Communication Strategy attached with Peter Ballantyne.

It was explained that the time allocation of research assistants and the flow of work orders is not coordinated that it is creating pressure. In addition it was said that research assistants have unplanned work activities and fragmented involvements that does not contribute to their career development. Therefore all Project Leader are assigned to sit with Tilahun to come up with work plan with clear skill, expertise and time needed. This shall be discussed with research assistants so that they will have outlined involvement plan, can also identify what to learn and what to contribute. Together with this was raised the issue of resource utilization. It was said that organized resource utilization should be made effective during site visits and other cases as well. It was advised that it is possible to use the communication channels existing to create the organization. Tilahun explained that the event is to take place 26th-31st of August with the theme “Rain-fed Production”. There are about 8 topics out of which 3 seem to be relevant. The meeting was described as a very high profile one and that the theme of the year is suitable. Therefore it was noted that it takes serious planning and time commitment to travel in a significant manner. It was said that it could be possible to It was not possible to clearly agree on the issue at the moment as there was a huge hesitation in defining the gain and also the importance. February 13 is set as a deadline for abstract submission. The request for organizing a session was treated positively if coordinated with CPWF that has some concern on the set up and content of the event as it used to be part of the whole process. Therefore Ewen and Tilahun are assigned to set up a working group that shall assess the interest of members and the potential benefits of participating plus what it might cost as well.
 * Agenda 3 **
 * Research support staff timing **
 * Agenda 4 **
 * World Water Week **
 * Best use of blue water resources for food security
 * Safeguarding global food security and life supporting ecosystems
 * Rainfed production under growing rain variability: closing the yield gap
 * Securing water and food in an urbanising world
 * Towards a green economy – the water-food-energy nexus
 * Trade and food security
 * Health and food security
 * Governance for water and food security

IMPACT 2C: Blue Nile Case Study led by Solomon AFROMAISON: Natural Resource Management on Fogera site led by Mulugeta UNEP Project: Climate change adaptation led by Tilahun SLP CRPs RIU: on termites led by Alan (from Alan: this project is led by Kees) LIVES Pamela briefed participants that change stories were collected and reviewed in Oct for all individual projects except N5, that was decided to be judged by other party as the leader is in the review committee. Accordingly four stories have been selected one each from N2 and N4 while two from N3. Stories will be published on the wiki. Peter is said to have a plan to produce a brief out of the stories and more means of promoting them will be looked for. Tilahun and Pamela will keep the group informed of any progress made in this regard. Means of communication with those that are in a different sites was generally evaluated average. More clear and smooth communication would be created if more microphones could be placed at the site where there are many participants together. In addition it was also noted that it is good to have slides for various presentations so that all participants could have something to follow even if the sound quality does not appear to be good. Live typing was also one solution mentioned. Next meeting is decided to happen in March while in February there will be a very light meeting to report on major and specific project issues. Meeting adjourned by thanking all participants for all their contribution and especially Dr. Shirely Tarawali, who will soon be leaving to ILRI Nairobi with a new position, for her dedicated involvement.
 * Agenda 5 **
 * Publication **
 * ** Planning & implementing publication ** : it was insisted that cooperation among colleagues in necessary to team up together on publications for better output. Communicating colleagues to contribute in different ways was emphasized. All people are requested to prepare their publication plan and forward it to Simon for coordination.
 * ** Protocol ** : Ewen is assigned to prepare a publication protocol, a simple template, that consists of basic information like principal author, working title, time frame etc and post it on the wiki for comment until end of February.
 * ** Co-authors ** : common understanding was reached that a co-author should be one that has made a significant contribution to the production of the paper. One should be able to understand and defend the paper or at least some part of it. Research assistants who contributed in data collection and processing should also be included.
 * Agenda 6 **
 * Any other Business **
 * ** Basin leaders and Project Leaders Meeting ** : Tilahun gave a briefing that CPWF conducts two meetings annually i.e., Product focused sharing & learning and Basin/project evaluation. The upcoming one in February will be the former one. Request to respective project leaders is sent out to forward major updates on their projects. A dry-run of the final draft is promised to be given to all concerned.
 * ** Related Projects ** :
 * ** Change Stories **