How can IITA improve on project management?

How can projects deliver their objectives, on time and within the allocated budget? How can we ensure donors get good value for their money? How can project managers proactively identify and arrest problems during project implementation and not spend time reacting to them? These were among the issues tackled during a session on improving project management at IITA on the last day of the planning week.

The scientists and support staff brainstormed on the various tools and processes the institute can put in place to improve the various aspect of project management, including monitoring and evaluation, time management, budget, partnership, quality of projects, among others.

According to Eric Koper, an IITA consultant on project management, the aim of the session was to focus on the solutions and not problems, the future and not the past and most importantly, what to do and not who to blame. He also gave the results of an online assessment on project management.

He said under the on-going CG reforms, the donors wanted impact, accountability, and compliance.

Paula Bramel, IITA’s Deputy Director General R4D, appreciated the suggestions offered and said the management would consider them seriously.

“We are happy with the practical, feasible, and creative ideas to improving project management that have come out of this session. The management is committed to taking them on board. We cannot implement all of them at one go, so we will start an online voting to prioritize them,” she assured them.

IITA’s R4D work changes cassava landscape in Nigeria

IITA’s research led to the rapid growth of the cassava industry as a result of promoting its processing and new value-added products which in turn led to an increase in demand for and adoption of improved varieties according to an evaluation recently carried out in Nigeria in 14 states.

Tahiru Abdoulaye, Outcome/Impact Socio-Economist, speaking on the impact monitoring said clear outputs had been established. These included an array of processing machines such as graters and millers developed to over come processing challenges; value-added products such as odourless fufu, High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) which were promoted and adopted, building the capacity of National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) partners and farmers and increasing business knowledge, skills, and processing hygiene.

He said another area that had shown impact was in the adoption of improved varieties. “By 2009, there was a 70% adoption as compared to 20 years when it was only 20%. And all stakeholders have also recognized the role of IITA in the cassava sector in the country,” he said.

Challenges of evaluating impact of IITA’s R4D work

There are many challenges IITA’s socio-economists face when monitoring and evaluating the impact of IITA’s research for development (R4D) work according to Arlene Arega, IITA socio-economist, during the IITA planning week at a session on impact evaluation.

He said the time taken to realise all the benefits of an intervention takes a long time with some taking up to 16 years and many donor organizations do not have the patience to wait that long.

He suggested possible strategies the institute can use to meet donor demands and at the same time have quality assessment on the outcome and impact of its innovations on yields and income as extrapolating the future economic outcomes or setting funds aside for future evaluation.

Secondly, he said, program level evaluation gives a truer picture of the outcomes as opposed to project level. “Projects are at different stages on the R4D continuum and their impact cannot be assessed independently. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of one project when the reality is that many projects contribute to an outcome.”

He added that project evaluation was prone to ‘cherry picking’ highlighting only the successes and ignoring failures but when looking at a program assessment, one looked at both successful and failed projects.

He also said the evaluation methodologies become more complex as the products increased ranging from genetic improvement, which is the easiest to evaluate, to capacity building, post harvest and value addition to genebank. The accompanying indicators also get more complex from yield - the easiest- to income, health, food security, and environment.

He identified information and data gap as another challenge where the interventions and results along the impact pathway are not always well documented. This starts with investments, both human and financial to the outputs – the landraces, planting material, germplasm. For example when it comes to new improved varieties, usually many will have escaped long before the official release therefore keeping track of their movement and adoption impact is difficult.

Saving our forests with fertilizer use



Jim Gockowski presenting the results of a study linking

fertilizer use and deforestation in West Africa



Research carried out among Farmer Field Schools in Ghana has shown that fertilizer use would have averted the clearing of 7 million ha of Guinea forest land in West Africa for crops such as cassava, cocoa and yams in the last 20 years.

This, in turn, would have prevented some 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere valued between US$2.8 billion and US$42 billion. This could have also saved thousands of species in the region from becoming extinct. This was reported by Jim Gockowski, an IITA Agricultural Economist and one of the researchers involved in study, during one of the sessions on Natural Resources Management at R4D Week 2010.

He added that eventhough there was a steady increase in crop production with the use of fertilizers -- with  yields more than doubling when farmers used the recommended amount -- only 4% of the sampled farmers were at that optimal level of fertilizer use.

“Despite the huge loss of forest land, the growth in crop production was insignificant, with cassava increasing only by 0.2%, oil palm by 0.22%, and cocoa by 0.64%,” he said. “We have harmed the environment but we are still way behind our MDG goals because we failed to intensify our agriculture.”

The Guinea forest of West Africa is one of the IUCN's global hotspots covering 1.4% of the earth’s surface and containing 60% of all animal and plant species. It has been heavily deforested by farmer smallholders of cassava, cocoa, and oil palm.

Good progress but countries still lag in agriculture funding goal

Increased investments in agricultural research could help lessen the
drudgery of work especially among women in many African countries

The total expenditure on agriculture -- the most important sector in reducing poverty -- was still under 10% of the GDP of many countries in West Africa. This despite the committment made by the countries under the Maputo Declaration of 2003.

As of 2007, out of the 11 countries in the region with available data, only four countries had met this target: Burkina Faso (15.8%), Mali (11%), Niger (15.4%) and Sénégal (14%).

However, IITA scientists were told, there had been a steady increase in funds set aside for agriculture since then, especially after the 2008 food crisis.

This was highlighted by Mbaye Yade, sub-Coordinator for the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), while presenting the results of the first evaluation of the Comprehensive Africa Development Program (CCADP), a strategic framework to guide the development of the agricultural sector.

He also noted that there were positive changes in indicators such as a reduction in poverty incidence, poverty gap ratio, and undernourished ratio, as well as increases in per capita GDP.

ReSAKSS is a project implemented by the CGIAR centres in close collaboration with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). It is supporting CAADP to put in place an M&E system and the Africa countries to define their agricultural programs and M& E.